“Walking through a deserted city in the hours before dawn is sobering way beyond the undoing of the effects of alcohol. Every thing is familiar, and everything is strange. It’s as if you are the only survivor of some mysterious calamity which has emptied the place of its population, and yet you know that behind the shuttered and curtained windows people lie sleeping in their tens of thousands, and all their joys and disasters lie sleeping too. It makes you think of your own life, usually suspended at that hour, and how you are passing through it as if in a dream. Reality seems very unreal.”
― James Robertson, The Testament of Gideon Mack

…and I did indeed feel that things were unreal as I walked through the normally bustling City of Leeds yesterday. It wasn’t entirely deserted but I was struck by the openness of the spaces that are usually filled with people. The architecture seemed bolder; the buildings more imposing and as a strange mysterious mist hung in the sky, reminiscent of the foggy London streets of a Sherlock Holmes story, the City was mostly silent…..ready for its reawakening.

It’s strange to be having conversations about the anniversary of when we stopped rehearsing and I don’t think anyone could have imagined that we would be looking at 12 months, but for some that is going to be a reality. However, we have achieved such a lot. We have connected more than we have ever done, not only with family and friends, but with many of the leisure groups we would normally attend. We have become more than just faces on screen and we have ‘mastered’ this new method of connecting. No longer nervous about online etiquette and panicking when everything freezes – we just get on with it! Some of us even get dressed to zoom! Well the top half anyway!

But we shall all be happiest when the streets are full of people and we can go about our business without worrying about whether we have remembered our face coverings. We shall rejoice when going into a shop doesn’t feel like a rare occasion or even a luxury. It will be nice to suggest we meet up with friends for a coffee and a not so socially distanced chat. When we can shake hands and hug as we once did.

Until then we can still look up and the stars are there as they have always been, shining down upon us.