French Letter: Blasted Omicron means we’re stuck with Noël in Brittany

It was supposed to be a Christmas to remember. My wife and I haven’t seen our three-year-old grandson since 4 November 2019, when we were last in London. Zoom is all very well, but as a trans-generational experience, it barely rates as second-best – especially since Eden hardly knows who we are and finds it difficult to sit still for more than ten seconds at a time. 

But it wasn’t only that. My wife hasn’t seen her American family since the summer of 2018 and was looking forward to the arrival of eight or more of her siblings and cousins from New York for the Holidays. 

We were booked on the ferry from St Malo to Portsmouth on December 23, arriving just in time to spend Christmas day itself with friends in Wiltshire before heading off to south London, where our pals had leant us their luxury motorhome, parked in Crystal Palace. 

But you can guess the rest. The Omicron variant – which sounds like a thriller by Robert Ludlum – had Britain by the throat, forcing the Government to impose a lockdown in all but name and obliging France to pull up the drawbridge to returning Brits. 

We were stymied. There was no guarantee that Brittany Ferries would operate during the latest emergency, and even if they did, we would have been suffocated by paperwork and the daily requirement to take lateral flow and PCR tests. 

Just to put the tin hat on it, complete with full anti-Covid mask, the Americans have since let it be known that they may have to postpone their trip until the all-clear is sounded on Omicron, an eventuality as likely to occur over the course of the next few days as an announcement by Emmanuel Macron that he has decided not to seek a second term. 

Don’t get me wrong. I know there are thousands of people across the UK in a worse position than us. There will be those unable to visit their loved ones in hospital or care homes, to say nothing of those who are seriously ill and at risk of death. And the situation in France isn’t that much better. Even so, I am racked by guilt. 

Should we just have gone anyway, betting that the ferries would still be running, that we would somehow manage to secure, and pay for, multiple tests, that we wouldn’t actually catch Covid ourselves while partying and that the French would let us back in, after being persuaded that our visit home was “essential” and that there was no chance of our passing on the virus to the good folk of Brittany? 

Perhaps. But my days of “The Hell with it!” are over. 

As a foreign correspondent, I visited dangerous places at the drop of a hat. Today, aged 73, I find that my default position is to take the prudent course and to err on the side of caution. That way, I reckon, I might yet make it to 80. 

Even so, not seeing Eden after all this time is hard. He’s a lively boy, who likes to say Bonjour to me on Zoom, and it would be wonderful to get to know him. For my wife, meanwhile, another year without meeting members of her family face to face is deeply upsetting. 

But such is life, as Ned Kelly is supposed to have said as the hangman sprang the trap. Can you imagine how my column in two weeks’ time would have read if everything had gone horribly wrong and I found myself denounced as no better than Boris Johnson? 

So… with Christmas now translated back into Noël and with our order placed for a top-end joint of beef from the tradibouch’ in our local market, what festive pleasures lie in store? 

Well, the French don’t really “do” Christmas – not in the sense that we understand it in Britain and Ireland. True, they may put up decorations and send out cards, but, really, their hearts aren’t in it. Come Boxing Day, they are back to porridge. 

The big family meal takes place on the 24th, complete with an exchange of presents, most of which will have been bought online on “Black Friday,” an American import that, in celebration of Christ’s birth, means a new mobile phone or an even bigger flatscreen tv on which to watch Netflix. 

Come Christmas morning, having dutifully spoken to my son and Eden, as well as to my sister and her family in Northern Ireland, the wife and I will no doubt put on our CD of carols from King’s College, Cambridge, followed by another old faithful collection, A Roomful of Christmas, on which my brother-in-law Matt plays piano.

I would visit our neighbours, Jean-françois and Claudine to wish them the compliments of the season. But they won’t be there. They will be staying with their daughter up the coast. 

Old Jean-Yves opposite won’t be around either. He is in his care home in Begard, not entirely clear as to who he is. And Cécile down the road, whose husband Justin died in August, aged 46, will be with her family in Angers.

Which only leaves lunch, which promises to be rather special, enjoyed with some excellent red from the Aude, followed by Christmas pudding (imported three months ago from Ireland) and some splendid-looking Stilton in port.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and, Dear God, if such a thing is possible, a Happy New Year.