Novelist separated from her husband
A NOVELIST who returned home to launch her book has been separated from her husband at their second home in California because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Carmarthen-born Liz Unser, 76, and her husband Larry, 74, spend half the year at their home in Roath, Cardiff, and the rest at their second home north of San Francisco.
After hopping back and forth over the Atlantic for the last 16 years, Liz and Larry normally make the journey together, but with the launch of her debut novel, Winter Into Spring, she returned home early and arrived the day before the UK Government announced lockdown.
The couple have now spent the past two months apart and are uncertain when they will be able to reunite.
“The book was going to be launched in March back here so I wanted to come back a couple of weeks early. I flew back on the last day before lockdown. My husband was going to come back on April 14 but all air flight was cancelled,” she said.
“There was a lot of discussions about even if there were flights would it be sensible or safe to fly. Usually you’re cocooned with a couple of hundred other people on the plane and passing people in the airport.
“I have a medical background so when I flew, even though it was before the official lockdown, I wore a mask and was incredibly careful and when I came home I went into a 14 day self-imposed quarantine because it made sense and I can’t believe people haven’t already been asked to do that.”
While the couple are separated by continents, they are doing their best to stay in touch and they talk every day.
Liz said: “Thanks to the wonders of modern technology it’s been quite doable, we WhatsApp and video chat every day which can be frustrating because we’re not doing much at the moment.
“It was very hot last week in California and he’s just started playing golf again because the golf courses have reopened. I was saying there’s beautiful sunshine here. He’s a Californian man so he doesn’t like the cold weather so that’s one of the reasons we go to California in winter but he loves Cardiff and has lots of friends here.
“We’re both on our second marriage and have eight grandchildren between us, four on either side of the Atlantic.
While air travel still remains uncertain, tentative steps have been made as for when the aviation industry can restart, so Liz and Larry hope to be reunited as soon as possible.
Liz said: “We’ve talked a lot about when it would be sensible and it turns out the first flights are starting up beginning of July so he’ll come back to Wales then and will go into quarantine for two weeks when he gets back because it’s sensible.”
Liz’s book, Winter
Into
Spring, is now available in physical and digital formats. She took up writing after retiring as a social worker.