Plans for 2022
When I look at that date, I can hardly believe it’s already 2022 – where do the years go?
But unlike the somnolence of last year – the lingering uncertainties around lockdown, movement and meeting people anywhere but on Zoom – it looks as if travel will be possible this year and I hope to take full advantage of that freedom. I won’t be taking it for granted; which is another way of suggesting that I intend to enjoy my travels, in the full awareness that travelling any distance anywhere outside my immediate neighbourhood is a privilege.
Thinking back to pre-Covid times, many of us used to travel routinely to and from work on early flights. In the last few years, I’ve also made good use of early planes to get to Schiphol before the morning rush. Now, so many meetings take place “remotely”, I can’t help but wonder why it took a national pandemic, and all the crises management that that implies, to get me to change my ways. It’s not about “having” to meet people in the flesh, though that is undoubtedly a wonderful thing; but so much of what we formerly assumed was indispensable to our way of doing business, has been revealed as a luxury, a thing to appreciate and enjoy, and hopefully take more carefully than we usually would have done formerly. If only one good thing comes out of the last couple of years, it is that we are learning, I hope, not to take what we can do for granted.
Plans for 2022 include a visit the London Book Fair, which this year is open for visitors and happening between 5th and 7th April. Hotels nearby that used to charge a king’s ransom and insist that their bookings were non-refundable without the payment of a hefty premium, and that all sums be collected at point of booking, are now falling over themselves to be accommodating. Bookings are about half of the price they used to be, refundable practically up to the point of arrival and payable only when inside the hotel doors. All of which makes travel arrangements much more relaxed, enjoyable and affordable than they used to be.
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January 24, 2022 @ 2:23 pm
totally agree with you that it could be we have learned that we can do things in so many different and more logical and environmentally sympathetic ways. We have been holed up in France since June 2020 and are desperate to be in the same space as our family for a while but much good has come from it as well. We are still keeping on keeping on and that in itself is a privilege. Good luck with the book fair. I look forward to reading about it.
January 24, 2022 @ 7:54 pm
Thank you so much, Diane! 😀
I hope you have had a bit of outdoor space in which to do your own thing, even though lock-downs are obviously confining. To spend a whole year – or two years – indoors must be so hard. I think much good can come of our struggles, despite the hardship and anguish of many, because we have had to re-think; and now is the time for brave thinking. I do hope you get to see your family this year. I’ll head off to the London Book Fair with your good wishes bundled in my rucksack, hoping for miracles big and small.