Back to normal - but what is normal?

The main street in Lunel, still quiet as we sat in the restaurant a week or so after it opened

We've been looking forward to easing restrictions for a while, and realising that 'getting back to normal' raises as many questions as it answers.  First, do we know what 'normal' is?  When this virus arrived, we none of us knew what 'it' was.  Most of us had been gaily demanding antibiotics for flu or a cold for years, even though people who knew kept telling us that antibiotics worked on bacteria, not on viruses.  We've all learnt a bit more about viruses lately, for instance that they are spread by contact either on the skin or through the air, and lots of evidence has been flying about almost as freely as the droplets spread by coughs and sneezes - how far do they travel, how long are they active, what activities are most effective in spraying them about and on and on.  And still I reckon you could find a variety of answers in reputable studies, no hard and fast rules.  'Following the science' is if nothing else an exercise in realising that complexity is the name of the game.  All the same, simple rules like 'keep your distance', 'wash your hands', forbidding bises and so on are commonsense ones.  I smile to think that our very young son who tried desperately to avoid embarrassment all those years ago by saying loudly 'NO kissing' might actually have stumbled on a sensible health precaution!

Vine on our terrace in Lunel

Among all the blizzard of words and quasi-science, the thing that sticks with me is that this is scary because it is unlike anything we've known before - if only because it can kill even if only if relatively small numbers, and there is no cure currently. Today's newspaper called it a global disease without a cure, and while many diseases kill more people most have cures developed with a lot of trial and error over a long period.  In the end perhaps the science will have delivered the necessary vaccines or palliative treatments, but meanwhile it’s tempting to grope about trying to find people to blame.  Politicians are readily to hand.  The easiest target is that things were done too late, and with hindsight we could all have done things better and sooner.  However it may be, governments and politicians are obliged to come up with rules - how far apart must we be, when and where should we wear masks? - which then take on a kind of holy character when they are never more at best than arbitrary markers. 

Our music this week is in the Ain, at the Val du Séran

This week we are tourists - not in the mass, but individuals visiting a friend's music centre we've known for over 10 years.  It feels strange to be away and to travel, and the roads were busy enough, but we are still in the early stages of profound changes in many industries, not least tourism.  I read in the Guardian today that "Tourism is an unusual industry in that the assets it monetises – a view, a reef, a cathedral – do not belong to it. The world’s dominant cruise companies – Carnival, Royal Caribbean and Norwegian – pay little towards the upkeep of the public goods they live off. By incorporating themselves in overseas tax havens with benign environmental and labour laws – respectively Panama, Liberia and Bermuda – cruising’s big three, which account for three-quarters of the industry, get to enjoy low taxes and avoid much irksome regulation, while polluting the air and sea, eroding coastlines and pouring tens of millions of people into picturesque ports of call that often cannot cope with them."  So things there as elsewhere may never be the same.  For the moment we are out and about, and our friends are beginning to find ways to visit us.  But life will be profoundly changed in every corner, and we don't yet really know how.

 On top of all that the fear and uncertainty everyone feels in different ways mean that everyone make their own choices in reaction to the rules.  On the one hand there are myriads who say 'what the hell?' and flout every sensible restriction with, we must assume, a risk to the health of innocent bystanders who happen to be in the way.  In fact, the rules themselves are near impossible to apply - if a cheap supermarket is built with narrow aisles nobody can stay far enough away from other shoppers however hard they try, and these days shopping adds to my sense of slightly dizzy unreality with a mask round my face and breath steaming up my glasses, so that the simple task of not bumping into others becomes even more difficult.  At the other end of the scale, people become very cautious, are frightened to go out even to shop for necessities, and would rather avoid risking any kind of social contact even now when, in France for instance, rules about numbers are relaxing.  As for singing in choirs - well, that is another matter again.  To be continued...