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So it’s probably safer to turn back the clock instead of a corner to what feels like a million years ago (in reality September last year) that I was out of the house and exploring the Scottish highlands. Sadly though that adventure had to come to an end with me being dragged back to London weighed down by the despair of returning home to the same four walls I had been staring at for months. Which is exactly how I found this little gem, a location I’d passed by many a time while zooming between London and the Highlands but never stopped as I was always about the destination. But this time was different, the appeal of this monumental building in Lancashire fed my eyes a feast of French architecture that they had been craving for months.

In these trying times where it feels like we are in and out of lockdown with rules changing day to day, throwing our plans into chaos on top of the stress of just trying to maintain some kind of normality amongst the madness, I find that more than ever I need to go to a certain type of place for my wellbeing – the beach. Just like I’m a kid back home at the beach playing in the waves where my feet can’t touch the ground with nothing on the horizon but the sun. And now as I find myself standing on the shoreline watching the ocean glisten in the light, things truly do come into perspective that do n’t involve things like Prada bags (even though they offer their own unique comfort), and it feels like things are going to get better.

and I find myself stuck inside my house with my face illuminated by the screen of my phone as I scroll through photos of the past – 1 year ago, six months ago, hell But I can’t help but feel silly now that we have returned to lockdown that something so fleeting means so much to me both mentally and physically. I guess I still don’t have an answer to my question and probably won’t know what happens now for a while or maybe it is the news of a potential vaccine, but I actually feel like the future looks bright once again just as it did then in that moment on a hill in Scotland… Only this time for all of us.

Now that the hot summery days have come to an end, I’ve begun to realise that while I have never considered myself a summer person before, something changed this year for me. Maybe it made me feel like nothing had changed and we were all safe or maybe it made me feel like I was just on some never ending holiday filled with bottomless espresso martinis and a uniform of speedos… before I wave it off, pack away my speedos and hang up my light shirts (a blue embroidered Loewe number for this adventure). I’m not really sure how I’ll make it through the winter, I normally revel in coat weather but this one just feels daunting with the uncertainty of not knowing what will happen next.