Now we are 6

Six years ago today we were on the A1, travelling north, towing Bri@n, who contained a few basic things to get us through the first week. Sometime early afternoon we got a phone call, just as we were passing the Angel of the North, confirming that we were now the owners of a new home. A house in a beautiful position on a windy ridge that needed an awful lot of work before it was comfortably habitable and could be future-proofed to meet our needs for our retirement.
That was ten days before the first Covid lockdown. Nothing could have prepared us, newly returned from South Africa where we had spent a tense month on holiday, planned a year before, for what would follow.
It feels very similar now – no idea what the next few weeks and months will hold; the world in uncertainty.
But, this time, rather than being in the grip of a virus of unknown origin, potency or magnitude, where everyone seemed to be on the same side, this time we are being held ransom by our dependence on Gulf Oil and a load of foreign megalomaniac men who are playing “my dick’s bigger than your dick” with the future of humanity.
And then, if there is anything left once they have finished, the joy of a world controlled by out-of-control machines, who have been learning from their own misguided and misaligned information.
Honestly, I despair. There is so much that needs saying, but I honestly do not have the strength or stamina any more to say it.