Thursday, 3 September: Here we are again. Euro Journal 2021. I’ve been here before. Many times in fact. I kept a basic itinerary that became a complete online journal including all my lead up travels, flights, hotel reservations and photos of London, the trip down to Folkestone and hundreds of photographs of the models in competition during my first visit to Euro in 2003. Sadly, I published it on a .mac platform that has long gone. And with it my Euro ’03 Journal. For the next ten years I kept a basic journal each year on my MacBook.
It wasn’t until Euro 2017 I began keeping more detailed journals. Not just flights and hotel reservations, but antidotes from previous Euros. There are many a story to be told.
As summer wanes and August afternoons are left behind for September Sundays I am normally going barmy as I tick off calendar days. Kick off. Day of. The morning we head out the door and make for Barcelona where we grab a flight to Gatwick. Breakfast in the airport vip lounge, lunch at The Clifton in Folkestone. The annual pilgrimage to Folkestone for Euro Militaire was a constant in my life I could depend on. If nothing else. It saw me through the crisis of ’08, the madness that was Los Angeles in ’09 and the return to normalcy and stability by 2012.
But the world is on end again. Coronavirus. It’s not looked this unsteady since the crisis of ’08. Daiana and I, and our new addition-our boy Tom – have remained in the State waiting out safe passage back to the EU. At the moment we’re still advises by the CDC to not travel internationally with a six month old.