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The lockdown restrictions here in Greece are still quite strict. If you want to go out into the streets during the day you first need to get permission. You can do this in two ways. You can use a text service, sending a text to a special number with details of why you are out or, you can have all your details written on a piece of paper ready to be handed to the police along with your passports should you get asked to do so. The fine for not having the necessary information on you when asked is 300 euro per person.

We have been using the second option and each time we leave the apartment have been listing, as required, our names, the time & date, our address and one of the permitted the reasons we are out of the apartment. These can be shopping, exercise, doctors visit etc.

The problem is that as we go out a couple of times each day, writing our note then throwing it away when we get home, the process becomes similar to writing lines at school. In the beginning, we used a crisp white sheet of A4 paper and our best handwriting. Recently though, it has been any old scrap of paper we can lay our hands on and scrawl that any doctor would be proud of. Truth be told, we have become complacent thinking that the whole process was a pain and anyway, the chances of ever getting stopped were tiny. Our complacency was about to bite us on the bottom!

On Monday we had been running in the morning and carried the obligatory bit of paper and passports in our bumbag. Later in the day, we wanted to go shopping for groceries so Karyo did yet another note and off we set.

The supermarket is around the corner from our apartment so we arrived, shopped and were heading back home less than half an hour later. As we crossed a road heading home, like mice walking into a trap we walked directly towards a stationary police car containing two policemen, one of whom beckoned us over.

My heart sank, immediately I knew we were in trouble and the policeman that got out of the car didn’t look too pleased. From this moment on I was on the back foot, everything was said or shouted in Greek of which my grasp, rather shamefully is still ‘where is the toilet’ and ‘I love you’ – none of which seemed particularly appropriate for the occasion.

The policeman was really aggressive, he asked Karyo for our permission to be out and Karyo started fumbling in his bag eventually producing our scrap of paper. The sight of our paltry evidence not surprisingly didn’t improve the mood of the policeman. He looked at it in disbelief, as if we’d handed him a turd, then proceeded to snarl that he wanted our passports. Karyo dipped back into his bag searching for something that I immediately knew was not there. It dawned on me with horror that after our morning run I had forgotten to put them back in the bag! After what seemed to be an age he looked at me and asked if I had them. At this point, for a reason I can’t explain, I found myself checking my own pockets, patting myself down like some really terrible actor looking for a miracle that was never going to happen. Then sheepishly having to admit to the policeman, via Karyo that they were back home.

It immediately occured to me that we were in big trouble and my usual charm and wit were not going to get us out of this one. All I could think of was that we had only come out for a bottle of milk and that this was turning into a very expensive shopping trip.

The policeman was really angry. Even without the advantage of language, I could see he was on a serious power trip. Later Karyo told me he was asking why we have no respect for him and was accusing us of laughing behind our masks. He said had we been stopped by the police in the UK with no identification on us we would have been beaten up. I think he was getting the UK mixed up with the USA but again, this was definitely not the right time to question his geography knowledge.

To his credit, Karyo did not retaliate and continued to speak calmly throughout. This, I have to say is the miracle of the whole incident. In normal circumstances, he is not known to be the one to easily back down in an argument. To date his big gob has had him barred from both the doctors and the local library – maybe they are stories for another time!

After what seemed like an eternity of getting shouted at in a foreign language by a crazed officer of the law suddenly, and not before time, the second policeman decided to get involved. Thankfully it seemed they had a good cop, bad cop, thing going on and it was now time for the good cop to calm the situation down.

Good cop took our scrap of paper off bad cop and started to quiz Karyo again but this time in a much calmer manner. Karyo says he pointed out that the paper didn’t look official but was more like a note you would pass to your girlfriend at school. Not likely in our case but rightly so, Karyo thought was a good idea to keep that snippet of information to himself. We were scolded as the scrap was not signed and told that not having our passports with us for identification was a serious crime.

The next thing we know, good cop and bad cop have walked a few meters away from us and are now having a heated discussion amongst themselves leaving Karyo and I standing there not knowing whether to wait patiently to hear our fate or just to leg it. We decided to wait.

We have no idea what was said. The bad cop was definitely up for throwing the book at us but for some reason, good cop seemed not to want to – maybe they were due off duty, didn’t want the paperwork or maybe they sensed that I was on the verge of breaking down into a blubbering wreck and took pity on us but eventually bad cop came back to us, as good as threw our scrap of paper at us and sent us on our way with a flea in our ear- shaken and well and truly told off but thankfully not the 600 Euro lighter that had seemed the inevitable end to this story just twenty minutes before. That will go down in the Dean/Angeloudis history book as one of our very lucky escapes!

The moral of this story? – Dont be a clever clogs, Follow the rules – the risks are real!