Still have some pictures left from last year’s summer holiday in France... On the way home from the Dordogne area, we and our friends stopped over in Paris on our train journey home, which actually was the stupidest idea ever. We’d just had 12 really chill days in the countryside, but then finished the holiday off with all the other tourists cramming the capital, just missing the hottest day ever recorded by 24hrs (+42,5 celsius/108,5F!!). Looking at these pictures now, they’ve taken on a different meaning, and made me for the first time miss the world before. To be able to travel to other places, or just simply hang out with friends by the river, or stopping somewhere for a good cup of coffee is not something we take for granted now, is it?

Oomoo had to (as part of his extracurricular homeschooling he does with two classmates, in lessons set up by the parents) write himself a letter from now, to when he started his school year six months ago. A letter from the future in other words. It’s very funny but also sad, and gives perspective on what we’ve just had to accept as our reality now. Imagine telling yourself back then that there would soon be a worldwide pandemic that would stop the world functioning from how you always known it. That hundreds of thousands of people would die from the disease, and in order to stem the spread, most countries would have to go into lockdown for months, and that you wouldn’t be able to see your extended family or friends. That you’d have to queue to buy food in the supermarket, and that for the first two weeks of locking down, the shelves would be mostly empty. That you would have to stay at home, but you were allowed out once a day (if you were lucky enough to live in a country that would let you), as long as you kept moving. The strange thing is, it turns out you won’t mind it, and that you’ll be happy enough to be slightly wary of society opening up again. That the time in isolation was like a well needed pause, with time for you to think about what or who actually is important in your life, which in itself means that you’re a lucky so-and-so to be able to sit there and ponder over it in the first place. That going into lockdown was relatively easy, but you know that what comes after is going to be harder, and weirder. So you might have to tell yourself it’s always darkest before dawn. That there surely will be a silver lining, and that this too shall pass. Cheesy, I know, but it’s the truth Ruth.