So, here we are, two weeks later to the day since the first lockdown in Belgium. It’s St Patrick’s Day, and I cannot forget that the cancellation of the Irish embassy party in 2020, which would have been the farewell for the retiring Permanent Representative, was one of the first things to really hit. But here we are: the Northern Ireland representative office held an Ulster Fry get-together this morning, and the Irish College in Leuven, which started the tradition of St Patrick’s Day as a diaspora festival, is having an event tomorrow evening. We’ve waited a long time for this.

It’s been fun, and good discipline, updating these posts every ten days. I may have to revive them at some stage; infection numbers are still surging, and who knows what variants lie around the corner. But for now this is a good point to stop.