I might have mentioned before that I am a nervous traveller at the best of times, and these are far from that (though not – yet – the worst.)  The coronacrisis brings with it fears of border closures and cancelled flights, and added to the mix I discovered, in the fluster of booking my flights home, Val had entered the wrong birth date, knocking eight years off me, but still.  I did make a half-hearted effort to get it changed, but eventually reckoned I was more likely to get the flights cancelled, so decided to let it be and take my chances, figuring the chances of anyone spotting it in the small print were remote.

As it turned out, I was right, and in fact the whole journey, door to door, could not have gone smoother, what with empty roads, empty airports, half-empty planes., and an almost entirely empty final bus to Oxford, with just me and one other passenger.

Coronavirus awareness was apparent in other ways too, with announcements in the airport recommending a two metre gap, making for long but civilised queues.  And I was firmly ordered to “Stop!” by a masked airport official I was approaching for directions, a good four metres away.

Masks were the most obvious manifestation, worn by about two-thirds of the people I saw, including the woman in the seat in front of me for the final journey, who wore, in addition to her mask, a thick coat with the fur-trimmed hood pulled down low, so that only her eyes showed (no, me neither.)  She may well have escaped infection, but I reckon was in danger of expiring through hyper-ventilation.

The important thing is that I am now home and – touch wood, crossed fingers, inshallah – well.  My son Joe told me that he had been advised to stay home from the school where he works because of me.  I did think this a little over-cautious, but knew they did have to consider the health of the pupils.  When I finally realised that it was the other way round, and they were worried about the children, via Joe, infecting me, I laughed and laughed and laughed.  I won’t be laughing if I get sick, of course, but hope I will still appreciate the irony.

During one of yesterday’s meetings, I made the rash offer of a Drama workshop for the other volunteers on the team, an idea leapt upon with enthusiasm, and a venue was proposed: a small open-air amphitheatre down by the lake.  That, however, was yesterday, and in these desperately uncertain times, a day is enough to allow all sorts of things to happen.

With news of ever more draconian lockdowns, and growing advice/instruction/compulsion to stay indoors, something as essentially trivial as a drama workshop did not seem so sensible; it would not be a good example, it would not send the right message.  (So far as the actual risk was concerned, after spending so much time in close proximity, none of us thought that further exposure was any more dangerous, but that is not the point.)

So my stay in Ioannina ends with a whimper not a bang, a comparison first used when describing the end of the world.  Hmm…

My intention tomorrow, courtesy of some sterling arrangements by Val, is to fly from Ioannina to Athens, and then on to Heathrow, always assuming this does not fall foul of “events” – a pretty big assumption.  I am not sorry to be avoiding the route by bus to Thessaloniki and then on, so just have to hope I get home before the whole world shuts down.  Still, you know what they say about making God laugh?  Tell him your plans.

If all goes well, and I make it back to Little Ickford tomorrow, I’ll post a final blog entry to let you know.  Keep reading, and keep your fingers crossed for the bonnest of bon voyages.

So here I am, self-isolating in my little apartment.  No, no, I’m not sick, and don’t have it, so far as I know  (though every time one has a tickly cough, one does wonder.)  And, of course, I might.  After all, I have been staying in a crowded house, and there are people there who have had direct contact with Milan, and I have been hugged by a couple of refugee children – despite one’s best efforts, they do tend to hurl themselves at you – and I’m nowhere near as fastidious as I ought to be.  Like I’ve said before, just building up the old immunities.  Which is almost certainly counter to medical knowledge and advice, but it’s all I have to cling to.

And my isolation has not been so long, as this morning I did have to attend a meeting at Dodo, as the volunteers’ house is called.  (Nothing to do with being dead, it’s an abbreviation of the street it’s on.)  We were there to discuss what we were going to do, seeing as we can’t do the thing we are all here for.  Mostly, this seems to be catching forward with planning, sorting out, preparing, but even that is hampered by the fact that we’re not allowed into one of the camps, and ought to be limiting our presence in the other.

Plus there’s the fact that all the shops are shut, barring food shops and pharmacies (though the nearest chemist was also closed, preventing me from getting some paracetamol.)  After the meeting, I did call in at the supermarket to stock up a little, and all was calm and ordered; no sign of the panic buying and hoarding (hamstering, it’s called in Holland) which seems to be affecting other places.  And I felt no need to overbuy (unless you count a triple pack of tins of tuna) as everything there was reassuringly normal… except for those blue gloves.

And since then I have enjoyed a very relaxing day, reading my thriller, listening to the radio, and writing lots of emails.  As you’ve probably noticed, I am being pretty cavalier about the whole business.  If this is the beginning of the end of this crazy world, well, there’s not much I can do about it, beyond sitting tight and hoping for the best.  I’m probably here for at least another week or so, and there are plenty worse places.

And though I may sound pretty blasé about it all, I’ll no doubt be singing a different tune when I’m lying sweating in my bed, cut off from all those I care about.  Isolation is one thing, but keeping myself a couple of thousand miles away is probably overdoing it.

It was never intended that I would stay long in the volunteers’ house; apart from anything else, someone else is booked into my bed on Friday.  But it did what was intended, providing somewhere for me to stay immediately I arrived, and giving me the chance to meet everyone.  But the intention was that it would also give me time to use local knowledge to find somewhere else. Somewhere a little more… private.

Actually, that proved something of a washout. Carolina, one of the volunteers with some administrative responsibilities, has been looking for local accommodation for the volunteers for ages, with no success.  So it was just as well that Val was able to find an AirBnB apartment that, at least on paper, seemed just the ticket.

