It might seem odd for a Limey to be wishing her Stateside friends a Happy Independence Day, but I'm a friendly soul (no, really, I am - soft and gooey on the inside, that's me).
There may not be big family gatherings, barbecues, parades, fireworks, etc., but I hope you are all able to celebrate in some way, even if it's only via Zoom.
The world we inhabit now is so different to the world we left behind in March that I honestly believe it will never be the same again. For the teaching profession, it has pushed us rapidly along a route we'd intended taking, but not so quickly as this has forced us to do, and as a result, many schools in the UK will not go back from the hybrid, in our case Teams-based learning model, so it's done us a huge favour in that respect.
I wonder if foreign travel will ever return to its pre-Corona frenzy - I suspect not. And what about the hospitality industry? I sincerely hope that British pubs will never return to the system we had before where you had to queue at a bar - I've always preferred the more genteel European system of table service, even though it means slightly higher prices.
So many things have had to change and we need to take this as an opportunity to re-evaluate what really matters. Do so many people really need to commute? Haven't we proved that working from home can work perfectly well for a vast number of workers? Have the doubters finally admitted to themselves that this pause in normal life has shown how massive our carbon footprint was before all this?
It is, of course, devastating for those who've been caught up in the illness itself, and my heart goes out to them and all the others who are still to succumb.
Stay safe wherever you are, and if you are in the US of A today, have a blast!
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