How quickly things change. Only last week I had a hectic social schedule in London, out five nights out of six, having a great time with colleagues and friends. Covid-19 was on the horizon, and we knew it was a problem, but I don’t think we knew quite how much.
Now, after the weekend, things look very different. We are being advised to isolate. All my work for the foreseeable future has been cancelled, although – as a writer – I have quite a bit to keep me busy. The frequent travel that was such a major feature of my professional life is gone. Will it ever be back? Should that much travel ever come back?
I feel acute pain for the hospitality industry that is indirectly part of my work life, where many people are at risk of losing businesses and financial hardship. [And my mother cannot see any of her four children for 12 weeks.]
This is tremendously unsettling. None of us have any idea of how it may play out. This is uncharted territory.
It’s time for us to live not as individuals, but as seeing ourselves as part of something bigger than us: society. It is time for selflessness, and thinking of creative solutions – for reaching out to each other as and when and how we can. This will pass, and let’s find ways of making the post Covid-19 world a bit better than the one we’ve just left behind.
Who knows what the implications will be for the global trade in wine?