I moved in today (with the help of Leah and Adrienne driving me here in the van), and have to say that, for almost the first time since I arrived, I was able to breathe.  The apartment is wonderful.  In many ways it is similar to the place I had in Mytilini, being a studio apartment – everything in one room. One big difference is that this version is much more modern and high-tech, with a real sense of style (while the Mytilini equivalent had a sort of faded charm.)  Secondly, this place comes with an amazing view over the nearby lake and mountains (though the disadvantage is that this means it is at the top of a steep hill.)

One big change in my plans is that, with everything so uncertain, we have only booked it for a week in the first instance.  The reality of coronavirus has finally come home to Second Tree, and in a big way, with the enforced closure of all schools and educational establishments (including NGOs running classes in refugee camps.)  A week – or maybe two – might be enough time for a clearer picture to emerge, and for me to decide whether there is much point in my staying here.

The other noticeable impacts of the virus in Ioannina?  The streets, shops and restaurants are definitely quieter, and the supermarket cashier pulled on gloves before serving me.  But it was fun to see a group of middle-aged men take over the empty schoolyard to play a lively and clearly enjoyable game of basketball.  It is, as they say, an ill wind…

Home in Ioannina – at least for the time being – is at the Second tree volunteers’ house (though it’s a flat, not a house.)  It is on the fourth floor, and though there is a lift, this was completely filled last night when I arrived with my bags and some additional stationery that needed to be delivered – it is a very small lift – and we had to walk up.

It might best be compared to a student house.  Not the modern purpose-built ones with ensuites etc, but a regular house converted for multiple occupation.  This usually means the loss of the living room, in order to squeeze in an extra student, but in this case the huge living area has been preserved, and serves as a joint social area-cum-workspace, with sofas at one end, and a table for computers etc at the other.  The downside of this arrangement is that people still have to have room to sleep, and this means dorm-style bedrooms with a couple of sets of bunk beds.  All the cosier, though somehow less comfortable, is the fact that they are mixed-sex.

In some ways, more stressful are the other communal areas: the two bathrooms and the kitchen, which have to cater (no pun intended) for the needs of twelve occupants.  The kitchen is a nightmare, with one small and rather battered cooker, and one fridge (and not even a kettle, since it kept tripping the electrics.)  Cooking looks stressful – not that I’ve done any yet – and storage is worse.  I’m not usually bothered by such things, but the fridge is a hygiene disaster zone, with cooked and raw, new and old, mine and everyone else’s all jockeying for position and threatening to throw themselves out every time the door opens.

And with everyone sharing the one place, it’s all a bit… messy (and I am not tidy.)  I’ve seen plenty worse student houses, but I gave up living in them a long time ago, and don’t fancy re-living those days.  I rush to explain that it is not the people – everyone has been extremely friendly and pleasant – but the challenge to my own powers of tolerance, organisation, sociability…

I need to move out (not least because my bed is earmarked for someone else) by the end of the week, and to somewhere which suits me better (such as my little apartment in Mytilini).  I have been nudged in the direction of Carolina, who is an administrative volunteer who is already engaged on a similar task for someone else.  So, with luck, Home will not be home for very long.

I am not the most confident of travellers.  Some may be surprised by this, for I have travelled a lot – in recent years even more so.  A large part of this is that I have got out of practice of managing on my own, having relied for so many years on Val.  When there is someone there who seems happy to take on the role of, say, passport carrier, it is all too easy to hand over one’s passport without even thinking about it.  Which is a long-winded and rather convoluted way of saying that this trip has been hanging over me for some time, casting its own dampener upon my forthcoming adventure.

Val also takes care of the planning and admin – the research, the booking, all the rest – and of course she has taken that on for this trip as much as ever.  Though in this case her responsibility has gone as far as booking me as far as Thessaloniki airport, and even I can manage that comfortably enough: get to the airport, get on a plane (though I did have to negotiate what described itself as “the biggest automated check-in system in the world!”)

Giovanni, who is (I think) the founder of Second Tree, had assured me that it would be too difficult to get from the airport all the way to the other side of the city to the bus station in time to get the afternoon bus, but various things made this relatively easy: I was among the first into the terminal, through immigration, re-united with my bag, and out again: fifteen minutes, tops.  I then swiftly circumvented the problem of getting across the city by taking a taxi.  Easy-peasy.

The bus station was a pretty impressive circular building, though somewhat gone to seed, but it worked efficiently, and I was booked, with plenty of time, onto the next bus to Ioannina.  It’s true I did have to be told off for the crime of trying to take my kit bag onto the bus with me, and the bus turned out to have even more cramped seating that the Easyjet plane – so more bruised knees – but I was nearly done.

Nearly done except a three hour bus ride, past some pretty astonishing snow-capped mountains (who’d’ve thought?) and through masses of impressively built tunnels.  But then Ioannina.  I had kept in touch through the magic of WhatsApp with various Second Tree contacts, but there was still a lot of confusion that I might really be arriving so early.

But, to my surprise and relief, it was done, and the black cloud that had been hanging over me lifted.  There was a flurry of introductions – most of which I have forgotten – and I was in the volunteer’s house.  Of which more later.

And not a mention, you might have noticed, of Coronavirus, the topic which seems to have occupied the whole world.  For myself, a bit of avoidance of the occasional cougher, a bit more hand-washing, and the occasional squirt of one of those anti-viral foams (which in itself is noteworthy, as my usual response is that I am building up my immunity).  And very few masks, apart from some at the bus station, but that might have been as much against the diesel fumes as anything else.

And everyone here is pretty dismissive.  Which is either sensible or insane.  Time will tell.