You blinked and I’m home again.
Never have I felt so grateful to see England’s green and soggy hills!
We had been self isolating in LA for a little while, anxiously absorbing the news and trying to get an idea of where things were going, weighing up what we should do, and in the end we decided to risk the airport and the flight home, in case the borders closed and we’d be stuck on the other side of the world from all of our loved ones.
The British Airways team were amazingly accommodating and waved any fees to change our flights, so we joined mum on her flight home. The airport was strangely normal. Queues to check in, bars and restaurants all full. A few people were in masks, a couple in full hazmat get-ups, but the majority following the advice not to take valuable masks from the hospitals and medical teams who need them. We kept our distance as much as possible (no easy task when you have a toddler who insists on walking everywhere and saying hello to everyone!) and the plane felt like business as usual.
We took the last flight out. Lily was exhausted by the time the wheels left the ground, fell right to sleep on the boob and cuddled all the way home (a cuddle is a rare treat nowadays so I tried to savour every second!)
We landed the following afternoon and drove down to the countryside to restart our self isolation period. It’s taken us a couple of days to get sorted, battle the baby’s jet-lag, remove all of mum’s breakables from reach and find a way for everyone to work from home and co-exist as one big family. Something I know lots of you are struggling with too, so I’ll try and work on some tips for working from home. We all run our own businesses so keeping out of each other’s hair is bound to have its challenges!
As sorry as I was to leave LA, I feel an enormous sense of relief to back on home turf. Back with family. Back with the dogs!
It’s unclear if the UK is going to go into lockdown, we were amazed to see pubs overflowing with people, music playing and laughter filling the streets. My social media feeds tell a different story of restaurants going out of business and families shuttered away, so it seems that some are taking the threat more seriously than others.
How are things with you?
