Anyone spotted Jaws off Southsea Beach this summer? | Blaise Tapp

It is the time of year when traditionally all the poor devils still working receive, on average, one out-of-the-office bounce-back for every two emails they send.
It's officially silly season for newspapers - the time when Great White Sharks are spotted in English waters Pic: PA Photo/thinkstockphotos.It's officially silly season for newspapers - the time when Great White Sharks are spotted in English waters Pic: PA Photo/thinkstockphotos.
It's officially silly season for newspapers - the time when Great White Sharks are spotted in English waters Pic: PA Photo/thinkstockphotos.

August is the month of flip flops and knock-off Ray-Bans.

It’s 31 days which are effectively written-off by managers everywhere unless they happen to run a business by a beach.

It is the month that journalists refer to as ‘silly season’ when ‘sightings’ of Great White Sharks off Southsea Beach are breathlessly detailed.

Of course, this year things are different.

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The news cycle is still in overdrive with genuine stories cropping up all over the place.

Rather than winding down, many businesses are currently restarting their activities in a bid to make up for months of lost revenue.

Meanwhile, millions are still getting back into the swing of a working day following a third of a year on furlough leave.

For many, this doesn’t feel like August, which is usually a guarantee of at least a week away from the grindstone.

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This year there are no such guarantees, given the huge uncertainty which has become part of our way of life since March, meaning that forward planning is a redundant quality.

Like many others, we are nervously waiting to see whether our annual trip away will actually happen, meaning that the excitement which usually accompanies the week before a big holiday is replaced with anxiety every time there is mention of yet another government announcement on a news bulletin.

I have lost count of the number of times that I have Googled the words ‘France and coronavirus’ or ‘France and travel restrictions’ over the past fortnight, during which time I have become well acquainted with the daily infection rates across The Channel.

In the grand scheme of things, not knowing for sure whether you will get to spend the week shouting at the kids from the kitchenette of a mobile home in rain-soaked (probably) Normandy isn’t that big a deal.

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It does, however, raise deeper questions about whether life as we know it will ever properly return to normal, particularly as we are yet to experience quite how big an impact the inevitable recession will have on our lives.

I have friends who have already cancelled trans-Atlantic holidays for 2021, such is their pessimism about the medium-term future.

As it stands, the four of us will be cramming most of our possessions into our motor ahead of a 35-minute journey under the sea in the coming weeks.

We have asked ourselves ‘is this the right thing to do?’ but it has been booked since January when coronavirus was an obscure disease in a Chinese city that not many people had previously heard of.

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Although the French infection rates are far from great, the country has stepped up its anti-virus measures, meaning that we are clinging onto the hope that the situation might improve.

The sensible option would be to resign ourselves to the inevitable and wait for either Prime Minister Johnson or President Macron to tell us that croissants and ridiculously smelly cheese are off the menu this year.

That would probably mean that we would either get our money back or the trip could be carried over until next summer, but who knows where we will be in 12 months’ time?

If our plans are halted then we may attempt to get some time away in this country, although it is highly debatable whether there will be anywhere left to book given that our coastal resorts are full to bursting.

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While the risks we face right now are clear for all to see, life has never been risk-free. That is why it is important that we at least try to retain a sense of normality, which means having things to look forward to.

Who knows what August will bring us but my guess is that we will need to recharge the batteries ahead of even more uncertainty in the coming months.

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