Saturday, 5 September: Up before the dawn with a hot cuppa coffee, opened my MacBook and on Facebook I’m shown a memory on this day from 2018.

All this past summer I remained hopeful, as I’m sure others have as well, that by this time Coronavirus would be well under control and life would be returning to normalcy. Instead we’re still under the cosh with Covid-19 daily spikes in the EU now higher than the very depths of the first wave. My last visit to Euro in September 2018 began today. Thank you for the reminder Facebook. Daiana and I were so filled with optimism that morning. We left Barcelona for Gatwick more than a week before Euro as we had to find some bits for our new house at the Deitling Antique Fare and have a few days holiday in Sussex and London. The Facebook post above was from a screen grab taken off the British Airways app on my iPhone. I was just up that morning at silly o’clock. At 3.40 I checked the app for our departure time. Thrilled by the idea of sitting in a plush leather BA first-cabin seat making ready to jet off to Gatwick I made a screen grab and posted it to fb. And there is be for posterity. And no, a memory of a glorious moment in life before Coronavirus.
No doubt things will get back to something resembling normalcy. Already there is chatter from the Centers for Disease Control for US States to prepare to receive the vaccine by 1 November. Once my little family has it we will feel more confident to fly internationally. Hopefully the rest of the world gets back to normal as well.