Day 47

Wednesday April 7, 2021

Mark:

Somehow there’s still very much a sense of fun in the apartment, although I’m starting to feel it’s a bit strained. An outside observer wouldn’t have a clue though. All they’d see is Sarah and Maja being best friends, as I look on and see them merely playing at being best friends. There’s a manic energy in the place as Sarah constantly performs her new song and dance routine. She also asks me again if I’ll be ready to practice some bass with her later on. I say of course I will. I won’t. Almost everyday for around a week she’s been telling me we’ll do a rehearsal. I’ve got myself all ready for, it made sure to get back in touch with the repertoire, then it’s been cancelled, or simply just not happened. I’ve given up being prepared.

But anyway, who needs bass and vocal rehearsals when one of you could be dressing up as a giant chicken? Yep. Sarah’s chicken costume arrives in the mail today and she can’t wait to try it on. Cue more hysterical scenes of, ‘We’re all best friends here.’ Then, costume on, she decides to go one stage further. She’s going to go out to the shop. Dressed as a chicken. Of course she is. Folks, that’s how wacky and zany we are round here.

Later in the evening, things have calmed down. The fun has slowly seeped through the walls but we’re still all friends here. No hard feelings and all that. Let’s talk. Frankly.

We sit around on high stools in a triangle in the main room and it’s quickly and quietly agreed that we should move on. As and when we want to of course. No pressure. But it’s started to feel like it lately with Sarah asking us when our big move is going to happen. This has begun to feel less like friendly interest and more like a hint. She wants her apartment back. Fair enough. It’s hers and for her to do what she wants with. We tell her we’ve been looking at options and, although we could possibly just leave and go, it really doesn’t look that viable. We tell her we’ve looked at a lot of other countries and it all looks complicated due to corona. ‘Oh that’s rubbish,’ she barks back. ‘Corona’s a scam, it’s a hoax.’ You know, have that viewpoint if you want, but saying that won’t help when a borderguard is telling you you’re not coming into the country. No matter how much we try this argument, no ice gets cut with Sarah at all. ‘If you want to go somewhere, just go,’ she says, voice rising to shrill. ‘Don’t let Corona stop you. That’s pathetic.’ ‘Yeah, but try telling that to someone when…’ I give up. You can’t argue with this.

One of the things we have decided is to stay in the UK until the world is ready for travel again. The UK’s travel ban is set to be lifted on May 17. We could wait and see how the world’s changed by then. We’ve been thinking we could stay here as long as we wanted as long as it was clear we had a plan to move on when it was possible but, without saying it out loud, it’s quite clear Sarah is thinking of us being here for just another two weeks max. ‘There’s loads of places round here you could go,’ she says breezily. Hint hint. Been there, done that. There isn’t.

We finish the conversation very amiably with all best wishes raining down on us from Sarah, but we really do have to start thinking about a very real plan of moving on. And very soon. We return to our room and have a chat about things for a while. One of the topics we touch on is Brexit with Maja having suddenly developed a new curiosity of and how it works with Ireland and the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. She starts to ask a few searching questions. ‘Ireland is in the EU, right?’ ‘Right.’ ‘And Northern Ireland is UK right?’ Right. ‘There’s no hard border between them and people from Northern Ireland can go to Ireland and live there?’ ‘Right.’ Where’s she going with this? ‘Well, Northern Ireland is UK, so if people from Northern Ireland can live there, can’t anyone from the UK do the same?’ Oh damn. Lightbulbs everywhere. Before I’ve fully realised what she’s getting at she goes right for it. ‘Couldn’t we just move to Ireland?’ I’m hit by the sudden realisation that she really might just be right. 

Right. If you’re from the UK or Ireland, or are familiar with either or both, you can probably skip this next bit or skim through it. But I know there will be readers for whom the issues and geographies of the UK and Ireland, not mention Brexit, have held little significance, so I feel some kind of potted explanation here is necessary. To be fair, Maja is still coming to terms with the fact that there are four countries in this country – England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, all centrally governed from London in the UK, but each with their own parliaments. The latter of these countries shares an island with The Republic of Ireland, from here on to be referred to as Ireland. Northern Ireland will be referred to as Northern Ireland.

When the UK left the European Union, for our purposes, we’ll say for various political reasons it was decided to keep Ireland more or less as the one trading entity it had been, and it was also declared a common travel area – CTU. This meant that the peoples of the two countries could continue to come and go without hindrance as they had before. This means that, with Northern Ireland being UK, this CTU also extended to the rest of the UK; many Irish people live and work in the UK and vice versa. And of course, we share, or at least use the same first language. OK, Ireland does have its own language, but you know what I mean. We’re starting to get a little excited now as this really begins to take shape in our minds, as I hope it is now starting to take shape in yours. We research a little deeper and come up with the answers we thought and hoped we would come up with. Maja is European. Ireland is still in the European Union. Maja can live and work there. I’m in the UK and have lost my previously easy European living and working rights but, with the CTU, I can move to, and live and work in, Ireland. Maja looks up from her latest mini research project as she realises she’s negotiated the last hurdle. ‘This is it,’ she says. ‘We can move to Ireland.’ Wow. For the first time, it feels like we might actually have reached a solution. At any rate, we said we would not be prisoners to the visa situation. We now seem to have found a way to completely break free from it.