Travel Blogging Without Travelling – a Dilemma!

Well here we are 15 months into a pandemic and where most of our lives have changed dramatically.  Actually life during lockdown hasn’t really been that different for me as I already work from home and am a bit of a recluse – apart from when I’m travelling which I do at least 3 times a year.  The period when I was furloughed was probably the most difficult time.  As you can imagine, the travel industry was hit probably the hardest – and is still struggling.  During furlough I threw myself into a whole heap of activities because for me, keeping busy and active is very important.  In the early part of the first lockdown I joined a group of sewers who were making scrubs for the NHS.  It was amazing to meet so many selfless people putting far more hours than I did sewing scrubs, masks and whatever was needed by our amazing NHS.

I’ve also thrown myself into the garden, digging up old drainage and installing new plus a soakaway – very labour intensive work.  We had so much rain this winter that the garden was just like a swimming pool (not in a nice way) so we decided furlough was a good time to make a start on this.  We started in January and worked through snow and frost.  We’ve completely redesigned the garden and moved things around and only last week was able to lay down some new lawn.  We hopefully will have a swamp free garden for the summer.

Before and After

So many things have been difficult – the main one being not being able to see family – especially my children and grandchildren. Now I can see them outside in the garden which is an absolute delight.  It is great to see the restrictions slowly being lifted and we begin to see glimmers of life the way it used to be.  I’ve really stuck to “the rules”.  Not because the government told me to but because the scientists advised it.  I didn’t “Eat out to help out” last year (it just seemed crazy to me that you’d encourage people to go and eat out during a pandemic.  Anyway, I digress and am in grave danger of getting a bit political!

Although I am currently booking holidays to Greece for our clients, I don’t have any plans to travel this year.  My last planned trip was a holiday to the Cyclades with one of my granddaughters who had turned 16 last year.  She is now in the middle of studying for her A levels so this will now be reschedules 2 years after the original plan when she has finished her exams.  She was disappointed but everything has its time. For now I am clinging onto my vouchers and will rebook once there is a bit more stability and we know whether there will be another wave.

As travelling in the UK is the most likely possibility this year I bought myself a little teardrop camper.  I can’t sleep in a tent anymore – my bones just can’t cope.  The great thing about a teardrop is you sleep on a memory foam mattress and the children with their young bones sleep in the attached tent!  The camper has also been another little project – getting it ready for its roadworthiness test (IVA).  But it has been another thing to keep me occupied and hopefully we can take the grandchildren camping soon.

So not travelling has rendered this little travel diary rather useless.  In March my hosting plan for agreekoddity.com was up for renewal.  Anyone who has a hosted website (especially one that doesn’t bring in any revenue) will know that after the initial offer that hosting fees become quite expensive.  I didn’t (couldn’t) pay the expensive hosting fees with my current provider so I bit the bullet and moved to another web host on yet another offer.  It hasn’t all been plain sailing making the leap (not all due to my new host) but the good news is I have already paid for 3 years hosting in advance.  Let’s hope that I get the use out of it!

My plan during furlough was to write up all of the trips that I haven’t yet finished – and there are quite a lot of them – plus some funny stories from travels ways back when.  To be honest I just haven’t had the motivation to do it.  I think not being able to travel has been quite difficult and  I had to shut myself off from it.  This included unfollowing all of the Greece related groups and pages that I’m in (and I’m in a lot!).  I suppose the practical and pragmatic side of me decided that if I can’t travel, don’t wish your life away thinking about what you can’t have – focus on other things instead.  And so I did and this has been as equally rewarding (she says looking out over her new garden!)

Now I’ve actually made myself sit down at the computer and throw out a few paragraphs, I hope it has given me the impetus to get some of those other stories down.  I have a great one about the time I was on Kalymnos many years ago and was asked to help with some smuggling!  Anyway – I’ll route out the photo’s for that trip and see where it leads.

If you are travelling this year, take care and stay safe and I hope you have a wonderful time! xxx