On a clear, warm day last April, I sat out on the deck round the back of my house, and looked into a clear blue sky. Not just of clouds, but of vapour trails, too. For those interested in transatlantic flight corridors, most flights heading from London, Benelux, and western Germany to the New World tend to fly over South Wales on their journeys to the west. This means that for quite a lot of the mid-to-late morning, in normal times, there will be dozens of planes flying overhead every hour. But in a world that was locked-down, not a single one flew by all morning. I think that was one of many factors that brought home the fact that this truly was a global pandemic, one that had visibly altered the world as I had always known it.

That world seems to be returning to some sense of normalcy, with case rates dropping around the world and vaccines being rapidly distributed. Take this 787 Dreamliner, for example. If memory serves me correctly, it was an American Airlines heading from London Heathrow to a city on the eastern seaboard of the United States. I couldn’t say how many people were onboard, whether they were allowed to be travelling, and how many times it had made that trip since mid-March of last year. But it’s nice to know that bit by bit, the lives put on hold by this tragic event are slowly coming back.

Hope you enjoy!