Well, who would have thought this time last year that, twelve months’ hence, we’d all be stuck at home in lockdown because of a global pandemic which began in a far corner of China?

None of us knew that at the height of our holiday season here in West Dorset we’d be slap bang in the middle of a dystopian novel yet to be written by Margaret Attwood.

And the longer it goes on, the more it seems like we’re extras in a winding, twisting Netflix saga which has just been given yet another series.

Thank goodness for our beautiful countryside. And thank heavens for books. I’d be lost without my stack of novels at my bedside. The pile is going down faster than one of Fred Dibnah’s chimneys.

In my house, Hilary Mantle’s The Mirror and the Light is being devoured instead of acting as a doorstop and I’ve been cramming in crime fiction to the point where I feel absolutely confident I could stage a hugely successful bank heist, particularly when everyone is already masked up to the eyeballs.

My dreams are currently informed by reading too much of Ian Rankin’s Rebus series, binge watching Ozark on Netflix and cooking. The other night I dreamed that local law firm and BridLit sponsors Kitson & Trotman were under surveillance by a South American war lord and that I had given Mary Berry food poisoning.

And what of BridLit?

Well, it seems that festival director Tanya Bruce-Lockhart and her team are pulling out all the stops to reach the parts other festivals cannot reach.

While events are being cancelled left, right and centre and other literary festivals are falling by the wayside this year, the BridLit team has taken a deep breath and come up with something pretty exciting.

Covid19 be damned. As far as possible, the show must go on.

And, with much meticulous and imaginative planning, the team has put together a brilliant, shortened festival from Wednesday 4 November to Saturday 7 November with the promise of a festival of nature and travel writing in the spring.

To quote a well-worn phrase, watch this space.

Keep safe.