Brigid Keenan

Brigid Keenan, British author of the best-selling Diplomatic Baggage: The Adventures of a Trailing Spouse, accompanied her diplomat husband around the world for nearly 40 years — which, she says, turned out to be good practice for being locked down while far from home.

On February 26 — about a hundred years ago, or was it in another life? — my husband “AW” and I put our car on a cross-channel ferry and drove through France to a place called Elche, in Spain. We chose this destination, an extraordinary oasis probably planted by the Carthaginians, because AW is writing a book about date palms. Afterwards, we headed back north into France, to our little house in a village not far from Montpellier.

We had planned to stay about a week: sort out the small garden, clean the rooms, get it ready for summer and then leave. AW was booked on a Buddhist retreat in Scotland; I had to concentrate on the monthly column I write for The Oldie magazine.  (I was looking forward to interviewing actress Sarah Miles, the long-ago star of “Ryan’s Daughter” and a rumored sequel in which she will play a grandmother.) But Fate had other ideas: within a few days of our arrival, the whole world turned upside down, with all travel, commitments, appointments and engagements abandoned.

Almost two months later, we are still here — locked down, with one change of clothes each — in our French valley.