Thank you for checking on us, dear, so thoughtful 
.
It has indeed been upsetting to forgo the annual winter trip to the Antigua villa, especially after having to cancel our planned safari down the Luangwa River last June. The children, Henrietta, Freddie and Isadora, were so disappointed but they've borne it like troopers, brave lambs. I'm so proud of how they've dealt with adversity, as I was telling the vicar just the other day. And, as you know, no cloud is without its silver lining - sacrificing our hols last year has allowed us to buy Henrietta her own little cottage in Wells-next-the-Sea so she doesn't have to share with us when we visit the seaside house. Now that she's started uni (did I mention she's doing art history at Goldsmiths? We're so proud!), we feel she needs her own little place to hang out with her grown-up uni friends without silly Mummy and Daddy putting her to the blush. You know what they're like at that age 
. We were very lucky of course that dear Hetty's godmother gifted her a charming little mews house in Pimlico for her 18th birthday so we didn't have to worry about university accommodation.
By far the biggest challenge hasn't been holidays (or lack thereof) but having Freddie and Isadora home from boarding-school for the past few months. I don't like to be rude but homeschooling has been an absolute PITA. I'm sure you've found it the same, having...Chardonnay and Dwayne, is it?...home from that nice local school they go to. I believe you said it was built in the 1960s, is that right? I do love a bit of brutalist architecture for a change. Nothing like that at Freddie and Isadora's schools, unfortunately...only a boring old castle and a 17th century former abbey.
Anyway, I've never been one of those maternal mummies with children hanging off their jackets demanding cuddles and stories (shudder!) and so was quite happy to pack the three of them off to school with their trunks and tuckboxes when they turned eight and then leave them with our very capable housekeeper (after they outgrew Nanny) for most of the school holidays. But I mustn’t grumble… compared to many, we have been fortunate indeed. Although we did have to sack the governess the agency sent (no knowledge of Russian literature and absolutely useless at cricket 
), dear old Nanny stepped into the breach magnificently. She even arranged for a lovely Russian gentlemen she knows from her spying days to discuss Gogol’s Revizor. Amazing woman, Nanny! Though I can never remember whose side she was on in the Cold War...I do remember MI6 asking some awkward questions when I was a child but my parents smoothed that all over.
Indeed, it has been just like I imagine wartime would have been! All of us cooped up merrily together, playing charades and singing songs around the piano while the housekeeper clears the dinner table. Happily, the builders managed to finish our new natural swimming-pool just before the first lockdown so we’ve all been keeping fit and enjoying ourselves. I’m sure you have too with your new…a hot tub, was it? Lucky you! We’d adore a hot tub, but it would clash with the Grade II-listed surroundings so I’m afraid we’ve had to limit ourselves to the swimming-pool. I have, however, allowed the children a trampoline although our gardener insisted on hiding it behind the row of medieval oaks so the neighbours can’t see it. Ah, the sacrifices we make for our children.
But we must all hope for better times. Even if we don’t manage the Serengeti or the Trans-Siberian express this summer, there is always the beach house in Cornwall. And all the best for your summer plans too, of course. Fingers crossed you make it to Ibiza…or was it Tenerife you like visiting?
And remember #BeKind, #StayHome, #SaveTheNHS.