One thing the pandemic and unpredictable lockdowns have taught me is to seize the moment! As soon as each lockdown ends, I make a plan to go somewhere and do something fun.
Every year I take my girls to see the Christmas windows in the city, visit a bookshop and get some yummy chocolates from Haighs. It's nice to do the same things each year and have all those past layers adding to each new experience. Even though Christmas is still ages away, I decided now was the perfect time to go and visit the windows. After all, who knows what we'll be able to do in a month's time?
We usually wait until a week or two before Christmas to go and end up spending at least an hour lining up to see the windows. The bonus of going so far before Christmas was that there was no queue at all and we could walk straight up to the windows. The barricades were already set up in anticipation of the crowds who throng to see the magical scenes from stories brought to life by the very clever people who create the displays and we just whizzed along, straight up to Peter Rabbit!
We made a day of it, visiting as many of our favourite city haunts as we could because who knows when we'll be able to make it back here again?
The pandemic has taught me to take nothing for granted and to try and live each moment to its fullest.