It’s time for a little blue-sky thinking. Now that we can finally see it

The coronavirus pandemic has changed so much over the last four months or so. It has cost lives, shut schools, destroyed businesses and wreaked havoc on our everyday relationships. But, for many of us, it has also changed how we think about the world. The enforced downtime has seen us pick away at the very fabric of society.

It has made us question what we really need .Dowe need the coffee that we used to buy from the high street everyday? Do we need to constantly replace our old objects with new ones?

These thoughts have clearly also been running through the mind of this week’s P.S. cover star Kate Humble.

In her interview on pages 6&7, she says: “We cannot continue to live the way that we live and just constantly buy new things and chuck them out when they break. The world can’t cope with that.”

And it is with that ethos in mind that she took on her new TV project,The Weekend Workshop, an upcycling and crafting series, where the presenters attempt to give old objects new life.

Kate also reminisces about growing up in a time when there were no computers, social media or wall-to-wall televisions and tells P.S. how the Covid-19-induced lockdown created many opportunities for getting back to that, watching wildlife and sky-gazing.

Indeed those of us who are old enough will agree that the days outdoors as a kid making dens, riding bikes and chasing your tail were the happiest we’ve ever had. But, if we as a society are serious about getting back to those simpler, less rushed, times, maybe it is time we all did a little blue-sky thinking.