It’s been a while since I’ve posted because it’s a bit of a struggle at the moment. As you dear reader know, I try to lace my missives with the quirky and ridiculous and funny. While the second of these currently applies to world events in spades (am I still allowed to say that?) it’s the allowance of a piece of Seattle to be hived off into a new country type of ridiculous and not the frocks worn to the Oscars type of ridiculous that I’m talking about here. As a consequence I’m mad as hell as my previous post probably indicates although it has to be said the intransigence of the “authorities” has moved on from a mere virus to a threat to Western Civilization. And aren’t the Russians and the Chinese and the Iranians and the North Koreans loving it.

I’m mad as hell because I cannot imagine a parallel universe where what is happening now around the world and especially in the USA would be tolerated by sane people. A very very small minority of morons is being allowed to dictate terms to the silent majority because left wing politicians (where they have jurisdiction) and a complicit traitorous media are supporting them and promoting them and level-headed law-makers are doing nothing about it. And you want me to kneel because of my white privilege? How about you just fuck off.

Yesterday Victor Davis Hanson said that the wind went out of the #MeToo sails when Joe Biden was accused of sexual assault. When it’s one of your team and that person can’t be jettisoned as collateral damage like Harvey Weinstein was, the hypocrites on the left are as toothless as a sock-puppet. Watching various A through F grade celebrities splutter and bluster when confronted with this inconvenient Biden truth (remind me again of the Kavanaugh fiasco) makes me laugh….with disgust. As a corollary it’s likely that the coalition of thrill-seeking middle-class teenagers, Antifa scum, perpetual student rent-a-crowds, gang members and lazy, good for nothing drug-addled chancers will only be forced to disperse the day after they are given Nancy Pelosi’s address. Then Democrat governors and mayors in cities that have been controlled by the Democrats for many decades will be ordered to re-take control. If Trump hasn’t already done so.

The irony of what is going on across the USA is that the people most affected by the riots in places like Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, St Louis and Washington DC – residents and small business owners, black, brown and white – are the people who regularly and monotonously vote for the clowns who are allowing this to happen. Nobody deserves to be innocently caught up in a self indulgent block-destruction party and see their life’s work go up in flames especially when Hollywood shit-bags are providing funding for the occasionally arrested arsonists, thieves and thugs who have taken your life’s work off you. But if you keep voting for them, my sympathy only stretches so far.

And where do you think all of that money that Hollywood and beneath contempt, virtue signalling corporates are donating is going? Into legal-aid funds? To feed the inhabitants of CHAZ or CHOP or CHUMP or whatever the hell name the “warlord” who runs the joint has dreamt up today? To pay for the removal of garbage? To house the homeless? To buy weapons (and drugs and attendant luxuries) for Antifa? If you chose the last option go to the top of the class (when the school reopens). If you think that’s too harsh tell me who has control of the bank accounts and who their auditor is.

I just hope for their sake, that all of the skipping and jumping, selfie taking, isn’t it all such a spiffing wheeze with all the like, chanting and like, marching and like, swearing (not too loudly), fresh faced (but masked), outer suburban teeny-boppers who just love, like, sticking it to the man as long as they can borrow daddy’s car, aren’t still hanging around after bed-time when patience runs out and the vigilantes arrive or the legally sanctioned shit really hits the fan because their new chums from CHUMP most definitely won’t have their backs – more likely their back-packs.

Let’s get one thing straight about this virus panic. The people making the decisions and the people enforcing the new “rules” have no skin in the game. Politicians, run-of-the-mill bureaucrats, health bureaucrats and police are not taking pay cuts (okay, there is an occasional example of tokenism) and are not in danger of losing their jobs. In fact their pay and the subsidisation of their jobs comes from the very people who they are destroying with their decisions and enforcement of “rules” which are not real laws because they have not been legislated. More on that later.

It makes my blood boil seeing state premiers parroting the old better safe than sorry clichés like a bunch of boof-head footballers after a game running through the phrases they have been told they are allowed to say (and the only ones they can remember) by the club PR machine while not actually saying anything of value.

People are getting mightily pissed off with the imposition of poorly explained and in some cases, useless restrictions like not being allowed to play golf. Don’t these clowns know how big a golf course is. Maybe they should restrict it to people with a handicap higher than 15 so they’ll know for certain that policing of social distancing rules will be totally unnecessary except at the tees after which balls will be sprayed all over the fairways and beyond.

