Is this the old normal?

Before leaving I had two major worries (aside from the minor anxieties associated with driving a 1972 mobile blood transfusion collection van to Greece). The first was whether the French customs would allow us to board the shuttle at Folkestone, the second was whether there would be issues at the borders within Europe. Well the Froggo customs man didn’t even pause from shrugging and gesticulating to his confreres as we drove up, leaving the papers and our recent virus tests untouched in the folder. Nothing, rien, tipota. Not even a glance.

Seven hundred kilometres later we approach a sign on the motorway announcing that Germany is looming, and then a few hundred metres later we are in Deutschland. Nothing, Nichts!

We are here.

We have escaped, with no need for subterfuge, arguments with customs officials, forged papers or Donald Sinden pretending he wasn't going blind

So on all counts wasted energy and perhaps some extra sleep that would have come in handy.

Now we are in Hiedelberg sitting in an open restaurant with a glass of Riesling and a wurst.

Germany is busy. The roads are rammed, the trucks nose to tail as we chug through the manufacturing heartland of Europe, with our 80 bhp, (about the same as Renault Clio) pulling us noisily to 55mph. The towns bustle as normal. Many wear masks but lots don't. Cafes and bars are open. If this is social distancing its pretty relaxed.

Hiedelberg is heaving. The Castle is bustling with tourists, albeit that most seem to be German, but its difficult to observe any serious social distancing.

It is the second time I have been to this charming city. It seems to me that Germany does urban better than rural. Surely Berlin is a model of how a city can be place to live where inhabitants aren't always trying to escape somewhere else, to a place they prefer? German country villages are often marred by the brutality of their municipal systems, the chunky concrete of the waste disposal plant or the lumpish Gymnasium. These get lost in the cities where the attention to what folk need for recreation and leisure is addressed properly.

The first time was very nearly 50 years ago. I was on a gap year although then the term hadn't been invented and it wasn't a year; just nine months between sitting the Oxbridge exams at the end of the year and starting at college in the September the next year. I went to Africa and then came back arguable too early and still had a couple of months in hand. I joined a curious expedition to accompany fifteen Japanese students around Europe in two minibuses. We were a motley crew on an itinerary that was definitely a visitor to Europes view of the Old World. In a week we did Paris, Venice, Salzburg, Munich, Bern and Hiedelberg.

I remember a beer Keller and two German girls one pretty one less so and a night of fumbling and snogging in a tent somewhere. Now I look at the city the memories are none the clearer. How? Who? Where? It is all a mystery. Amazingly I am still in touch with the remarkable Renouf family who met on the trip and they seem to be able to remember as little as I.

The point is that if it were now (not during a time of Covid) our pockets would be bulging with phones stuffed with zillions of pixels. Everything would have been consigned to a digital record. Our travels would be mapped on social media and quite possibly by the Governments of the countries we travelled through. Facial recognition on Facebook would have told a 'friend' in Kyoto that we had been seen on the Rialto Bridge. It is a different world without Covid.

But there is one thing different in this efficient country that emphasises the shambles back home.

Here is Carolyn sketching in the charming Swabian Imperial City of Schwabisch Hall. What's different? Not the stein of lager, the computer nor potted Hortensia.

Its the piece of paper on the table that we have just filled in with our contact details and the time of our visit. This is kept by the pub to pass over to the contact tracers should they need to be able to tell us that we might have been exposed to the virus.

Robert Koch and his institute are having a good war!