As it turns out…

For five years I had been alone and travelled, believing (following some awful relationships) that being alone was better.

Being forced into lockdown resulted in eventually running out of distractions and I messaged someone I'd met at work about 18 months before, really just to talk about music initially.

Turns out I'd met my other half. We would talk until the sun came up at the weekends, go for walks on the phone for hours in the week and when we finally could meet it was as though it had been forever.

We both randomly within weeks got new jobs in the North before the October lockdown hit and managed to spend the next few months in a cottage there, working from home, cooking, decorating for Halloween, Christmas, birthdays... working on projects in the evening and watching The Crown in bed. Some days were awful and there were weeks we never left the house. The walks in the moors were there, and we cried and laughed and got on with it.

A few months ago we found new jobs in the South and the love is as strong as ever. The pandemic brought so much misery and hardship to so many; but it also drove me to a point that I reached out my hand to living again and in doing so I found my soul mate.

We found love in a hopeless place.