The people who pay for everything – EVERYTHING – are being smashed through unemployment, business closures, both temporary and permanent and yes, domestic violence and suicide. Some of us in the payer category are willing to take the risk of getting life as we know it back underway, so back off those of you in the payee category. One more week, just to be doubly sure, is another business that is lost forever, another bout of depression and another smack in the mouth.

I repeat, we the ones who are taking all of the economic risks are willing to take the one in a million or three hundred thousand or whatever it is risk of catching a virus that may have no material impact on our health. So what if there’s a spike. We’re paying for the hospital and protective equipment. We’re paying the doctor’s and nurses’ salaries. You, governments all over the world, can print more money and completely fuck our economy and collectively the global economy for generations and put your hand on your heart and say “it was the virus what done it” because you are protected from the consequences.

The vast majority of these closet totalitarians have never run a business and on the left side of politics, most have never even worked in one. So we get these directives such as in stage 1 of the enlightenment, restaurants can allow 10 customers inside. The cost of opening and operating a business like a restaurant can only be covered if a majority (at least) of the seats and tables are occupied. It is cheaper to stay closed, as in the proprietor loses less than if the place opened for a small fraction of its capacity. But that is beyond the ken of our betters.

I’m reminded of the US constitution which begins with the words “We the people”. In more normal times, governments are elected by we the people based on their policies which we the people have approved through the ballot box. They then enact those policies and we the people have no excuses if we don’t like the unintended consequences which invariably occur when the actual policies begin with the words “Wouldn’t it be great if….”. Think of any green policy and that’s exactly what you get – unintended consequences. I should say that’s exactly what you would get if the electorate was collectively stupid enough to vote for those clowns. But never forget, half of the population has above average intelligence and half of the population has below average intelligence so also never forget the quote sometimes attributed to Thomas Jefferson – “the price of liberty is eternal vigilance”. Unfortunately we sometimes do forget and the current governments in Queensland and Victoria get elected. And the unintended consequences flow like a river.

I’m a bit of a student of American politics (the reference to their constitution may have given that away) and I never cease to be amazed at the standard of politician they elect, in many cases repeatedly. Fortunately the place is big enough to elect a majority of sensible people and the founding fathers inserted enough checks and balances in the constitution to ensure the more mutinous actions of a few (like what is happening now) are stepped on. But that doesn’t stop short term stupidity like electing Alexandria Ocasio Cortez or the governor of New York forcing nursing homes for the elderly to accept Covid-19 positive patients or giving booze and dope to the homeless as is now happening in California, all of which are being cheered on by the deranged main stream media and its cable and Hollywood lickspittles. People on the east coast and the left coast despise the people in flyover country and you can see why the feelings are mutual. And why there are now uprisings by the people against the ludicrous lockdowns in areas where the only virus is what you get on your computer from porn sites.

Speaking of Victoria, their government is the closest we have to a pack of rabid socialist totalitarians so as you can imagine, they are loving this virus. Governments of all stripes (especially the Victorian government) are ordering we the people around and fining us (and worse) if we don’t obey. I don’t remember voting for this shit. The ease with which the population has agreed to be confined to their homes by the imposition of threats must be a thing of wonder to those with dictatorial ambitions. A coup would be a piece of cake.

And I understand the three strikes rule will be implemented in Victoria in a couple of months if there is a second wave of infections. Three social distancing infractions and you will be executed. And all the infected will be banished like lepers to Philip Island, to live out their miserable lives in isolation where they can’t steal the oxygen from and pollute the bloodlines of the chosen ones. Godwin’s Law says that in an argument, whoever compares the other with Hitler first, loses. I wonder if the same applies to eugenics.

The CB and I are into day 12 of our two week lock-down. We started to feel it after only two days. At that point we were starting to get desperate being down to our last internet, three laptops, one desktop, two smart TV’s, Netflix, Foxtel, Stan, free-to-air TV (whatever that is), 2 smart phones, 7 guitars and associated paraphernalia, a cupboard full of food, a fridge full of beer (and some food), a wine rack full of wine, countless toilet rolls, a house full of comfortable furniture and two children at our beck and call. It was touch and go whether we would survive the next 12 days.

