The Future, Near and Far

It was never my intention to write about the pandemic in this weekly blog. I'm not a doctor, not a nurse, not a scientist nor a medical researcher either. I'm just a guy from Brooklyn who's now living in this English port city and observing the things around me. However, since there are no bistros or bars to visit, no museums or landmarks to explore, I'm left with few options. Every week for the past three months I've considered locking down this blog. We'll see.

I was pleased to see that the Liverpool Football Club won the Primary League Championship for the first time in 30 years. Good stuff. The thuggish behavior of those who consider themselves fans, throwing bottles at police, and setting fire to the historic Liver Building at Pier Head? That's bad stuff. 

Equally upsetting is the fact that almost no one I passed on the streets this weekend was wearing a facemask. More bad stuff. 

This showed up in my email this morning:

"After 15 grueling weeks, New York City has finally turned another important corner in our fight against COVID-19. Working together, we’ve flattened the curve and reached Phase 2 out of 4 in our reopening plans.

Phase 2 includes the return of hair salons/barbershops, in-person retail, and real estate firms.

It also includes the launch of the City’s Open Restaurants program, which allows eligible venues to serve patrons on sidewalks, curb lanes, plazas, and open streets while following social distancing, hygiene, and other health guidance.

Outdoor dining is something that the City Council and I have been strongly advocating for and will help our city’s restaurant industry and its employees get back on their feet more quickly."

This statement comes from New York City Council Speaker, Corey Johnson.

There's a rumor of a similar plan to encourage local bistros and bars to promote outdoor dining here. Alfresco. I hope it works, but I'm less than optimistic that it will. Although we've just had a great deal of warm sunshine, I wonder if Merseyside has the climate to support an outdoor life. And can restaurants turn a profit with just a fraction of their normal customers? Will social distancing work? I walked along Bold Street and Castle Street yesterday and saw nothing like this getting ready to happen. 

So, as usual, speculation is the name of the game. 

Is the Lessened Lockdown a Letdown?

Not that much in my daily routine has changed with the partial lifting of the lockdown. I still do my food shopping at the same nearby supermarkets, go for a daily walk around the City Centre, and wear a facemask on my chin that I can pull up inside stores if I get too close to others. On the high street yesterday, very few people had facemasks.  

Who is that masked man?

A lot of restaurants in Liverpool have reopened for takeaway and deliveries. Is this new model working? One place near me had special, large boxes made up that look as if they're expecting to feed an infantry battalion. I pass this place every day and I've never seen anyone collecting food there. On the other hand, the nearby McDonald's has a steady flow of bicycle delivery people moving in and out. I'm not planning to have food delivered, especially a Big Mac. 

I want the full restaurant experience. 

I want to go in and get a table by a window, play with the menu, pretend deep thoughts as to which glass of inexpensive house wine to order, and exchange surface charm with the server. How enjoyable would it be to sit so far away from other dinners that I could not eavesdrop on their small talk? And what about the servers staring over their masks at masked customers? Does any of this sound like fun to you? 

Too close for comfort?

Also, I like to cook—not in this miserable, tiny kitchen I have now, but I do like to cook. I mean that I don't need to eat in a restaurant just because I'm hungry. 

An empty Mercado de Feria in Seville.

I have no family in Liverpool and I'm not part of a social group. So in restaurants, I'm usually on my own. That's not painful for me. I'm used to it and I'm comfortable in my own company. I wonder if in this brave new world I will be able to get my twice-a-month cheeseburger (Five Guys) or my Pizza Margarita (Rudy's on Castle Street)? Or will they stay a takeaway-only thing?  

A Few More Questions

I hope you don't mind if I ask you a few more questions, Edo?

   Go ahead, Edo. 

Are you happy living in Liverpool?

   Happy? Happy as opposed to what? Unhappy? Maybe.

Can you give me a yes or no? You seem to say "maybe" a lot.

   I say maybe when maybe is the answer. Are you happy? 

Well, since I'm you, I would have to answer . . . maybe.

   Okay, maybe I'm a little unhappy right now. It's not a happy time, is it? Not in Liverpool, not anywhere. This morning an egg slipped out of my hand and broke on the kitchen floor. It got on my shoe and I had to use four or five sheets of paper towels to clean things up. Yesterday, I stepped back to make room for a passing bus. I tripped on a rock and fell backward and broke the bottle of Rioja wine I had just bought. And some of the wine got on my shoe. Yes, the same shoe. And then there's this damn virus that has all the restaurants, pubs, and shops here in lockdown. 

