Pen Lleyn, heddiw

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Clouds from Fairview

    Started the day just outside Bangor. Figured I'd be kept local. No - next job: Nefyn.  But as we say, when you're marching you're not fighting, so off to Pen Lleyn, about an hour's drive in the sunshine I go.

    Parked up near Cab 4 at the roundabout as you leave Nefyn towards Pwllheli, I had crackers and cheese for lunch and pondered the silence - tinnitus, as I've said elsewhere, notwithstanding.

    Normally at this time of year, this stretch of road would be as busy as you can imagine, but now it's just the occasional noise of local people driving to work (those that have to) and the odd fast bike taking advantage of the empty roads that punctuates the background sound of birdsong and sea breeze.

    The homemade signs warning tourists and second-home owners to turn back home are still up all over the place after that crazy first weekend when people came from all over England to 'escape'. As are hundreds of rainbows and purple heart placards, on walls, fences, in peoples' front windows - rainbow Welsh flags doubling up on Gay Pride and NHS support are springing up everywhere.

    People I meet now seem much more open to each other - closer, metaphorically speaking, than before. Doing the right thing with good humour is the new normal. It's all a bit British, really - we are on the whole pretty good at queueing and waiting and making light of it.

    The thing that gladdens my heart most though, is that the rich and privileged have no native advantage in this situation - all are equally vulnerable. None can escape or hide.

    After this is over and it will be; as many have said in the last week or so in the media, things will be different. Of necessity. What kind of different is up to us - this disastrous neo-liberal, populist experiment that we have recently sleepwalked right into has to be finished as soon as is humanly possible. There is no option but to change, or we sign everyone's death warrant.

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