Jessie: In New Hampshire, working on the next draft of my sixth Beryl and Edwina novel!
This month our topic is anticipation. We’ve all been anticipating life allowing for travel, visits and group gatherings of all sorts. What are you eagerly anticipating? If the events of the past year had occurred in your fictional words what would your sleuths be most eager to see arriving?
Edith/Maddie: I will reach two weeks post-second-vaccine on Friday, and I can’t wait to gather maskless with a few also-vaccinated dear friends, and with my kids once they are eligible. And get a real haircut! I know Robbie Jordan would be eager to fill her country store restaurant to full capacity again, and Mac Almeida to allow more than three customers at a time into her bike shop. Rose Carroll would have been attending births all along, but would be happy to ditch the cotton mask that kept her and her laboring mothers safe.
Sherry: As soon as I hit my two weeks after my second shot, I’m flying to Florida to see my mom. I confess I’m a little anxious about traveling after not being on a plane for over 14 months. But I can’t wait to give my mom a hug. Fortunately, my fictional world doesn’t have a global pandemic so my protagonists, Sarah Winston and Chloe Jackson, live in a blissful world — well except for the murders that occur.
Jessie: I am anticipating a visit from my mum in late June! I haven’t seen her since the beginning of February 2020. And I am holding out hope that a trip to the UK in the autumn might be possible! My sleuths have lived through an influenza epidemic in the early 1900s and are anticipating greater roles in the public an professional sphere for women on both sides of the pond!
Barb: My granddaughter is here with us in Maine now, where we’re supervising remote school. (I always have anxious moments until she’s safely signed on in the morning.) Next week we’re in Massachusetts with my daughter and her family. My son and his wife will travel from Virginia, the first time we’ve all been together since June of 2020 and only the second time our three granddaughters have been together. So much anticipation! There was no pandemic in Busman’s Harbor, but if there had been, Julia would now be happily planning for a tourist season without last year’s 25% capacity restriction for their tour boat and clambakes. I have no doubt Jane Darrowfield has risen to the occasion and helped many friends and neighbors find appointments for their shots.
Readers, what are you anticipating the most over the next weeks and months?
I hope to visit my mom, sister and family when we all are fully vaccinated.
Won’t that be lovely, Dru?
I hope you will be able to do so very, very soon!
Still need to schedule the second Moderna, but I m looking forward to going maskless.
A world without masks someday sounds like something to really look forward to!
I am getting my J &J one shot today- hooray! My parents are fully vaccinated so I’m looking forward to a visit in a few weeks. We are hoping to visit my husbands family in the UK this summer if global vaccinations continue at a steady pace.
Congratulations on the one and done! Fingers crossed for your overseas trip! I would like to go to the UK myself in the autumn and would love to hear if you are able to do so safely!
I’ll let you know, Jessica!
I’m one week away from my second Pfizer jab and will be fully protected by the first of May! I’m looking forward to having lunch with my brother. And I’m starting to plan an overnight trip to Lake Erie. My excuse is I need to do research, but in reality, it’ll let me get my travel feet wet. Three-hour drive, one night in a hotel, three-hour drive home, with some time at the beach in between.
Wet travel feet! I love it.
Huzzah! That sounds like a fun trip! I hope you will enjoy yourself immensely!
My main characters Gideon Stoltz and True Burns Stoltz lost an infant son to the influenza in 1836, and they’re still holding on to some grief while broadening their lives and trying to solve crimes in fictional Colerain County, Pennsylvania. Me, I’m with them every day as I near the finish line on a manuscript for the third novel in the series. As a fulltime freelance writer working out of my home in northern Vermont, I haven’t felt as much fear or even inconvenience as many others have suffered through. But it will be wonderful when my wife, Nancy Marie Brown, and I can get in the car in late May and drive to Medford, Mass., to visit our son and his wife. Then Nancy will get on a plane to Iceland, where she’ll be leading a couple of tours. And I’ll go back home to our farm to take care of our (Icelandic) horses and our (Icelandic) sheepdog Edda — and, I hope, get rolling on a fourth Gideon Stoltz mystery.
These all seem like lovely things to aniticipate! Especially the visit with family, but the trip to Iceland sounds wonderful too!
Nancy is an “old hand” at traveling in Iceland. She’s been there over 25 times and recently calculated that she’s spent close to two years of her life there! I like it, too. My idea of a dream vacation is staying on the farm out of which she leads tours and taking riding lessons. The guy who owns the farm is one of the best riders/teachers/trainers in the Icelandic style of riding.
