We were on what we thought of as ‘The Holiday of a Lifetime’ in Australia, when the lockdown due to COVID-19 occurred in the UK.  I hope in years to come that we can remember the holiday for the great time we had, not for ‘the virus’.

It was quite stressful  trying to get home. Our original flights were cancelled, as we were no longer allowed to transit through Singapore. Two other flights booked by our fantastic travel agent, were also cancelled.  We slowly began to realise that we may be spending rather longer ‘down under’ than we expected. Eventually, we were told she had got us two seats on the last Quantas flight out of Perth to London and it goes without saying that we were incredibly relieved and arrived home to a very quiet airport.

I usually read quite a lot when I’m on holiday, but this holiday was very different. We visited Sydney, Tasmania and Perth; there was no lying on sun loungers by a swimming pool, there was so much to see, so much to do.  Consequently, I only read one chapter of the book I had with me and, as I packed it to come home, told myself I would have loads of time to finish it and others during lockdown.

And here we come to the unexpected side effect I mentioned at the beginning… I find that I can only read books with happy endings.  I don’t want murders, grisly thrillers or anything dark and disturbing.  I have gone back through all the books I have and started to re-read the ones depicting happy times.  There is perhaps the odd divorce or even an affair or two, or a wayward daughter who eventually returned safely to the bosom of her family.

I have always written short stories and I have enjoyed writing flash fiction, (I haven’t done much of either recently due to family issues & time restraints) but I am very aware that writers are urged to read widely and as much as possible of different genres.  But at the moment I am stuck in my ‘happy’ rut.

I wonder if anyone else has experience something similar?

#STAYSAFE