Thursday 23rd June: Britain goes to the polls to stay or leave the EU. The pollsters, never the most reliable, give a comforting lead to Remain.

Friday 24th June: Oh my god.

Morning of Saturday 25th June: If there’s one place where positivity will trump hate, it has to be London Pride. A gathering of up to a million people, in an atmosphere of acceptance, celebration and a chance to forget that Britain had lost its collective mind and had become some fascist backwater. Alighting at Charing Cross, we exited onto Trafalgar Square, trying to find my friends outside the Trafalgar Studios. Easier said than done, what with the whole “up to a million people…” thing rendering movement next to impossible. Trying to use the crossing points was like trying to punch a fly in the face, so we zig-zagged back and forth in a torrent of humanity until a lovely policeman suggested a route that didn’t make me want to flee back home on the train. I hate massive crowds and this was getting perilously close to crowdageddon.

Remarkably, popping down Great Scotland Yard saw the crowds thin out into single file and a Stoli of Patsy’s from Ab Fab. What would a collective of Patsy’s be? The Ab Fab film promotion is genius because it doesn’t feel like advertising, seeing as its popularity amongst the LGBT+ community exceeds Nigel Farage’s popularity amongst unsavoury people. Watching a man spin around a martini glass on top of an Ab Fab-themed truck was a sight to behold.

United with my friends, the parade just kept going and the positivity in the air was a truly beautiful thing to behold. It was a dose of cheer to brighten up a sometimes rainy day with the addition of a Red Arrows flypast to make us all feel a bit special. It’s a strange sort of time, in a post-Orlando,  post-Jo Cox, post-Brexit world where it can be all to easy to think the baddies have won and will continue to win, but that doesn’t have to be the case. There is a majority in this country that want people to be theirselves and enjoy their lives, even if it doesn’t seem like it.

It is the job of everyone to just look a little harder for the good stuff. To that end, I found Pride a superb time of unity and reflection, and an event I will want to return to again, after a long period of absence.