It was Friday 19th March 2004 as I got home from a day at sixth form, I put on my “cosy clothes” I picked up my mobile and tried to call my boyfriend J, again - “welcome to the 02 messaging service. The person you are calling is unable to take your call. Please leave a message after the tone...”  

I wrote this prose the night we found out about the stricter lockdown.  It seems so long ago now and even though it will never be our normal it is not as scary as it first felt when we watched Boris on the television that night...

Right now, when almost everyone I love is either dead or out of reach, possessions have become more important. Lots of them don’t ‘spark joy’; the clothes don’t fit, the jewellery isn’t very me. It is greedy in exactly the way women aren’t supposed to be...

“I have a brother but he's 15 years older than me, so I guess both of us kind of grew up as only children.” That has always been my answer to “do you have any brothers or sisters?” It was a well-rehearsed line..

Poem and Artwork by Rosie Brand

“If I'd told you last year everything that was going to have happened in your life over the past six months, you wouldn't have believed me”, a friend mused over the phone. She was right. I wouldn't have wanted to know.