We finally made it back to blighty despite most flights being cancelled. The departures board said it all:

We took one last look at Colombo’s airport filled with the recorded sound of monks chanting invocations against the plague.

We felt sad that we would have to leave Sri Lanka in such an abrupt way.  However, things were closing down all around us. A bar was open but all other eateries were closed and an apologies notice stated that the remaining staff was occupied in preparing airline food:

We would have preferred to fly to Italy but this was quite impossible. We felt that although Italy may have, to date, had more victims than the UK it implemented stricter controls and legislation more rapidly while the UK’s PM was still bumbling along with ‘advice’ and recommendations. Indeed, the situation here was so worrying that the mayor of Bergamo no less, one of the hardest hit cities in Italy, made arrangements for his daughter in London to return home as soon as possible.

Our check in and flight from Colombo went without incident and we landed at a very deserted terminal three Heathrow. Passengers were almost immediately told by airport staff to socially distance themselves by three metres, (family members excluded). We’d already phoned for a taxi and, collecting our luggage made our way to the exit. Practically all were closed but there was a bar near the exit which was giving away plastic milk cartons. Clearly too much had been ordered for the ever scarcer clients of the airport. I wonder how many other eating and drinking places will have done the same rather than waste their supplies.

Our taxi drove along a semi-deserted M4 and M40 while the driver regaled us with plenty of details about the current situation in London. It’s odd to encounter a quarantine when you are in a foreign country but when you return to your country of birth and experience an eerie scene more redolent of a war situation (although without the black-out) it’s really eerie. Never, never before could I remember ever having come across a London so empty of traffic and of people. It was almost like certain Italian metropolises during the summer when the inhabitants have fled to mountain and sea for their vacations. Except that there weren’t even tourists to fill the emptied districts.

Today is a beautiful day with crisp blue skies and a golden light. What are we to do with our permitted exercise walk? How will the corner shop be organized? Our street is so silent: no noise of car engines starting up, no sound of trains on the nearby lines, no roar of aircraft above. It’s all remarkably peaceful and so strange.

Unless stricter measures are introduced it’s almost a pleasant experience being here and certainly the air quality has improved. However, we miss Sri Lanka!