My then ten year old daughter Bailey wasn’t talking of her latest Fortnite battle, the mean words the boys in her class had said to her when she’d not played well or if she should be a goth girl or more like one of the glamorous ladies in little mix, which is a common conversation in our home. Instead she was laughing and playing with her little brother, pretending to be a mermaid and perfecting her underwater handstand. They had unfurled and were mid flourish, unafraid of additional news announcements, simply enjoying the water and the sun and the access to all inclusive ice cream.

I didn’t have time to get my nails done before we came away, the rush was a 24 hour extravaganza where we as a family spent over 10 thousand pounds buying holidays that would then would be swiftly cancelled one by one by each operator, and luckily quite swiftly refunded back to us. When we finally got on the Tui plane to Fueterventura with the help of Charlotte from our local Holiday Village I couldn’t believe our luck. We’d packed in record speed, travelling the lightest we have ever traveled, taking more anti bac wipes, steriliser and masks than any family of four could ever need!  The airport was much different, the shops that were open were being very careful to adhere to restrictions and the whole buzz of excitement for holidays was totally gone. As a nervous flyer and high achieving anxiety sufferer it was the second time that year I felt the world had caught up to my way of thinking. Like you had all met me there in this intrusive thought of seriousness and fear.

The queues for plane boarding were socially distanced of a fashion and by the time you are on the plane it is fair game with your own mask and sanitiser. We sat at the only row without a window – this was a problem for Jack who had been promised the window seat. However his screen worked and allowed him to watch cartoons which was a blessing as my husbands, daughters and mine didn’t work throughout the flight. I felt it wasn’t something I could contact Tui about afterward, like we should just be grateful they put on a plane at all in these times. Every person on that flight felt like the lucky ones. We were escaping for a week, away from the news and Boris and his weird hair and announcements that contradict and confuse. A week where we only need to worry about what food to eat from the all inclusive buffet. Just one week to escape and give our minds and emotions some time to decompress …or so we thought.

It may have been the conversation of the English women in Shirley’s nail bar attached to the St Jorge hotel as they discussed living on the island as opposed to being in the UK. It may have been the announcement from my mentor that the latest launch we had been working on had hit $2 million in sales in less than a week. It could have been speaking to a wonderfully tanned and relaxed older couple on the beach one day who made the flippant and yet so meaningful comment to me that they had “planned to go home on Saturday but after looking at the news and a UK national lock-down being imminent they had decided to stay until it was lifted. What is there to go back for?” he said to me as he lovingly watched his 70+ bride walk into the warm salty Atlantic ocean. He asked me what I did for a living and beamed at me with understanding when I awkwardly fumbled around the answer that I am a digital business coach. I assumed he wouldn’t understand what it was, that he like many other men I have spoken to about my profession would either wave it off as a hobby or need a 126 point diagram just to understand the basics of what I do for a living. He understood, nodded and explained he had been a life coach back in the UK and that his wife still was, working remotely from their comfortable villa on one of the golf courses. He smiled at our children, asked how they were with a recognition of what this global pandemic is doing to our young, like he was pleased we’d snatched back a little time without permission.