But here we are with only two days left. To those who have been going stir crazy, I say harden up. It’s not that bad and if you prepared and have the mental capacity to withstand the range of deprivations dumped on us collectively by an over-zealous political sector (and I include politicians, bureaucrats and police in that over-reaching totalitarian collective), then you’ll be okay.

We aren’t in the least bit stir crazy and were perfectly okay until the two cats were returned from their “holiday” at the cattery which they endured while we were away. As usually happens, as soon as they got home they filed an eviction notice with the authorities as two people (us) had again squatted in their house. They do this every time we travel and it never works because the CB and I have more money than them and can therefore afford better lawyers. You’d think they’d learn.

But things will be back to normal in a couple of days except for the fact that stray people are now being rounded up and removed to five start hotel rooms I believe as well as being fined for exercising that sadly missed right to freedom of assembly. Compensation for this is coming in the form of money – our money being given back to us in advance because the government hasn’t taken it off us (and our kids and their kids and their kids etc) yet.

It must be great being the government. They can pump up the economy by injecting cash into it by buying back government bonds. But here’s the best bit. They just print more money to buy said bonds back. How brilliant is that. Imagine if we could all do that.

1. When I hear someone speaking Italian or Korean or Liverpudlian, I know what language they are speaking even though I can’t understand a word of it. So does a non-Italian deaf person know if someone is signing in Italian or does it just look like random hand movements (as performed by all Italians) like that fraud was doing at the Mandela Memorial in 2013? Just wondering because every time you turn on the TV there’s a politician or a doctor giving a lecture so there’s a lot of signing going on all over the place.

2. First we had social security then social justice then social media and now we have social distancing. Let’s hope this latest example of social engineering doesn’t become as permanent or ubiquitous as the others or social interactions at social gatherings and more intimate one-on-one social connections will be somewhat problematic and we won’t need a potent new virus to impose zero population growth on the populace.

3. I never noticed because it was summer back home in recent months but it seems yoga pants are now all the rage in cold weather. I’m told this item of apparel is more correctly called leisure wear although I’m pretty sure some of the people who wear them haven’t leisured in years. For others I say leisure away because it can be quite a fetching look.As a corollary to this, yesterday morning here in the UK there was a debate program (with participants seated a healthy 2 metres apart and no studio audience) on whether fat shaming is hate speech. We didn’t watch it because this offence mining is getting ridiculous. I have red hair (actually I used to, but most of it has changed colour) and the child bride would like to be three inches taller but no one that I am aware of is taking offence by proxy on behalf of rangas and short-arses. So where do you draw the offence-taking line? Way back at the start before all of this virtue signalling, identity politics bullshit started – that’s where.

4. The wedding we attended two days ago ducked BoJo’s ban on various public access hostelries by a matter of hours. The reception had just started when it was announced but news travels slowly in the backblocks of Lancashire and the Clitheroe pony express was lame so the festivities continued to a logical conclusion and when it’s a wedding in a brewery that conclusion should be obvious (everyone was suitably pissed, for those of you who don’t do obvious). Then yesterday, the hotel the CB and I are staying in prior to flying out today told us they had closed. But we could stay until check out time. So we were the only people in this grand hotel in Alderley Edge and a couple of days ago we were the only paying customers in the Swan and Royal in Clitheroe. And Qantas stops flying international at the end of the month. We were flying home on the 30^th (on Cathay Pacific) originally but brought our return forward to tomorrow on Qantas. I can’t help but feel this virus has been snapping at our heels for the last week but we’re holding it at bay. If either of us eventually get this bloody thing I shall be extremely peeved.

5. I didn’t think it could get any weirder in the short term but now Singapore won’t let Qantas land so our flight from here is London to Darwin – now there’s a first. I wasn’t able to confirm that immediately as they wanted me to call them and I was put in a queue which was between 3 ½ and 4 ½ hours long. The Qantas operator was very busy today! A few hours later Qantas called back and they wanted to know why I called them. Eh?

6. I thought I’d seen it all but I hadn’t. Today, at Manchester airport the CB and I saw a lady in a full hazard suit – the white coverall type with head, face and mouth cover without even her feet outside. She wasn’t waiting to test a suspected virus carrier, she was a passenger waiting to get on a plane. Ours I think. It’s easy to say the world’s gone mad but I guess we all have different views on what are prudent precautions. Further to this, we are now sitting in Terminal 3 (the Qantas Lounge is closed – oh the privations) and there are hazard suits scattered across the main lounge area. I’m guessing most of them have Asians inside judging by the ones we’ve seen up close and personal. The cheaper versions appear to be those raincoat poncho things – there’s a few of them around. As previously reported we’re told that masks protect me from anything the mask-wearer may have. Hopefully on the plane we’ll be surrounded by a praetorian guard of hazard suits but unlikely. Japan Airlines or Air China will get them and we’ll get the gobby blokes in t-shirts.

