It was just ice cream. Fancy, overpriced stuff from Hackescher Markt.

But it seemed like we weren’t the only ones in line who were giddy at the prospect of it.

We’d decided to get the train into town. For no other reason than that it would be novel.

It was Saturday, cold still but with glimmers of sunshine.

We sat by the Spree. A dog sniffed at us. His owner apologised.

We were thrilled. A bit of interaction.

In a tunnel, an old man beat a makeshift drum. Across the Spree, at a construction site, the builders, dropping steel pipes, made their own music.

On the roof of the Berlin Cathedral a banner stretched over one of the domes. “Roll up your sleeves for a Covid-19 vaccine.”

We walked past the new shiny palace on Unter den Linden, its controversial cross gleaming in the suddenly blue sky.

We stop at the Neue Wache. You can’t go in because of the pandemic, but you can look through the bars.

A sculpture of a mother holding her dead son. A universal symbol of grief.

A scene in my novel is set there. I peered in, expecting a kind of revelation.

Further down the street, a new underground stop.

“How long has that been there?”

“Couple of months probably.”

You miss these things in lockdown.

We get the new train to the Hauptbahnhof.

Travelers with suitcases!

“When was the last time for us?”

“Christmas 2019.”

Little did we know.

It wasn’t just ice cream. It was more than that.