Apparently, not just goods. Passenger traffic too. but seems mostly unidirectional (UK > FR), see here
Obviously, you might find it harder getting back to the UK once you’ve left…
EDIT :
- Going home to a main residence
- Essential work in France
- Medical staff
I’m going to test that on the 24th with a ferry from Rosslare to Cherbourg. I flew to Dublin on the 1st with tickets to fly back on the 31st. When things started to accelerate I suspected the flight would be cancelled (which it was today) so I booked the earliest ferry slot I could as plan B. The speed this is evolving B may be obsolete by Tuesday and we won’t get home for months.
Pretty much, other closed EU borders are still open for commercial traffic.
Indeed, Brittany Ferries has cancelled all its routes including the Irish ones so Irish Ferries may well follow suit.
I’m certainly resigned to not visiting the house before the summer, maybe not even then and who knows what we’ll have to deal with when we finally get there.
I was hoping to get out just after Easter now my planned trip in June is looking dodgy 
Normally we’d expect all the trips to be planned well before now but we’d been somewhat lazy (or, rather, preoccupied by other stuff) and had only organised things as far as Easter.
Saves us unbooking things, I suppose 
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Eurostar are running one of two trains a day currently - yesterday one of them had about 22 people on it - used to be full with 900+ St Pancras is only open for Eurostar and its expected that the service will be closed very soon
I came home on Tuesday by eurostar, I think I was probably the only english person on the train and it was virtually empty. Maybe 10 people in the whole of my carriage.
Well said.
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One’s mental health is also as important as physical health. So if I chat to my neighbours over their garden fence from a distance of 3metres as I walk the dog up through the village then that is not flouting either the spirit or the letter of the restrictions. It is staying positive whilst adapting to what we need to do.
Nowhere does it say you have to be a miserable grouch while social distancing and self isolating. Do you object to people singing to each other from their balconies as well?
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We have been keeping our distance, but chatting over the fence, a smile and a wave is distant enough. Yesterday I went on a shopping trip, boulangerie - no queue, but people keep a respectful distance. And then I went on my chicken run! Set up via email I collected 'the cluckers’from a farm about 30km away. Back roads, alone in the car, armed with the attestation. Chickens were put in a box, money was in an envelope and all was exchanged keeping a distance of 2m…
The ladies are now happily munching away and should guarantee we don’t run out of eggs for the foreseeable future.
Tuesday’s shopping cart will include a sack of chicken feed from the supermarket.
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I’m in a strange Limbo-esque situation as my 94 year old mother is dying in hospital in the UK (not from corona virus) and I’m legally unable to visit her. Meanwhile, my two younger brothers have travelled to see her, but can’t because she’s in isolation. One of them is now in a dilemma about returning to support his young family in Brighton, whilst the other is unable to return to his home in Spain.
I feel guilty about my situation, even though I’m ‘absolved’ because one’s normal, or expected responsibilities have been (sensibly, and in my case fortuitously) removed by the French government. But also, one knows it’s essentially an anti-social, selfish act to travel internationally, especially via two flights and three airports, and doubly so in order to see a very elderly person.
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Dear Mark
Your feelings of helplessness, guilt and yet of inevitability around your Mum"s closeness to death are wholly authentic and, IMO, wholesome and beautiful in their uncontrived clarity.
Limbo is an appropriate word and I like your use of it. It’s the point of neither going nor staying, of motionless limpidity, void of the need to choose nor to act. It demands nothing of you, whatever you do or don’t do is as it should be, I feel.
What you describe as guilt is your experience of that void and helplessness, I think, and I also think your mother is there in it, and sees you, and knows you, however you each have characterised your temporal relationship with each other up to this point. The point of self-reproach is itself void. No need to hold on to it.
Your geographical position and your current state of consciousness is of no relevance now, and you can safely let that concern slip away, and be at ease. Your message reveals to me and to all who read it with an open mind and heart that everything that seems yet to be fulfilled is already done.
"All will be well, all will be well, and all manner of things will be well”. Your consciousness knows what you are able to face, and that you both will face it with joy and with the small but necessary cleansing sorrow too, and accomplish it.
My thoughts are with you both and with all those in your circle of concerns, as are all your friends at Survive France.
Peter
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Peter, very grateful for such a wise and thoughtful response. One never ceases to be surprised by the range of SF subjects and postings.
When I was a child, my mother taught me cooking and gardening; practising these arts each day is both a solace and a means of maintaining contact.
Time to go and sow…
Thanks again,
Mark
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The hackneyed phrase “uncharted territory”, despite it’s over use, is for me still the best description of our dilemma. Many of us are faced with decisions which our past experience does not equip us to make. Decisions which were unimaginabke only three or four weeks ago. We can just do the best we can.
What makes it even worse is people asking your advice - these may well be life and death decisions.
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Mark… I wonder if you could send a message (email I suppose) which someone could read aloud to your mother…
You say she is in isolation…so presumably you would not be allowed in to see her even if you could get there…
I’m just thinking that she might take some comfort from hearing your words, although spoken by someone else.
when I read stuff my Dad wrote, the way he phrased things, the words he used… I hear his voice in my head and it is as if he is standing beside me.
It might work similarly with your Mum… and it might help you …that she heard what you wanted to say … (whether she actually “hears” or not…)
my thoughts are with you at this very difficult time.
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I was out with the dog this morning, the Gendarmes pulled up alongside and asked if i had my paper with me, i showed them the paper and they wished me me a good day and drove on. They never even read it just saw a folded piece of paper and off they went. I have to say the Gendarme on the first bike was my next door neighbour.
Thanks very much Stella for your suggestion and sympathy. I’m in touch with my brothers by phone and they’ve relayed messages via the nurses. Obviously, the most important one was to let her know why I couldn’t be there and apparently she understood that.
I’m equally concerned about my mother surviving, but with a very poor quality of life. Although France doesn’t allow euthanasia, some people may be unaware that one can easily make a living will about cessation of treatment. I recently downloaded the form which, under the so-called Leonetti Law allows one to state while still healthy that you would not wish to kept alive if you were no longer able to make this decision. See:
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So did it work? Did you make it back?