And on that note, Tales from the Celtic Caravan comes to a close, unfortunately without a contribution from the Paddy Celts. Until next time.

Fortunately this little corner of the world the CB and I find ourselves in has a supermarket which may be bereft of bog rolls but has shelves stocked with Stella, Sav and Syrah. I think our home state of Queensland is the only political jurisdiction on the planet outside the muslim bit where you won’t find this. Since Boris announced yesterday that all bars, restaurants and pubs would close as of today, this has assumed life sustaining importance. So as I sit back in our hotel room contemplating the Alderley Edge Hotel’s empty carpark and the absence of any noise I am able to sip an ice cold beer and the CB can sip a Rosemount Chardie – a good value Aussie quaffer which costs as much in £’s as it does in $’s at home. Incidentally, that applies to just about everything here.

The family wedding the CB and I came over here to attend was completed in the nick of time yesterday. Today would have been a no-go. We were so happy for the bride and groom because the times were rapidly conspiring to make their big day a complete disaster. As it was, plenty of guests including two of the bridesmaids were unable to attend or didn’t want to attend. In less unusual times there would be severe recriminations for bailing out I am sure, but some people are following government directives to the letter so there isn’t really a case to prosecute. Notwithstanding, we have already encountered attitudes ranging from casual indifference to practical pragmatism to full-blown paranoia when it comes to avoiding COVID-19.

If you add the closure of most touristy places to closure of the pubs, bars and restaurants and the abandonment of everything sporting, this place has become instantly boring so it’s just as well we are heading home in two days rather than on our way to Ireland tomorrow. We can look forward to two weeks of isolation with logistics more akin to a spy swap than getting a cab when we land in Brisbane. Our kids have to avoid contact with us so our son will drive our car to the airport and our daughter will follow. Our car will be left for us to drive home and daughter and son will return to their respective homes in daughter’s car.

Bear in mind that we will have just spent 20+ hours in a crowded aeroplane so despite the best laid plans (of mice and men) and the imposition of restrictions the fun-police in Iran would be proud of, contact with other humans is unavoidable in some circumstances. And the people we encountered today in the above mentioned supermarket and in a coffee shop and at the hotel reception didn’t interrogate us as to whether we have participated in crowd forming activities recently. So it’s all a bit scatter-gun really.

Fortunately our son-in-law is manager of a supermarket so the fridge at home has been stocked this week and the local booze retailer home delivers. Netflix here we come.

Well the last couple of days has been frantic what with prime ministers and presidents banning some people but not others from visiting or leaving their countries and multiple airlines pulling flights and here’s the CB and I in the jolly UK. We cancelled our trip to Ireland and have been looking for a way to get home early before ScoMo slams the door. Fortunately, despite Qantas cancelling 90% of their flights, there were a few international seats available and we got two of them. The rest will be gone by the end of the month when the whole airline is grounded. Rather severe restrictions on movement are being imposed it seems.

I am hopeful I don’t encounter another problem because I caught a cold – understandable when considering the weather in Wales. It’s definitely a cold – I’ve had one or two before so am familiar with the signs. However I feel like I shall have to try to disguise the occasional cough and sniffle because I am sure there are members of the public out there taking it upon themselves to out those with devil signs – to the ducking stool with them. So my own version of 1984 (the book not the year) is underway as I try to avoid being revealed as a potential subversive or worse, mass murderer (the chief protagonist in 1984 wasn’t a mass murderer by the way – read the book).

We have a family wedding tomorrow – a cousin’s daughter – and the poor girl is watching as guests bail out and waiting for the dreaded call from the venue and/or the registrar, either of which could derail the whole thing. She’s holding up admirably (in public) so let’s hope we can make it to 2.00pm tomorrow after which the knot will be tied and all that remains is for the remaining guests to do their best with the pre-paid bar tab. Hopefully the pre-ceremony drinks will result in no one noticing my occasional cough into my coat.

