In January, I took an eerily empty flight to Helsinki. “Virus fears,” the cabin crew member whispered to us, gesturing to the abandoned rows. I laughed.

I miss my family. My sister and parents are shielding together. A concentrated powerhouse of Joneses helping my mum through chemotherapy. I’m in my own cocoon with my boyfriend, just ten miles away but the distance has never felt more pronounced.

The morning sun disappeared two hours into our flight to Svalbard, as the plane headed directly north from Oslo into the Arctic circle. We were on our way to Longyearbyen, the world’s northernmost settlement, which is submerged in total darkness for over 100 days a year.