Yesterday I joined the other holiday makers and donned on my elbow spurs to cut my path through the crowds to get to my randomly chosen but essential destination on the beach.  

Once the lockdown was lifted and the government started urging people to return to doing anything that involves spending we decided to travel again.  In the motorhome we can keep to ourselves.  We wash our hands after filling and emptying the water tanks, something we do every 3 days and strangely enough we wash our hands after the daily toilet empty.  We don’t use site facilities.

Where we have taken risks is with the “eat out to help out“ scheme, half price meal appealing to my Yorkshire side.  Some places I have felt safe, table and chairs are disinfected, table service only etc. Others, well, as the title says “Sod Sars-cov2”.  We have never eaten in a place, always outside.

We mainly walk and cycle so normally we are well away from people, but it is people’s attitude that bothered me more than anything. John and I walk single file on the tracks and paths so people can pass with a gap.  We step into nettles and brambles to make way on single track paths, often without a nod of acknowledgement from other people.  Others, now, yes others.  Walking 6 abreast up the road, stopping to sort out baby, dog or photo, taking no notice of who is around and the path they are blocking. Queuing for an ice cream across the track rather than down the length, groups of 20 or so people, certainly not just 2 families in those, lack of face masks, I could go on and on and on.  So today in places that should and could have been safe I became a “Sod Sar-cov2” person and pushed through the tightly packed groups to that all important beach.

But what is the risk?  How many people out there have it?  How easy is it to get it?  Every time I sit on a bench I remember the report in the press where a woman got Covid-19 by sitting in a chair 5 hours after the infected person (this was in South Korea where the tracking system works). I know that the UK does not even try to track where people pick up Sars-cov2. This data is simply missing.  We are encouraged to go out and spend, to return to normal but I don’t really believe we can say “Sod Sars-cov2” to the degree that people are doing and it scares me. Bill was one friend too many to lose.