I’ve just seen that Matt Hancock has said something today about cancelling summer holidays Timothy - if yours was a UK booking this might have been a factor in the cancellation.
Maybe you can sue him!
It was a UK booking but due to the current stance of the Charente Maritime Prefet they couldn’t have come anyway. Statements like that from Hancock are bloody unhelpful, unnecessary and contradictory when many airlines and ferry companies are taking bookings for as soon as the beginning of June!
I just wish there was clarity about people coming into France (from belgium and germany for us). We have lost all our April, May, June bookings now, but on paper we are still fully booked until October with only 50% french. So we need to know if the Swiss, Germans and Belgian clients came come, so can seek French clients if they can’t. …
I know the EU are discussing a ‘Europe wide’ open border for the summer to include the UK but I doubt any decision on this will be made for several weeks. Poor old Greece is ready for the summer season with everything open but no one can get there!
It will be interesting if there is an alliance of healthy countries allowing movement in between them, and then similar for the badly infected countries. It seems to be under discussion.
Is he saying sour cream or salad cream? Sorry, I’m a Yank and it usually takes me a good 15-20 minutes before my brain can unscramble “Britainese”. 
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I understand that some people rely on bookings to exist/survive but I don’t understand why you would want to increase the movement of people for the sake of a ‘holiday’ this year when it would increase the risks for both parties. Holidays should be the very last thing on people’s minds. Lockdown was implemented with good reason and just because there has been an easing of it to help the economy should not include travelling unnecessarily. Let us get this into perspective…thousands have lost their lives and may continue to do so for some time. Holiday?
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Thanks for that Gillian, ever thought of a job promoting tourism? 
Seriously though, what do you suggest we do to earn a living if people can’t come on holiday or is it simply a case of ‘tough shit’?
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It isn’t a case of ‘tough shit’ but more a case of riding out the storm as best we can without exacerbating the situation. Travelling to and from other areas unnecessarily, which going on holiday would be, should just not happen this year. Covid 19 will impact on everybody in some way or another. Owning a gite is no different from owning a bar, restaurant or having a trade.
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And what if it’s not just “this year”? Do you advocate the closure of all leisure facilities in permanence - bars, cafés, restaurants, as well as holiday accommodation? None of those things are ‘essential’ either. Tourism contributes about 8% of France’s GDP, which is more than the construction sector. There has to be a balance between the economic health of a country and physical health. And I don’t believe there will be a vaccine anytime soon. The common cold is a coronavirus and haven’t managed to sort that one in decades.
So the faster that a proper system of tracking can be developed the better. But in the meantime we can’t just all stay at home with no income.
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I once advised a big plastics recycling social firm - a business that employed people with severe learning disabilities. Going round the shop floor with the manager one day, he saw me glance at a young man I knew to be very severely disabled operating a huge bandsaw (slicing up half-metre wide sections of post-industrial plastic). The manager followed my look, and said: “He’s not allowed to boil a kettle at home!”
I feel that another consideration is how thoroughly has the accommodation been cleaned? Over the years I’ve stayed in many gîtes and have found that the standard of cleanliness has varied dramatically. So, as long as this terrible virus is still around, there’s no way that I would have the confidence that the accommodation had been cleaned to a standard where any threat of the COVID-19 virus had been eliminated. Nobody can guarantee that so I’ll be enjoying my staycations for the foreseeable future.
Wozza
Is he saying sour cream or salad cream? Sorry, I’m a Yank and it usually takes me a good 15-20 minutes before my brain can unscramble “Britainese”.
Salad cream.
I have trouble with some accents too. If we ever meet up I’ll bring a pen & some paper so we can write to each other across the table. 
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Except that if you have a trade such as being a plumber you can still work!
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There is another thread on that,
And it concerns me, so we have got a steam cleaner, and will reduce the crockery, soft furnishings and beddings etc in our gîte so we can rotate between weeks, ie half pillows for one guest, then they go out to be washed/aired and rest for a week. We will be asking guests to stick to the departure time so we have time to clean, and will be providing extra material for them also to clean high touch areas.
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Cafes and restaurants in green zones should be able to reopen from June 2… people will be allowed to depart for the summer holidays in July and August.
I saw that earlier Geof, no detail as yet and it does beg the question whether Brits will be allowed to enter France if the French can’t travel abroad.
We have different sets of bedding and towels for each set of guests, but, obviously we will not be able to dry clean the sofa fitted covers each time the gite is used.
We would have to put everything through the dishwasher and I am not sure that we would have enough time to do everything to both our satisfaction and that of our guests.
Also the sun lounger mattresses and cushion covers would have to be unpicked and washed. Impossible.