New Hope!

A picture taken a couple of weeks ago now.   It seemed to sum up the news that there is now a little more hope on the horizon.

I feel that I have neglected this space unwittingly.   When the whole pandemic situation started, I was determined that I would try and carry on posting regardless, ( I was always slightly obsessed with things like the plague as a child – one of the reasons we went to Eyam a couple of years back!)  and hoped to write enough so that  I could look back here at the strange time we spent “locked up” and remember all the minutiae.   As it turned out, that didn’t happen (although I don’t think we are going to forget a lot of it funnily enough).   There have been times when I haven’t felt like recording anything on any form of internet space that I “own” – for those of you used to reading about where we’ve been and what we’ve seen then it wouldn’t have been that interesting in any event!!   As it turned out, I have used my other Instagram account Winchester Eats to help promote those in our local food community during what has been (and what continues to be) a very trying time for them…

So almost a year has passed, and now we have the promise of things gradually opening up again.   Who knows when we will travel next, but suddenly that doesn’t seem like the priority it once was.  For a while (when we can) our priority will be seeing the friends and family we have missed for so long, and catching up on all the celebrations that were postponed.   Obviously, we are not out of the woods yet, but when the freedom we once took for granted comes back to us, I am going to relish every single second (Oh, and I have also decided I am going to make a concerted effort to say no more often, and not do things I don’t need to or spend time with those that I am really not fussed about seeing!!  Time seems much so more precious nowadays!).

As much as homeschooling the five-year-old has been painful at times, I am sure we will look back at these as precious extra days spent with our little ones.   We have been able to get the school work out of the way and then head outside to the garden much of the time.   I don’t include many photos where my children are identifiable (not that he’s actually that identifiable in this picture for obvious reasons :D) but the picture below demonstrates him at his happiest, and also what he has looked like for much of the Winter! (I definitely think teachers deserve to be paid a hell of a lot more for what they do for the academic side of things)!

Thankfully the older two have been a complete breeze when it comes to online education, and thanks to their school’s amazing efforts I have only been needed to prop them up (and endlessly feed them) during stressful mock exams.    Apart from the poor people directly affected by this awful illness and those that have had to fight to treat them, it’s children I have felt sorry for the most for what they have missed out on, especially teenagers at what should be a really exciting and new stage in life.  Mind you, it’s been nice not having to worry about that side of things too…

One thing that has really struck me personally out of all of this though?   Finally.   After a good few years of seriously regretting our repatriation (especially for that first 18 months on our return in a part of the country we didn’t know at all), we are all (for the time being at least) happy to be “home”.   I really feel for those friends who are not sure when they will see their loved ones again, that must be truly awful.

But for us now the days seem lighter (it’s was still daylight at 5.45 pm today!) and it feels that the Spring is almost here, and with it much happier days ahead hopefully.   Everything crossed!