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We did consider whether we should go at all. Covid-19 had struck Italy hard, but at that time only the region of Lombardy was in lockdown. Still, northern Italy is just a 45-minute train journey from Nice, and how long would it be before France was in lockdown? Thanks to the European bus service of the sky, Ryan Air, we had rationalised that we could always come back sooner, only losing the money spent on cheap tickets. As we were going to our second home, we didn’t have to worry about the costs of cancelled hotel bookings. Everything would be fine.

We agreed before boarding our flight from Stansted that if anyone was sitting next to us and there were other seats available, we would move, spread ourselves out and play it safe. Sure enough, in our row of three, sitting next to me was a young man with the physical appearance of someone from the Wuhan. David and I moved, guiltily imagining the young man thinking we were paranoid, racists or both. Things were not off to a good start.

As we arrived in Nice, the final weekend of the centuries-old carnaval had been cancelled. Nice didn’t feel like Nice without coach loads of tourists or the buskers and pickpockets taking advantage of the increased trade. Concerts we had planned to attend were cancelled. The city didn’t have its usual buzz of people or vehicle traffic. Fortunately, cafes, restaurants, cinemas and clubs were still open with no talk of closures. Yet, we weren’t going to be foolhardy. We didn’t go to restaurants or our usual jazz clubs and mostly got our croissants at outdoor cafes – if you’re wondering, average daytime temperature was 16C.

While it was important to be cautious, we didn’t want to be sucked into the media hysteria. The information available from British and French health sources made the risks of contracting Corvid-19 appear small. Not wanting to be cooped up in our one-bedroom apartment every evening, we decided to go to the cinema – twice in one week. Before you think we were being foolish, English films with French subtitles (as opposed to dubbing) shown in the early evenings are not typically well-attended. At both films, the dozen or so in the audience spread themselves out while the fragrance of disinfectant hand gel hung in the air.

As the death toll in Italy was skyrocketing, the cases of Covid-19 and deaths were steadily going up in France. This was the unavoidable main topic at my French drop-in class, which I opted to attend because it was at the teacher’s home, usually with only a few students. Again, I was rationalising and trying not to be hypnotised by the wall-to-wall media coverage we were getting in two languages. As it turned out, there were only two students that day, and we both rubbed our hands with disinfectant hand gel at the start of class.

Living close to the Promenade, pleasant seaside strolls and jogs are de rigueur, but we also like our other walks. Problem – getting from our apartment to these picturesque walking paths in Villefranche-sur-mer and Cap Ferrat involves trams and/or buses. In that first week, we braved several tram journeys, keeping a safe distance from people when we could, and two bus trips with near-empty buses. Of course, we realised that others thought crowded buses would be too risky, especially the elderly, who were heeding the advice to stay chez vous.

The week ended with Italy entering total lockdown. We went from slightly concerned to PANIC. My main worry was getting out of France before it would no longer be possible. I had to get back to the UK for meetings and to chair a doctoral exam. My second worry was not being able to get out with David, who was going to stay in Nice for an extra week to paint doors and window frames.

Fear comes in waves. We went from ‘let’s leave Wednesday’ – three days away – to ‘let’s stay here as planned but leave together on my flight in 10 days’ – then back to Wednesday or Friday – or maybe Sunday. Realising that we couldn’t really make up our minds, and that the news about the spread of the virus and the actions of governments were even less predictable than our brains, we held off on booking any new plane tickets. We agreed that whatever we did, we would go back together.

I soon learned from two of my friends back in the UK that people were panicking there as well. Both messaged me to let me know that supermarket shelves had been emptied of toilet roll. I could only chuckle, wondering why food and medicine seemed less essential.

For those last days in Nice, however many they were going to be, we focused on just enjoying the sunshine by day with walks around the city and staying in at night watching Netflix, doing crossword puzzles or me working on a writing assignment. We limited our socialising. We didn’t see our elderly or recently ill friends, but reasoned that it wasn’t unsafe to go to the home of two of our friends who had just arrived from Colorado, which at that point had only recorded two cases of the virus. We greeted our friends with Namaste and at the end of the evening tipsily waved goodbye. Strange not hugging or kissing friends.

