This week’s blog post is inspired by the wonderful ItsRadishTime. After she posted her video about the last Good day (y’know, before *it* happened), I decided it would be a good idea to look back and write about my last Good day in my diary. So what you have before you, good people, is an extract straight from my personal diary – enjoy!
the last Good day
The first signs of spring were starting to appear. But it was still cold enough for thick turtleneck jumpers. I had just survived my first week in my new job that I had searched for for six months. We were celebrating, I guess.
There’s a weird irony in leaving the countryside and taking a short twenty minute drive to the city, only to pay an entrance fee to look at nature once again. But Botanical Gardens are not ‘any old nature’, they are carefully curated works of art. Augsburg Botanical Garden was no different.
We strolled through the grounds, finding a moment of quiet and peace in the Japanese garden. It was a shame, I thought, that spring hadn’t quite sprung because the cherry blossoms would be out in their full force of pink.
Of course, by this point, we had all heard the news of a new virus spreading through China. But none of us believed it would affect us. All of us watched the news and said “oh it sounds awful” and we carried on with our daily lives, blissfully ignorant to the horror unfolding right in front of our eyes.
We stared at old, beautiful, dramatic statues, laughing at the poses they were in. We crammed ourselves, along with 100 other people, into a small, cornered section of a large greenhouse to view a Butterfly exhibition.
Zac had the knack. He held out his hand, pointing a larger butterfly out to me that was across the room. A smaller, brighter butterfly saw his hand as a friendly gesture, and took up position immediately. He had become the butterfly whisperer.
Zac has always had the knack with animals. There must be something about his aura that makes them feel completely comfortable with him.
We breathed in all this beautiful, fresh air and relaxed. After a dark, tense few months, this new season would finally allow us to take to the road, have the adventures and make the memories that we had planned when we first jumped on this expat rollercoaster journey.
The first signs of spring were starting to appear. We were smiling, happy. Carefree, finally. Surrounded by green leaves and blue skies. That, was the last Good day.
A short but sweet piece. At the end of her video, Taylor asks the viewer to think about what the next Good day will look like for us. So, I have written a further two posts to accompany this one, which I will no doubt publish in the near future so look out for them.
In the meantime, you can read all about how we got here in the first place and why the six months prior to this day had been so difficult here.
bis zum nächsten Mal / until next time,
Steffi x