Like so many millennials, I entered the online world through AOL Instant Messenger. I created an account one unremarkable day in the late nineteen-nineties, sitting in the basement of my childhood home at our chunky white desktop computer, which connected to the Internet via a patchy dial-up modem.
WE HAVE BEEN BACK to Edinburgh many times since we moved away in 2015, but it was not until this past visit in June did we notice how much things had changed in the city since we left, but more so, how much had changed just in the past year of lockdown. One of P's favourite pubs, Smithie's, where he would often go after playing football (soccer) on Thursday nights, closed forever, set to be turned into a block of flats ...
Seems like a lifetime ago, the social lifestyle we used to have when we were able to go to cafés and terraces, just sit in the sun for a while or enjoy the beautiful habit of people watching ...