ESTHER JONES

My daughter was never a fan of busy playgrounds. For a couple of years, from when she was around three years old, she preferred the local dog park (we didn't have a dog). This was essentially a dusty enclosure with a couple of benches and a water fountain, in the centre of the Spanish town where we lived. By late afternoon, there would always be a good gathering of dogs, delighted to have left the confines of their apartments to run wild with their canine buddies. Their owner

I've recently begun to feel a deep sense of freedom. My life is much the same as it has been for the last year, with nothing shifting much beyond the changing seasons. I don't suddenly have extra time on my hands, I haven't cracked the key to passive income, and I am as weary of this lockdown as the next person. No, the roots to my newfound freedom are buried deeper. Something shifting in the foundations that were laid down decades ago, and held in place by layer upon layer o