A couple of days later, the death toll in France rose sharply, but mostly to the north of us, while the number of cases in our region doubled overnight. Tr*mp stopped all flights from Europe to America, except for those carrying US citizens returning home. As fewer and fewer people were flying between European countries, airlines were cancelling more and more flights. Ryan Air had still not cancelled our flights, but we knew that we couldn’t stay much longer. Fear was in the air. Half-empty trams echoed with announcements to cover your mouth with a cloth when you sneeze or cough and to keep a social distance – at this point defined as a one-meter space. Disinfectant hand gel and surgical masks had sold out.

The time had come to book a new flight back for both of us. A few days were cut off my working-holiday and 10 days were taken away from David, along with his painting duties.

In the days remaining, I fought off the sense of panic by meeting with girlfriends for an apero in a hotel bar. No hugs, no kisses, but plenty of hand gel and a distance of roughly a meter between us. The following day, I attended my French class – the only student this time. Of course, all we talked about was the virus and people’s strange and sometimes silly behaviours, ranging from Tr*mp’s flippancy to people hoarding toilet paper. I’m one of these people who often uses humour to hide my anxieties – from others as well as myself.

I was indeed anxious. One of us could get ill before our flight, and even though we could manage healthcare in French, it would be easier in English and in a health system that we know. In all of the times I’ve gone to Nice over these past ten years, it was the first time I was looking forward to leaving.

On the day before we flew out schools, universities, restaurants, cafes, bars, non-essential shops and cinemas across France had been ordered to shut. I joked on Facebook about leaving now that the cafes were closed.

As I packed my carry-on bag, I realised I wasn’t taking much back. In fact there was loads of space. Full of embarrassment at myself, I packed two rolls of toilet paper.

At Nice Airport Departures all the shops were closed except for a newsagent. No restaurants or cafes, except for one take-away coffee shop. At the gate, people were keeping a social distance, some of us standing or sitting on the floor in order to have a meter between us. That is until the gate opened and an undignified queue formed – suddenly safe spaces seemed unnecessary. I did wonder if everyone else was as anxious as me to get home.

We’ve been back in the UK for nearly two weeks now, and I still feel as if I’m travelling. I’m a tourist in a country where people only go outside for exercise or to the supermarkets that only allow 25 people in at one time and where customers are ordered to stand 2 meters from each other at the checkout.

Afterward: David’s original flight was cancelled by the airline and he is awaiting his refund. My original flight was also cancelled, but it was later ‘reinstated.’ I was informed of this reinstatement by a text message sent out two hours after my flight landed in Stansted. Like me, Ryan Air makes jokes when they’re nervous.

Since June 2016, I have marched down the streets of London four times, Cambridge twice and Ipswich once. I’ve attended countless rallies and delivered thousands of leaflets. All in the hope of bringing an end to this lunacy called Brexit. Over the past three and a half years I have shifted in my goals from fighting to overturn the freak election results of the referendum to accepting  defeat following the last general election to where I am today with a new goal – I’m trying to stifle the feeling of ungroundedness and the anxiety that eventually comes with it.

Leaving the EU is stripping me of my EU citizenship and that seems remarkably unfair. The rug that has been pulled out from under me was more like a magic carpet.  Now there is only air between me and the ground and I can’t seem to land.

I have to visualise and remind myself that a sense of groundedness exists with my David, his family, our friends and with some of the things I do – writing, jogging, walking and of course meditating. Not to underestimate these attachments and therapeutic activities, but these last few years make me aware that outside of these inner concentric circles, I’m no longer living in a place where I feel I belong. This isn’t the first time. I left the United States in 1984 to live in Scotland, among other practical reasons, as an act of self-imposed political exile against Ronald Reagan and the many – even Democrats – who were prepared to re-elect him. Instead of wondering if the world had gone mad, I turned it on myself and thought there was something wrong with me.

Older, more confident, this time, it’s not me. The cult of pro-Brexitism has brought hate and isolationism to the foreground. Brexit has never really been about leaving the EU, or to ‘gain back control’ as the slogan claimed. In order to justify those sentiments, people had to believe a lot of lies about what the EU does and Britain’s place in it. I’ve toyed with the idea that millions of people were lazy when it came to researching and discovering the truths (it’s in another blog). While laziness might be a factor, I also suspect that those who voted to leave to varying degrees pretended to believe the lies in order to find a cause of, or someone to blame for, their own unhappiness. For some this unhappiness has been economic, for others it festers in feelings that our more tolerant, liberal society has been foisted upon them.

