Europe, the Final Frontier.
These are the voyages of the Flying-Brick ‘Gnome’. Its continuing mission: to explore our world, to seek out my kids and to hug them, to boldly go where no gnome has gone before...
Chapter 2. Home.
My mission: To leave...
It's not like I don't appreciate what I've got. As prisons go it's up there with the best, it's just that, now and again, we'd like to get away. It's just that, now and again, we'd like to see our kids. Talk to our kids. Hug our kids. That's not much to ask is it? Well. Yeah. I guess it is.
It has been nearly a year since seeing my youngest son, such a long time since a normal family life has been possible.
Like I say, I know we're privileged to live here. We forget how life was for our ancestors, how much more difficult life was just a few decades ago. Take this place for instance...
Cute isn't it? This is just above us on top of the hill, close to our garden. I pass it most days while walking the hound. The bit on the left is a shed, to the right is a collapsed stable. That little bit in the middle? That was home for the current owner's grandparents. It consisted of two rooms. A kitchen and a bedroom. The grandparents slept on the damp soil floor of the kitchen, their daughter slept in the tiny bedroom.
Their diet was mostly potatoes and eggs. Three hectares made for scant provisions.
Ah, yes, also the 'top of the range' bathroom...
This was normal life just two or three generations ago.
And I worry when the internet goes down...
So instead of relishing the fact that today's standards are so much better, we planned to live in something even smaller for the next couple of weeks.
Colour us 'special needs'...
So yes, I do appreciate what I've got. But I want more. I want... no... I need to see my kids. It's a primordial thing ok? It's written into our genetic code. I am powerless before its encoded force. The force is with us...
We see our daughter in Montauban with her two sproggs every now and again, between snotty noses, phlegmatic coughs, sleep deprivation etc. And for that I'm grateful. But the other three plus the grandkids?
We needed a plan.
A cunning plan.
A cunning plan that might even take us to the dark side...
We would go over to the UK (aka 'the dark side') by Gnome, via the Eurotunnel. This way we would have no contact with smelly human beings, minimising our risk of catching this bloody plague, minimising the risk of infecting maman on our return. Simple.
Er. No.
Our first attempt failed. What a surprise. This was planned for May, before the seriousness of the pandemic was fully realised by those in power. France locked down. Travel was banned. Our Eurotunnel tickets became useless as they disappeared into the vacuum of their cyberspace. I finally extracted credit from them, but when could that be used? Time ground by...
Despite respite, despite life returning to a different normal during the summer, it was clear that winter would bring with it another surge, another wave. If we were to see the kids we needed to move now.
First, we needed someone to look after the house, the animals, and, most of all, maman, for that period. Not an easy ask nor an easy task. Annick's sister bravely volunteered, but she and her other (Better? Lesser? No comment...) half had to come from Paris, a region rapidly growing in invasive viral particles. Would they be caught in lock down? At the same time, lock-downs were happening in the UK, notably in Wales. Would we arrive to find no-one there? Was it even worth trying? Yes. My eldest needed to come back with us to France for much needed succour.
All he needed to do was escape Cardiff...
This whole plan was a giant jigsaw made up of multiple interconnecting but changing pieces. For this plan, this jigsaw, to work required all pieces to fall together at the same time.
Little did we know that the jigsaw was soon to fragment into even more deranged parts.
This was like spinning plates.
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