Are we any the clearer?

 Are we any the clearer?

So is anybody sure when Covid 19 will finally draw to a close? There comes a point when you can no longer see the wood from the trees to quote another tiresome cliche. Oh the uncertainty, the indecision, the dragging of feet, more questions than answers and then we all get all hot and bothered because it feels as though the powers to be are just playing mind games with us. Do they stick or twist? Let's try the risk assessment approach whereby somebody behind the scenes simply closes their eyes and just takes a calculated gamble. But that would be silly anyway.

The proposed so called 'Freedom Day' whereby the whole of Britain and presumably the rest of the globe just takes the plunge by declaring release from confinement, some would say imprisonment, is almost upon us. The coronavirus has been conquered, thrashed into submission, wiped from the planet for ever more and let the party begin. 

You'll be able to rip off your multi coloured masks, jump into the Serpentine in London's Hyde Park, grab a stranger by the River Thames and then just dance frenetically up towards St Paul's Cathedral, hopping and skipping, carousing and cavorting, shrieking and screaming with delight. June 21st could just happen but we're still not sure. Which is rather like giving a kid their ice cream and then just taking it away from them in the same moment. It's cruel of course it is but hey, that's life!

At the moment international air travel is beginning to take a bit of a battering. Once again the authorities are looking at the relevant scientific data, twiddling their thumbs, scratching their heads, weighing up the pros and cons and still coming up with danger spots, negative results and nothing at all to encourage those desperate holidaymakers who must be climbing the walls with frustration. Nobody it seems should go anywhere and if they're spotted anywhere near any airport they should simply review their well intentioned plans and just forget it. It could be a bed and breakfast in Scarborough if you're lucky. 

For what must now seems the umpteenth time the UK Government have been guilty of excessive flip flopping between different coloured traffic light categories. Every day seems to represent another exercise in complete futility. Portugal has today been relegated from the positive green light to the amber which must be devastating since they're still footballing European Champions but we'll leave aside the football analogy for the moment. 

We have now been reliably informed that Spain, who used to be the most popular destination of choice for English tourists during the 1970s, has been slapped across the knuckles, reprimanded for complacency and taking things for granted. Spain may have to wait until the end of June now before any hotel rep rocks up at a five star hotel in Benidorm with a coach load of  gloriously enthusiastic Brits just bursting to rush out to the poolside and then flinging their towels onto the sun loungers. 

Today countries as random as Afghanistan, Trinidad and Tobago, Bahrain, Egypt and now Portugal are back on the naughty step. It hardly seems possible that certain countries are more susceptible to infections than others or tiny regions in the middle of nowhere are just sitting back in luxury and knocking back pina coladas in sun drenched Mediterranean hotel rooms or on verandas. It's all very emotionally draining for those who may just want a week away in the sun and no disturbances from Boris or Brexit. 

Still, it may be advisable to just throw in the towel or just persist in the hope of finding some very sympathetic travel agency who finally cave in to pressure because they've just had enough of all those infuriating complaints. What to make of a scenario where a global virus just picks and chooses its main source of maximum infection, messing up your schedule for just a week or two in the Med? It's all muddled thinking, obfuscation, bafflement and smokescreens after smokescreens. 

Now the conspiracy theorists are beginning to believe that the Indian variants or any variants in any part of the world, could be deliberately putting up one insurmountable obstacle after another. The paperwork is turning into a mountain, forms are being filled, suitcases are beginning to take root at airports, the kids are crying with boredom while most families must be wishing they'd stayed at home. 

So here we are back at square one. Our noble and learned medical officers are trying to put our minds at ease while privately trembling with fear in case another lockdown looms and who knows what next? It doesn't bear thinking of because the sense of terror and foreboding could just break our morale altogether. We are now on the precipice, tiptoeing in the dark, treading ever so gently, some might say sleepwalking into another world of anguish. 

But the countdown will now begin to June 21st and the longest day. Under normal circumstances, we'd have been looking forward to the tennis at Wimbledon, the Glastonbury summer rock festival, the Test matches in cricket which have already begun against New Zealand and all those summertime fiestas that so brighten the British landscape during the middle of the year. 

There is still time to make up for lost time. We can still do this one. We can exercise caution, shrewd judgment or then decide that it might be a good idea to just binge on a a whole selection of Netflix films before finishing off some jigsaw puzzles which have lain dormant since 1973. Or we could always just dabble in a spot of decorating and painting the living room, de-cluttering the garage, mowing the garden for the tenth time or just pruning the roses. Oh for the domestic idyll. 

Of course June 21st will dawn and we have to believe that this will be the summer of celebration, exultation, street parties with hundreds of Union Jacks, kids running after each other, relentless enjoyment, feelgood moments in abundance and feeling good to be alive. We could scoff a million sandwiches and not be overwhelmed with guilt and just stuff our faces with fish and chip suppers until the end of the year. Or we could listen to late night jazz on the radio and be immensely grateful for life and who we are. The days are now slowly passing, the hours crawling like a snail but the longest day of the year could be one of the most unforgettable in living history. Oh please.