Supporting our local Pub, in between lockdowns…
Dear All,
We thought that 2020 would be filled with our usual cultural explorations, that we would continue to travel the world, that we would see friends and family and send out our usual ‘Bellans of London 2020 stories and photos’. Like millions - we stored our oyster cards in drawers. We stayed home. And got used to it. We bought electric bikes, baked bread, cut our hair ourselves or let it grow, downloaded Teams, Google Meet, Zoom, and Chime. We taught our parents how to use Zoom. We read books, listened to podcasts, watched series on Netflix and Prime Video.
Our empty nest filled again. Alice came back home from Exeter during the first lockdown - but WE did not see Thomas for months as he sheltered in place with his friends in Canterbury, reading Murakami, going for long walks and practicing his gnocchi making.
Laurent’s company Eurostar furloughed staff in mass and barely kept the lights on whilst their CEO left in the middle of lockdown. My company Amazon boomed and struggled to keep up with demand.
We did a lot of virtual ‘aperitifs’ with family and friends across the globe and then got tired of clinking a glass with a screen. We attended a virtual wedding in NEW JERSEY on the 4th of July. We tried picnics in parks, distanced dinners and even managed to go to a couple of plays...although most of our theatre plans got cancelled. We introduced new statistics in our daily routines, reading up on COVID numbers with our morning coffees. We looked at curves. Benchmarked R between places where loved ones resided (in our case prioritising U.K., France and the US although also caring for the rest of Europe, Germany, Canada, Japan and the World).
We clapped for NHS workers week after week until it became business as usual and nobody clapped anymore. We cursed Trump, Johnson, Brexit, people not wearing masks, British weather, our local park closing earlier than usual...We wished we had a house in Provence. A cabin in the woods. A boat in the Caribbean. A Chalet in the Alps. But loved being in our Queens Park home.
Austria - August 2020
We were lucky to get to do some cycling in the Loire Valley (Laurent & I) and in Austria in August (the 4 of us) in between quarantines and lockdowns. We tried Loire sparkling wines and Autrian RieslingS. We cancelled multiple trips and WEEK ENds and lost track of our eVouchers piling up. Friends and colleagues postponed weddings in Peru, India and the U.K. We stopped making plans. We upgraded our Fitbit and our walking goals and explored every corner of London on foot. We used takeaways and our local bakery which stayed opened day after day...
In the midst of the pandemic we moved Alice to her new home in Truro for her Medical studies, helped settle our nephew Antonin in his Notting Hill student home for his first year of Engineering, and Thomas moved himself to a new home in Canterbury to continue his degree in Anthropology. Alice turned 20, Thomas 22 and we still baked our usual ‘Gateau Marbre’. I visited my parents in Grenoble over the summer and sat two metERs from them during dinner. I took an antibody test which confirmed I had had Covid.
And with elllpha.io co-founder and CEO Stephanie we EXCITINGLY closed our first round with friendly angels and launched the design and development of our MVP (Minimum Viable Product) Talentuum, an AI to limit bias in talent management, which we will launch in 2021!
2020 was a strange year - where we missed not spending time with family and friends. We cannot wait to see you - for real - in 2021. Stay safe!
Brigitte, Laurent, Thomas & Alice