But they have chosen an excellent venue – a brewery in a picturesque little town called Clitheroe in the north Lancashire countryside. The CB and I are staying at a local pub – The Swan and Royal. Great spot with a nice (and deserted) bar and big rooms looking out over a narrow main street. The owner was so pleased to see us last night that he gave us a tasty glass of coffee liqueur each. An 800 year old Norman castle in the centre of town dominates the scenery.

We’ve done a lot of castles on this trip, mostly in Wales. I love them and when you consider the engineering that went into them many centuries ago you have to wonder why a pile of cubed rocks arranged on top of one another in ever decreasing square layers until there is only one on the top is considered a wonder of the world and Conwy Castle isn’t.

Occasionally normal programming has to be suspended and this is one of those times. We’ll be visiting Cuz 1’s mother and father, my mum’s sister and brother-in-law and my aunt and uncle today. I haven’t seen them for many years and as they now reside in the cemetery, the last time I saw them will have to suffice as the enduring memory.

They were the most wonderful people who’d do anything for you. They had their foibles – amusing and occasionally annoying like everyone, but as time moves on and memories fade those idiosyncrasies become more endearing.

As parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles they revelled in the joy that their family provided. They lived the life they wanted to lead (with occasional diversions to accommodate cantankerous parents and accident-prone offspring) and apart from the very last phase when they didn’t have a lot of choice, carried it off with aplomb.

So RIP Mildred and Stan. Thanks for the memories (and the beer and the occasional scotch and the cooked breakfasts and the warm bed and the lifts to various places and for letting my old mates know when I was in town and for scolding me for not wearing a suit to a David Bowie concert when he was in his Ziggy Stardust phase and wore more make-up than clothing).

We’re back at the Cuzs’ house in Altrincham after our leisurely swing through Wales and apart from a few seasonal closures, as in opening when it’s a bit warmer, we have encountered exactly zero evidence of a global panic. Of course this excludes watching the carnage on the stock exchange – a buying opportunity if ever there was one because markets always over-react (usual disclaimers apply) –  and listening to the idiots on morning TV like Piers Morgan who are adamant that the Government should “do more” without actually consulting the experts in crisis management who are advising said Government to elaborate on what “doing more” looks like. Something similar to the climate change “doing more” I expect, with similar results. Like journalists all over the world they are all seemingly only interested in the “gotcha” moment when some hapless minister can’t answer the most esoteric of questions.

The two main issues for the CB and I are (1) will this spoil (more than it has already) my cousin’s wedding on Friday and (2) will planes still be flying to Ireland, specifically the one we’re booked on, on Sunday. And the corollary to point (2) is will we be able to get back to Manchester airport from Ireland in time to get our flight back to Australia and will ScoMo let us back into the country anyway. If he follows the lead of Miss Hugs and Pouty Face in New Zealand we may be stuck here. Not to worry. The pubs don’t appear to be running out of beer anytime soon. And the weather’s only going to get better.

It’s now a day later and the Ireland trip has been cancelled. If we’re going to be stuck somewhere, I’d rather it be in the UK where I have relatives. And get this, the Australian Government is recommending that Aussies overseas should return home asap i.e. before the borders are closed and Miss Hugs and Pouty Face scolds us over taking too much time to act like how we haven’t closed all of our coal mines so the world’s temperature will immediately drop by 2 degrees. But at the same time as this is happening, Qantas, the national carrier has cancelled 90% of its flights. We have confirmed flights on Cathay and every flight before ours is full. So the reduction in travellers is being more than off-set by the reduction in flights. Brilliant.

The CB and I lived on the west coast of Tasmania many years ago. Heading west from there the first landfall is Argentina so the weather was pretty wild. It had nothing on Aberystwyth. We were stupid enough to walk along the sea-front promenade from our hotel at one end to the castle at the other end. Copacabana it was not.

We may as well have been walking on the beach because a major proportion of the grit which made up the beach had been deposited by the wind onto the footpath and onto the road. Consequently we expected Cuz 2’s BMW to be paintless on the upwind side. Being parked a few metres from the seawall meant it was also being washed by the waves crashing over the wall when the tide was in.

Moving on, we went to a place which epitomises the saying “verbal diarrhea”. The name of this place is Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. How the hell do you pronounce a word with four consecutive L’s in it let alone 14 consecutive consonants. If you are the slightest bit interested, this place name means “The church of Mary in the hollow of the white hazel near the fierce whirlpool and the church of Tysilio by the red cave”. I suspect I have missed some capital letters there but frankly, I lost interest about a quarter of the way through.

