My 2020 diary – January to March

18

2020 is a year that will remain in mankind’s collective memory for many decades to come. While this year’s diary records my usual aspirations and activities (fun and mundane), there are also far more sobering notes, like my recording of early Covid deaths (before the figures got too high to comprehend).

January

At the start of this new decade, none of us had any inkling of the death and disease that was soon to sweep across the world and change everyone’s lives dramatically. Tragically, 2020 was to see the deaths of several million people worldwide, including several I knew.

I’d obviously decided to give up on new year resolutions because the first page of my 2020 diary states: ‘Things I might like to do in 2020’. All the usual suspects were listed, i.e. run more, write more, learn Portuguese, etc, however instead of vowing to eat more healthier, I’d cheerfully added, ‘Make cheesecake more often’. I’m embarrassed to admit that some of the items on that list remain outstanding six years later, suggesting that, when push came to shove, I might not liked to do them at all.

The year started with me acknowledging ‘too much wine last night’ which wasn’t so unusual back then. I belatedly realise this is the fourth Christmas/New Year we’ve spent in the Algarve.

The following day, Debbie picks up Leão, the podengo we’ve been looking after for what feels like forever but is actually two weeks. The atmosphere between us is decidedly frosty, however she does at least reimburse me for all the dog food we had to buy – it was that or have him shrink in front of our eyes. It is the last time we see one another as she unexpectedly returns to England a few months later.

Sometimes I think my life doesn’t really change much from year to year. In early January 2020, I was trying to kickstart my running after my recent illness – and still recording my distances in miles. From various comments, the running wasn’t going too well. On 7 January I note, ‘Just too tired. Legs aching.’  Clearly determined, I’m out there again the following day, when I ran ‘4 miles, very slow + painful (hamstrings)’.

I am still doing my utmost to learn Portuguese and still working on Run Free (it was to take me another five years to finish and publish my Newport-based novel). Another focus is building up my repertoire of hikes on Walking World (something I’d started doing to escape the endless stream of daytime television at Debbie’s while we were renting a room in her apartment).

Six years on, I have no idea why I jotted down ‘Oxygen – Willy Mason’ on 9 January but I’m sure I must have had my reasons.

Harri’s parents visited from 13–19 January so there are few diary entries, apart from a note that we contacted someone about buying their car.

I feel sad whenever I encounter diary entries about our first boy here. We found Moses on the street in Alcantarilha at four weeks old. Despite it being a hot, sunny day, he was drenched – we think someone had been trying to drown him but he escaped. We adored that cat, although he was a handful and regularly attacked our guests – and us. On 20 January, I drop Moses off to be castrated and chipped, and pop into a nearby paint store. I make a last-minute decision to buy a slighter lighter colour than Harri’s mother and I had decided upon. I can’t wait to rid the lounge of its awful rust and yellow colour scheme.

On 23 January, we buy the car for 6,000 euros and put an advertisement on Facebook Marketplace for our over-sized above-ground pool which is basically our view through the kitchen’s patio doors.

That weekend, we walk to Albufeira for a very long lunch with our Scottish friends, Nan and Dennis, during which we all ate too little and drank too much. ‘Hangover – lost the entire morning!’ I lament the next day.

By lunchtime on 29 January, we’ve completed all the paperwork for our new Suzuki SX4 with its former owner, Alison. I’m kind of job hunting at this point and so I email Saga careers who just direct me to their website. My daughter is more successful and secures a place on a graduate scheme. Hurrah! I note.

February

The first of the month is a Saturday and we invite Phil and Cecilia (a couple we met at Arte Bar) to dinner. I cook cataplana, new potatoes, garlic bread and salad.

I look into a cleaning job with a Dutch woman called Diane, but have second thoughts and pull out before the interview. I don’t like cleaning my own house; I’d make a lousy cleaner.

Three days later, I’m entertaining again, this time hosting Jörg and Miguel. While my eldest daughter heads off to Florida, I appear to be concerning myself with tide timetables – although whether that was linked with a new Salgados route I was working out for walkingworld.com I have no idea. At the beginning of 2020, devising new routes for the hiking website was a major pastime of mine.

I love how random names turn up in old diaries. On 11 February, I’ve written Elizabeth Wrench at the top of the page. Who is Elizabeth Wrench?

On 13 February, I interview Tom Allen. This name I do remember. Tom is the man behind the incredibly useful and always up-to-date Algarve Bus website. Harri came along with me – in our pre-car days, he used Tom’s website so frequently he was keen to meet the man himself. The same day my youngest has an interview for the Civil Service … it’s hard to believe she’s been there over six years now.

One of my earliest memories of the approaching Covid pandemic was listening to a man called David Abel updating James O’Brien on LBC from his cruise liner, Diamond Princess, while I wandered around Salgados. A Google search found this article dated February 19 however, for most of us, the virus that was to spread rapidly around the globe still seemed like a faraway problem – a news story that, like most, didn’t really affect any of us personally.

The Sky News article noted that approximately half of all known cases of COVID-19 outside China have been found aboard the Diamond Princess. Nothing we non-cruise goers needed to be fearful about then.

So, while the human race was teetering on the edge of oblivion, my attention was focused on my new garden. I planted a mango tree (it died) and dealt with the unwanted regrowth from a row of felled but fast-growing trees (they didn’t).