Hmm. You sound clumsy as well as unhappy. Do you think you would be happier (and maybe less clumsy) if you were somewhere else, somewhere other than Liverpool?

   Maybe. If it were somewhere without the pandemic and the lockdown. But I don't know where that is.

There you go again with the maybes. 

We're living in a maybe kind of world, Mister.

*  *  *

Deliveroo and Uber Eats bike riders are bringing restaurant food to the self-isolating.

We are now in the third month of the pandemic lockdown in the UK? I think that's so, or have I lost track of time? Tomorrow is June 15th, and there will be a partial lifting of the lockdown. We'll have to see how that goes. I'm not enthusiastic. 

Every day I go out for a walk around the City Centre. This is some of what I see:

I see lots of buses, but very few people riding in them.

I see that most people are wearing face masks now. Not all, but most.

I see groups of teens racing around the empty streets on their bikes, speeding, doing wheelies. It looks like fun.

I see some restaurants doing a controlled takeaway business. Pret A Manger had a sign in the window saying that they would allow only 6 customers in at a time. Starbucks is allowing only 4. 

I see that the City Council has been taking advantage of the lack of traffic and fixing the streets and the infrastructure.

And I see far too many homeless people. There were homeless people everywhere I've been, but there seems to be more of them in this Merseyside port city. 

There are different types of homeless people now: cripples, mentally challenged, drunks, druggies, the young, the old, people using dogs as props, and hustlers—those who seem to have a spot reserved and keep regular hours.  I don't know how many are actually people without a place to live. I've heard stories that some work for a Fagin-like crime boss. I figure there are true examples out there of all types of modern beggars, but no one can convince me that sitting out in the cold, in the rain, is a pleasant or sensible way to spend the day to make a small living.

In NYC there are homeless people too.

Mostly, the homeless in Liverpool are not aggressive when asking for money. That's good because I pass a dozen or more of them here on every short walk. With the lockdown, sometimes they are the only people on the street. 

Not Quite Irish Enough

The Andalucian city of Seville is an attractive harmony of Mudéjar architecture, a mix of Moorish, Arabian, and Gothic styles. There are historic landmarks, of course, and the occasional ultra-modern construction (common in Europe now), but the entire inner city is lovely. 

The Metropol Parasol (locally called Las Setas) was a 10-minute walk from my front door. 

The day before I arrived in Seville in October 2018 the temperature hit 38 degrees Celcius. The day after I left in June 2019 it hit 38 again. That's 100-plus degrees Fahrenheit. Seville is the hottest city in Europe. Most of the year, that's a plus. If I'd been able to stay in Spain, I planned to move to Malaga or Valencia in order to add the Mediterranean to my stock photography coverage. I did not leave Spain because of the climate. Healthcare insurance was my undoing. Without healthcare insurance, I could not qualify for a residency visa. 

I'm gonna stop right here. I would need 30 more pages to try to explain all the dos and don't, the step by step, the endless reasons why I could not settle in Spain. And it's possible that I am wrong about some of it. Was it a crushing disappointment? Would I rather be living in Spain than in the UK? Not really. I'm not a sunshine beachgoer, and I don't speak much Spanish. (I speak more Spanish than Merseyside Scouse, however.) I like both Spain and the UK. And I could, of course, go to a beach here in Liverpool, but that would mean dipping my toes into the frosty Irish Sea. 

I took this picture in February.

As things began to look hopeless in Seville, I packed and flew to Ireland, hoping that I could settle there. Unfortunately, I could not make that happen either, even though I hold Irish citizenship.  

Most of Ireland is far too expensive now. I took the train from Dublin to Sligo, the home of my ancestors. Sligo is a pleasant little sleepy city on the west coast just below the Ulster border. Although W. B. Yates was not born in Sligo, he grew up there and is considered their native son.

The Yates Memorial in Sligo.

A local real estate office took my information and told me they would call if something came up. The message that I read on the broker's face told me nothing was going to come up. I liked it in Sligo, but after a week, I rode the bus to Galway, a much larger, hipper, happening locale. 

In Galway, waving my Irish passport around proved both fruitless and frustrating. Navigating the bureaucracy in Galway was hopeless. I suspected that there were two problems: my age and a general, unstated policy that Ireland would like to slow down immigration. A friendly rental agency and my hotel manager told me that, and they both suggested Liverpool. With an Irish passport in Liverpool, I am both part of the Special Relationship and still able to come and go from EU nations as I please. So here I am. 

I understand the shopping baskets on the bikes. The hats are a Celtic mystery.

If the pandemic lockdown is still in place next week, and I'm sure it will be, I guess I will talk some more about Liverpool.

Stay safe.