Boris puts UK tourists to the test

JAS YOU read this the decision has been made for Richard and me by our government – exile in France, where we’re currently on holiday. No chance of getting a train, plane or boat back before this morning’s impossible-tomeet 4am quarantine deadline. We’re not due back until early September when two weeks’ isolation now awaits us.

Or should we just stay put? If we go home we’ll be stuck inside the house, forbidden even to go to the shops, for a whole fortnight. How do people manage that if they don’t have online supermarket deliveries, which we do not?

I imagine that most of our neighbours are away themselves, trying to get an August change of scene either abroad or in some British pastoral idyll.Anyway it seems incredibly nesh to rely on others shopping for you if you are perfectly fit and well; heaven knows there are many people who genuinely need to shield and deserve help. Until lockdown restrictions were relaxed, Richard was happily driving around delivering groceries to elderly or unwell local folk. It goes against the grain to expect anyone to do the same for us when we’re both fit as fiddles.

So we’ll stay here in the south of France where we can shop and visit local restaurants sitting outside in lovely courtyards full of fig-trees, with views of the Med sparkling blue and shiny between the palm trees. Not a hardship – but it still rankles.

We’re living oh-so-sensibly in France. Everyone wears masks, even in the streets.We restrict our movements to our immediate environment (which is rural and quiet) and we drove down to Provence via the Channel Tunnel, avoiding risky airports, planes or even ferries.

So, given that we’re obeying all the rules, not to mention common sense, wouldn’t it be more logical for us to have a test when we arrive back in Blighty? And then another one a week later, just to be sure? Or is that too simple for our government to grasp?

Don’t wait up... we may be some time.