Coming out of winter

A bright green strawberry leaf, poking up from the winter debris in the garden.

Conversation - on the phone, by email or Zoom - is gently shifting to a sense that we can begin to look ahead again, albeit cautiously. Richard and I have booked a cottage in Northern Ireland for the last fortnight in August. Jack, Marianna and Frieda hope to make a visit to Greece in August, to stay with Marianna's parents.  Ruth and Josh are beginning to talk about possible visits to stay with friends in  North Oxfordshire, where they lived until last August.

Day to day, nothing much has changed as yet, and I am hoping that all the public messages about moving slowly will stay in place. This last lockdown has felt more difficult than the previous two: I've had more of a sense of drifting, more of a weary feeling.  Now we've had the vaccine, the wider vaccination programme is going well - thank you again, NHS! - and yet, daring to hope for sustained progress still feels a bit like tempting fate.