We’d managed to sell the ginormous above-ground pool that had stretched from one side of our garden to the other and Buddy, a friendly Irishman, turns up with a friend to dismantle it. It’s Monday so Harri is working. It’s fair to say, this woman and I are clueless. Fortunately, after a good, hard think, Buddy has things sussed and springs into action. By lunchtime, the monstrosity is in the back of his four-wheel drive … as is Moses, who has spotted leftover friend chicken.

I choose the same day to launch several 30-day challenges, which included ‘no phone in bed’ and ‘push up for beginners’. My running regime is disrupted by a ‘Big Blister on Heel!’

From my diary entries, it’s clear I was enthusiastically hunting for article ideas for Tomorrow magazine. On 20 February, I interview Fátima and Marco at Convent ‘bio – while I’m there I line up a second interview and four days later I’m at Carvoeiro Cat Sanctuary interviewing its founder Corinna Janiec AND a couple who breed Maine Coons.

Towards the end of the month our friends Denise and Mike come to stay for the weekend. We met this lovely couple when we lived in São Martinho do Porto last spring and have stayed in touch. Mike is three days younger than me.

No sooner have I changed the bedding than my lovely long-time friend Julia arrives. While Julia is staying, we meet up with other friends, Tina and Shane, in Albufeira. It’s all good fun. Our Algarve life was certainly more sociable back then.

March

Having read about intermittent fasting, I decide to have a go and survive 16 hours without food. At this point, not only am I doing push-ups but also practising the plank (for one whole minute).

On 3 March, we drive to Beja to change our UK driving licences to Portuguese ones. We do this because the only office in the Algarve that deals with driving licences is in Faro and we have heard horror stories of people queuing from 4am and still not securing one of the ten tickets required if you wish to be seen that day.

While we’re strolling around Beja, my eldest daughter phones to tell me her old school friend’s mother has died. It’s a sobering moment as Gill was a year younger than me – a lovely woman who helped me out a lot when I was a single parent.

Our IMI experience is both painless and painful, depending on which chair is occupied. The official dealing with me is delightful, efficient and friendly. Harri faces the bureaucrat from hell. At one point, ‘his’ woman opens a drawer, takes out a bottle of Tippex and obliterates Harri’s handwritten answers. He must, she insists, fill it in again. She offered no new form so poor Harri was forced to write over the Tippex and we all know that’s near impossible. It cannot be a coincidence that my Portuguese driving licence arrives in the post ten days later on 13 March, while Harri’s takes around eight months.

The early days of March rush by in a whirlwind of walking, running, writing and pursuing interviewees for future Tomorrow articles. Porches Pottery is on my list.

Some diary entries are cryptic: ‘Get stones out of Moses’ front “litter” tray’ is particularly baffling.

I’d actually forgotten that we had battered old decking in the garden when we moved in. Harri and I start taking it up on 8 March – this becomes a PRIORITY on 10 March (I’ve no idea why … it wasn’t in anyone’s way).

By now the words ‘Beja blog’ have been repeated several times. Despite my obvious prevarication, I do eventually get it written and published – here’s the proof.

It’s not until 13 March that the first hint that something serious is amiss globally occurs to us. We’re off to Lagos having been invited to Tomorrow magazine’s 100^th edition anniversary party. We’re staying in a hotel overnight and I have an interview lined up the following afternoon in Portimão. Late afternoon, my interviewee phones to cancel. It’s this virus, he explains. His clients have cancelled their bespoke van tour – the tour I’m invited to join and write about.

Worse is to come. That evening we learn the party itself has been cancelled. Sophie (the editor) thought Tom (the then owner) was going to let me know, while Tom believed it was Sophie who was going to inform me. Despite our disappointment, we decide to remain at O Artiste, have a meal and enjoy the live entertainment. I even jived with a retired Scottish detective. Little did we know, this was to be our last night out for a very long time.

The very next day our large US fridge/freezer decides to pack up. We rapidly organise the purchase of a ‘new’ second-hand fridge freezer. While waiting for the seller outside our local Aldi, I’m incredulous to spot a young couple entering the supermarket with face masks on.

On 18 March, Portugal announces a State of Emergency. Two days later, I get a phone call as I’m heading to bed. My youngest, having secured her Civil Service job and been in post just one week, has gone down with Coronavirus (that’s what we were calling it back then). Her lips are blue and an ambulance has been called. I feel helpless all these miles away and long to be back in Wales. After what feels like an endless wait, I get another call from her sister. My daughter was given oxygen, but the ambulance men made the decision not to take her into hospital, explaining it would be more dangerous there than at home. What is going on?  She’s ill for several days but thank goodness her sisters are on hand to care for her and she soon recovers.

By 25 March, there are 62 recorded cases of Covid in the Algarve and my eldest daughter is in isolation. On 29 March, I record there have been 1,019 deaths in the UK and 100 deaths in Portugal (with two in the Algarve). This shoots up to 1,228 UK deaths the following day. From feeling surreal just a few days ago, this rapidly spreading virus is starting to become very scary.

For some reason, I start recording the figures in both countries and they are escalating with terrifying speed. By 31 March, there have been 1,789 deaths in the UK and 160 across Portugal (although only three here in the Algarve.

Somewhere in the middle of all the terror, my middle daughter is 33. I feel very far away from my loved ones.