I haven’t written for a while and I’m sorry about that. But I do have a kind of excuse. I’ve suffered from a very common form of lockdown-pandemic-itis, which is a new word I’ve just invented to describe the experience of living through 2020. It’s a combination of every day being an almost exact copy of the one before, combined with either the loneliness of being locked down on your own, or the frustration of being locked down for weeks on end with absolutely anyone else. Please delete as applicable to you.
I’m doubly sorry actually, as I had a grand idea at the start of all this that I’d do something to help out. Not, obviously, invent a vaccine or anything useful – I’m a writer, I don’t have useful skills – but I thought that by sending out regular emails I might at least brighten up someone’s day every now and then. But then, since I had my hands full with the children it was hard to get any work done, and because nothing was really happening, I felt I didn’t have anything interesting to say, so I didn’t send much, and now I feel I’ve failed at that too. However, since something has changed in the last couple of weeks I’ve pulled my finger out, and I’m going to tell you about our holiday.
Wait, what? Holiday? We’ve been on holiday??!! Yes, we’re just back from a 10-day road trip to Italy, taking in France, a little bit of Switzerland and a very near miss with Germany. This came in the brief period when summer holidays were being actively encouraged by the UK Government as one’s patriotic duty to get the economy back on track, and just before that advice changed so that travel was regarded as synonymous to genocide-by-covid. It also wasn’t really planned, an opportunity came up to stay in a little Italian lakeside town (think the Swiss mansion on the shores of Lake Como in the Bond movie Casino Royale – and you’d be overthinking it, but not by that much). Throw in the realization that we could also manage a day trip to Venice, somewhere I’ve always wanted to see, but never thought I would, and you’ll understand why we decided to don our face masks, get hand sanitizing and investigate child mitigation strategies.
Ah yes, the children. The cliché of children being difficult to travel with isn’t really a cliché, it’s just the truth. Our two can’t get much beyond the end of the road before they start bickering, uncontrollable giggling, or needing the toilet. Eighteen hours each way stuck in a hot car seemed a tough ask. At first I looked for some kind of tranquilizer, the type vets use to transport dangerous wild animals, but apparently they’re illegal for children, which seems ridiculous. Then I thought about simply popping them in the freezer the night before, at least until we tried to defrost them (also illegal, just in case I’m giving anyone ideas). So in the end we worked out audiobooks might be the answer.
Given that I have all of my books available in audio format, you might think I’d have been quicker to figure this out, but actually I’ve never really got into audiobooks before. But for this journey we bought them both headphones, linked together to an old phone filled with several kid’s audiobooks (If you’re wondering they were: How to Train your Dragon, books 1 and 2, Sky Pirates, The Boy Who Could Do What He liked, You’re Thinking About Doughnuts (really good this one) and See You in the Cosmos). And the remarkable thing was they plugged themselves in as we left home, and save for a few toilet and food stops, and about half an hour of staring upwards in astonishment when we drove through the Alps, we barely heard a peep from them until we rolled into our lakeside mansion (or the rather more normal-sized house in the little town behind). Such is the incredible power of a well-told story.
We didn’t do a great deal there, it was rather hot. But we did swim lots in a lovely lake and tick off the classic Italian dining staples: pizza, pasta, ice-cream and thick black coffee. Mmmmmmm.
We also did make it to Venice. Again we didn’t do a great deal beyond wandering around the canals, jumping delightedly on and off the vaporetti water buses, and pointing incredulously at the famous and amazing views, but what an awesome place. It absolutely definitely will feature somehow in some future book I write, sometime when this pandemic is all over.
Which brings me back to my malaise. I’ve also realised that some of the guilt I’ve been feeling at not sending more witty, entertaining and uplifting emails, which has been combined with guilt and frustration from not doing enough book-writing, sprinkled with angst for not doing enough home-education of the kids, or even entertaining them very well, for not doing more exercise, or not learning a new language, or doing anything else useful – is just a natural human reaction to difficult times I can’t control. Some people have found themselves with lots of time on their hands during the lockdown, others the opposite, neither group chose this situation, it just happened. And worse, just as we get used to whatever our ‘new normal’ is, the goalposts keep shifting. So I’m not going to be too hard on myself for my multiple ‘failures’. And if you’re suffering, or have been suffering, from lockdown-pandemic-itis too, you have my permission – no, instruction – to not be too hard on yourself either.
I will be in touch again quite soon, I’ve signed off the files for the audiobook version of The Appearance of Mystery so it should be available in the stores soon (did I tell you how awesome audiobooks are?!) I’ll also have some codes to give out so that some people can get it free.
And finally, something free for everyone. My standalone novel The Girl on the Burning Boat is available at no cost right now (offer ends this Sunday night so be quick). It’s my take on a conspiracy theory thriller, and a book I really enjoyed writing (with 250 five-star Amazon reviews). If you’ve not read it yet, grab it while you can.
I hope you’re doing OK.
Gregg
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