Mark Patton Associates

For the past eight months, in common with most of the population of Britain and Europe, I have been in one of several states of "lock-down." I have not been "furloughed" (a word that I was unlikely to have used in any context a year ago), but have continued with my research, my writing, and my teaching, albeit that the latter has had to take place almost exclusively online. My social life has been greatly curtailed: happily, my wife and I have one another, but we have had hardly any contact with friends or family that has not relied on some form of technology, whether the electronic media of Skype and Zoom, or the tried and tested combination of ink, paper, and sealing wax. One thing that I know many of us have been missing is travel. I was booked to speak at a literary festival in Abergavenny in the Spring, but this was one of the first events to be cancelled, following the arrival, in the United Kingdom, of COVID-19. Having spent our honeymoon in Genoa last year,