I’ve spent the entire year of the pandemic in my garden shed

The best of Voices delivered to your inbox every week - from controversial columns to expert analysis Sign up for our free weekly Voices newsletter for expert opinion and columns Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy My garden shed has at various times been a writing studio, a summerhouse, and storage facility; but more than anything it’s a statement that this girl can put together a wooden building from a kit bought off the internet with scrappy instructions in Flemish, Dutch and English. "You’ll never use it," said the mean neighbour who came to the garden party I threw to celebrate it, and jealously spilt wine on the floor. It made me wish I’d insulated the shed in the summer, and envious of the better-appointed garden offices that Instagram kept trying to sell me. One of the most moving moments came on Friday, as the break-time noise was reaching a crescendo, a group of them spontaneously broke into "Bohemian Rhapsody", at first a few lines: "Mamaaa, life had just begun" and then rising across the playground as more and more of them joined in, "Mamaa, oooh" and "Sometimes I wish I’d never been born at all".