It’s really fun seeing how much everyone making comments is looking forward to life opening up a bit after being vaccinated. Aren’t we lucky that the science existed to make effective vaccines happen so quickly?!!!
It all sounds wonderful to me!
Right now, the thing that I am most anticipating is becoming eligible to get the vaccine. I’m hoping that I can get an appointment for the mass vaccination site that is located a 45 second car ride away from the bookstore I am at most frequently. Kill two birds and all that jazz.
Beyond that, I’m not sure that I’m really bothering to anticipate anything. I’ve already decided that even if the end of the year sees a return of live concerts, I’m not going. I have no plans to go to a movie theater either.
And honestly, I’m still going to wear a mask wherever I go because I have zero faith in a good portion of my fellow humans to gain the semblance of intelligence they’ve been lacking for well over a year.
Taking my customary pessimistic outlook on things, I think that besides the shots themselves the one thing I’m truly looking forward to the most is 2022.
I love it when I can combine errands, especially if it means a trip to a bookstore! I think if you have books, you have wonderful things to anticipate!
2nd shot next Monday whoohoo! Looking forward to camping, shopping, children and grandchildren visiting this summer!
So much to look forward to!
Although we aren’t people that eat out all the time, it will be awesome when hubby and I can have a date night going out to a restaurant, actually getting to sit down INSIDE a restaurant, and enjoy a wonderful meal that we didn’t have to fix or clean up after.
It will also be a joy to be able to travel again. After retirement, our goal was to mark off items on our bucket list of places we always wanted to visit. I want to be able to say what a joy it was to see before our bucket list becomes wish we could have seen list due to medical issues or age.
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Last week, I got to hug my dad and my son for the first time in a year. (We’re all fully vaccinated.) Everything else on my anticipation list comes in a distant third, though I’m looking forward to traveling again. Right now, I’m working on the second book in my Revolutionary War mystery series, which takes place in Philadelphia. Smallpox was the scourge of the day, and one of my story’s suspects is a local healer, a woman who inoculates people against that disease.
Last weekend I hugged my younger son for the first time in more than a year. With any luck, we’ll be able to travel to Singapore sometime later this year to see my older son. It’s been 20 months and counting… The pandemic won’t be over for me until I see his laughing face again.
What a wonderful thing to see your son! I hope you make it to Singapore soon!
I’m two weeks from notification of my second Moderna jab and looking forward to my first real haircut in over a year and getting together with friends again – maskless!
My characters live in a non-COVID world, but if they didn’t, Hank – whom you’ve yet to meet – is an emergency room nurse. She would be fully vaccinated and taking all reasonable precautions personally and as part of her job. Her parents own a five-star resort in the Florida Keys. While Florida has lifted most restrictions, the Witties were grateful to be able to fill their rooms and their restaurant.
Haircuts seem high on the list of anticipated pleasures! Congratulations!
By the end of April, everyone in my household will be fully vaccinated. That will be a relief!
That is wonderful! I am looking forward to the same being said in my family sometime soon!
I get my J&J shot tomorrow. Looking forward to spending time with family (many of whom are in the process of being vaccinated) & traveling again.
Super congratulations on your upcoming vaccination!
After missing out on mud runs in 2020, I’m hoping at least one will happen this year.
That would be great! Virtual races can be fun but they just aren’t the same!
I had 3 trips to Seattle planned in 2020 to visit my son, daughter-in-law and grandson – unsurprisingly all were canceled. I missed my grandson’s 1st & 2nd birthdays, but now will finally be with them to celebrate Mother’s Day. My son wrote on their Christmas card that 2021 will be the year of hugs and I can’t wait to take them up on that promise!
Hubby and I are fully vaccinated which is a huge relief in itself. Our daughter just moved in with us (temporarily) in PA from AZ. I flew out there, a little fearful of being so close to people, and drove the moving van towing her car back. It was great being with her for almost 3 weeks after not seeing each other for almost 2 years. Now that she is here, and is scheduled for her first vaccine in a week (she was ineligible until now), we will be able to go to lots of places by the end of April. Hurray! And like Kay, we are looking forward to eating in real restaurants, sitting down to real food, being waited on by servers. Such a luxury!
I am praying that my Mom may finally receive relief from the kidney stones she has been suffering with since November. I am praying that we can settle the financial issue surrounding her care. I am hoping we can work on decluttering our home.
I also am greatly anticipating a real hair cut. My whack jobs have not been the best. I’m waiting for the latest disaster to grow out enough for a real cut. Sigh.
I’m also looking forward to a meal out with my friend. It’s been a long time. I’m definitely apprehensive about it. Hermit mode is very hard to ditch.