Visitors!

......to my bird table. This pair are regulars.  The one on the right is    standing in the water bowl!  The messy edge on the round table is lino that I stapled on to stop seed and food falling off.  It needs a refurb!  I have bird feeders for the smaller birds hanging in a nearby small tree where the gulls cannot reach.  The patchy bit of garden to the right is an area where I planted wild flower seeds last August.  It already has one unknown pink thing in flower, two corn marigolds, and one cornflower!

Talking of visitors, it seems that there are STILL caravans and cars with those top boxes heading down to Cornwall this evening - it would have been the start of the Easter holidays if schools hadn't closed early.  When those schools did close, a lot of visitors headed into Cornwall, thinking they might have a quiet holiday.  Many were turned away.  But the Government closed Hotels and bigger establishments, but left loopholes so that small B&Bs and AirBnB people had no clear 'guidance'.  Too late (they needed to have said it before they closed the schools!) the Govt said that driving hundreds of miles just for a holiday wasn't 'essential travel'.  Some of these smaller establishments continued to advertise and take bookings.  Apparently the police are out now trying to turn people back.

Clear guidance or fuzzy guidance for those wanting to sell accommodation to tourists, those tourists themselves surely must have understood that holidays were't 'essential travel'.  Apparently Boris is going to spell it out in his letter to us all (costing £5 million) - but it doesn't seem to have arrived yet - last week they said it would arrive 'next week'.

The local residents (as well as tourist bosses, MPs and Cornwall Council) have expressed strong feelings and sent strong messages to tourists to 'stay away'.  But some are still coming.  They will experience a lot of hostility from the locals.  And some locals who live within walking distance of beaches will feel unable to go if the beaches are full of holidaymakers, because of the social distancing rules.

This pandemic is bringing out the best in many people, but the worst in others - locals are using the word 'selfish' and much stronger language for these tourists.  We only have one big hospital with just 15 intensive care beds; we also have a lower proportion of deaths due to the virus compared to other parts of the country - and  Cornwall residents want to keep it that way.  They fear the visitors will bring infection with them and overpower the capacity of our hospital.

Edit: I forgot to say that today Cornwall Council have given out a special email address that they want locals to use to report any establishments where holiday makers are staying.  The man from the Council said 'We can easily spot hotels and close them down, but the smaller establishments are difficult to see; but locals will know. and we need their help'.