Perhaps this is just a coping strategy – an attempt to get my dangling feet back on the ground – but I will only permit myself to say goodbye to the EU as a British citizen. In a year’s time, this will be enforced by laws and regulations. What the Brexit elite at the helm of this operation cannot take away from me is my Italian heritage, my second home in France, my abilities in romance languages or my spiritual connection to some European countries and their peoples. This time, I won’t flee into self-imposed political exile.

 

Former French President Jacques Chirac and my husband’s Uncle Dennis died within a week of each other. Both had lived long, full lives, one in the spotlight, the other not.

Eulogies about Chirac have evoked images of a slick-haired politician who had his share of enemies, whom he also treated as friends, and of a man who was convicted (but never served time) for fraud. He wasn’t the leader of heroic war years, nor did he leave a name synonymous with some grand social movement. Politically, his greatest accomplishments were keeping France out of the second Gulf War and keeping his right-winged party closer to the centre. Bizarrely, within these commentaries and testimonials, the word kind often came up. He was a kind man. Not just ‘underneath it all’ as they say, but outwardly as well. When he met with friends or the public, he was tactile and engaged. Sympa, as they say in France.

Kind was one of the first words that came to mind after hearing of Uncle Dennis’s death. Of course, talk about him we did and continue to do. When someone is no longer there it’s only natural to want to bring them back to life through reminiscences, or to get used to talking about them in the past tense – a training of the mind, fighting against the loss. I didn’t know Dennis during his working life, and the life of a man who ran a fish and chip shop doesn’t fill the headlines in the way presidents of countries do. Dennis, without any higher degrees, was one of my teachers. Nearly everything I know about gardening I learned from Uncle Dennis. What is more important is that he shared this knowledge not to act the role of the expert, but out of genuine kindness, always in a helpful mode.

In Buddhism, kindness is embedded in the four immeasurables and has its place in the meditation practice of the Metta Prayer. These are my ways of tapping into the practice of kindness and trying – with mixed results – to live it. As far as I know, neither President Chirac nor Uncle Dennis practiced Buddhism. Yet, these two starkly different men exemplified one of its leading principles and leave us touched by it.

 

I’m not a fan of listacles, so do forgive. As these are not in any particular order of importance, this might not even be a true list.

One thing I’ve learned is that giving someone the benefit of the doubt is not always wise. I had briefly entertained the notion in early 2017 that Trump’s minders would cool down his twitter tantrums and hate-spewed rhetoric. Boy, was I wrong.

Related to that, though perhaps more to the debacle called Brexit, I’ve learned more about being a political activist. Attending marches and rallies is the easy part. The hard part is staying informed in the age of the post-truth – I’m regularly checking sources. The other hard part is trying to use logic and reason in the face of stubborn, illogical adversity. I’ve learned to continue to advance my argument – there’s always the chance that my opponent will walk away and think about what I’ve said later on. Of course, there’s also the likelihood that nothing I say will make a difference if someone has been brainwashed by the Brexit cult – or some other political cult bent on vituperation.

I also discovered this year that I’m likely to be histamine intolerant – there’s no known test for it. As a result of this knowledge though, I made several small changes to my diet and I now no longer suffer daily with blocked sinus, headaches or bloodshot eyes. The lesson learned emerges from the fact that a few times over the years pharmacists and doctors have vaguely suggested allergies, but, with the exception of spring flowers that make most everyone sniffle and sneeze, I was reluctant to accept this possibility. Had I taken on board these ideas, I might have found out sooner about my intolerance for certain foods. Before 2017, I didn’t want to see myself as someone who had allergies or couldn’t eat this or that because of intolerances – someone who might be a hypochondriac or simply self-absorbed.  A strange sort of projection of the ego – but there you go – I’m over it. Lesson learned.

And finally, there are those things that I’ve re-learned. I know I’ve learned these things in the past, but awareness of them now feels new as if learning them for the first time. Perhaps this comes from the memory wiring in my brain. One of these re-learns is the lesson of learning languages. It doesn’t get any easier. The bar just gets raised higher. Another relearn comes from my life as a writer. I’m constantly learning about my craft which is necessary to being a writer. I’ve known this for years, but sometimes it just seems to hit me with awe.

So, as dreadful as the world has been with its Trump and Brexit supporters, its climate change deniers, its wars, its femicide and mass killings, the capacity to learn has helped to make it bearable. Another year is ending, another to look forward to.