After the South Pole-like conditions of Aberystwyth, surprise, surprise, it’s blue sky over Conwy (that’s not a typo – there’s no “a” after the “w”) today but the weather is as random as daffodils which incidentally grow anywhere and are as ubiquitous as sheep.

We have been rather lucky with the weather in respect of rain. It’s been ear-snappingly cold and the wind has been rapier-like but the rain has held off most of the time – that’s a small blessing. It’s been pretty bleak as well and that’s been a good thing, for me anyway. Those of you who have read all of this blog will have noted my occasional  ambivalence…..no that’s the wrong word…..hatred of “power generating” (ha!) windmills. Bleakness has limited visibility meaning the hundreds of these monstrosities parked a mile or so offshore are largely invisible which is as they should be considering how useless they are in the overall scheme of things.

Llandudno is a very pretty place with an interesting coastline (for the geologically / geomorphologically inclined) but shift your gaze to the open sea and it encounters a veritable forest of those things. Way to stuff up a nice view.

Notwithstanding the windmills, the major consideration at the moment is whether we are stuck here in the UK or whether we’ll be eventually allowed to go home. I expect the boffins will come up with a cure for the coronavirus before long (long before they find one for the Welsh language) but I suspect that won’t be in time to have any impact on our personal situation. So with life as we know it being cancelled in great swathes, for us – Cuz 1, Cuz 2, the CB and me, the intrepid travellers – life goes on. But for Liverpool supporters whose football team is on the cusp of winning their first EPL title in the 30 years existence of the Premier League, the suspension (or quelle horreur, the cancellation) of the competition would be like the cancellation of lunch for Mr Creosote (a Monty Python’s Meaning of Life character, if you were wondering).

At some point in the dim distant past, someone was given the job of converting the various noises that comprise the Welsh language into written English. The selected person obviously had a very wicked sense of humour. How do you take a sound like CLAN and decide it should be spelled LL. And just to make things even more interesting this linguistic genius decided to halve the usage of vowels and double the usage of consonants while at the same time eliminating a goodly proportion of said consonants namely K, Q, V, X and Z. Maybe that’s why L’s are doubled up so often. Those of you who were educated relatively recently may not know what vowels and consonants are (or commas and apostrophes for that matter). You’ll have to look them up. Is it any wonder Welsh is only considered a legitimate means of communication by Prince Charles and a few dozen stoic leek herders.

Fortunately most signs in this country are written in English as well as in English as a second language so finding your way around is as easyish (ha!) as described in Part 2 of this emerging epic. In fact the four of us – Cuz 1, Cuz 2, the CB and me – managed to get lost while walking through Cardigan today. Cuz 2 is Welsh and Cardigan is as big as a few rugby fields which is probably why, as the CB eventually concluded that the sign pointing to “Tourist Information” was in fact, pointing to a pole a few hundred metres down the road which had arrows on it indicating the approximate location of various points of interest.

And the satnav lady was not at all pleased with us at one point when we were trying to get somewhere with lots of L’s, Y’s and M’s in its name. We were heading south when we should have been heading north. To be fair, we rarely saw the sun but to be doubly fair, occasionally we did, but not for long enough to take our bearings. I used to be able to work out which direction I was going in using a conventional watch and the sun. Impossible to do with an iPhone (because it doesn’t have minute and hour hands) unless you can make it tell you. And the car we are travelling in is sufficiently sophisticated to do all of that stuff but we forgot to consult it.

The absence of sun and the presence of wind that would freeze the Yellowstone National Park geysers, limited today’s activities somewhat. Before embarking on this epic journey to parts of the UK the child bride and I hadn’t visited before, one thing we debated was which coats to bring. In both cases we opted for the warmest we have which is just as well. At one point after visiting Aberystwyth Castle we found a bar which was a converted church (previously called St Paul’s and bearing no similarity at all to the school of the same name I attended somewhere back in the mists of time). It was a sanctuary from the elements in more ways that it was when it was a church, obviously.

I can hear the wind whistling and the waves crashing as I type this, sitting adjacent to the radiator in our room. It’s March which is spring in this part of the world but no one told Zeus. The elements have a much greater chance of keeping us indoors than any flu virus.