The rest of 2020!

So what happened to the rest of 2020?!

We had so much planned! A trip to Marbella in April to cheer Helen on in another half iron man. Test cricket at Lords in June. A couple of days in the West Country with our American friend Lorraine who was visiting the UK at the beginning of July and then a trip to the Orkney’s at the end of July with my cousin Alan and his family. August should have seen a visit to the Lake District to support David, Helen and Lee in a triathlon, although we did still manage the trip if not the triathlon! More of that later! There should also have been a trip up to Scotland and a visit to St. Kilda in particular for the 90th anniversary of its evacuation, something that Alex was particularly keen to do. David was due to join us too. And then in September another of our American friends, Karen, should also have been in the UK and was due to come to Suffolk to spend some more time exploring East Anglia. It seems like her first visit to us at Christmas 2019 did not put her off😂 It has to be said that when we entered the first lockdown on 23rd March, a date burnt on my brain and probably many others too!, we had high hopes for the summer events at least. Had someone said then that in February 2021 we would be in our third lockdown with all last summer’s events pretty much cancelled, to say nothing of having little in the diary for this year, I would not have believed them and nor would I have wanted to. What a year we have had, and yet compared to some we have escaped lightly.

What did we do?

Fortunately we have plenty of space and although plans for us were to scale back on the gardening, we changed them and scaled up instead! We had nothing much else to do, shopping was a nightmare, so why not grow more of your own vegetables then you need less from the shops! We cleared what we thought would be a good piece of ground. It had not been used for years, had had both chickens and pigs on it in the past, and most importantly we could easily fence it to keep out the rabbits, one of the banes of our life here. Another problem we have is caterpillars that love eating our greens. I pick them off one by one!!

Little did we know that Dad had buried what felt like a ton of old bricks and concrete blocks in a part of that ground whIch we diligently removed. Why? We now know! Having had a really wet winter the ground is so saturated it looks more like a pond. Obviously the bricks were providing a sump for drainage 🙄 On the plus side we didn’t need to water that garden last summer when we had no rain for weeks😂 You can’t have it all!

Now you can’t garden all the time, but the weather through the spring and early summer in particular was glorious so we wanted to be outside as much as possible. Helen had moved home at the beginning of lockdown as her partner was stuck in The Hague where he often works, and she had brought her bike home with her, partly so she could carry on with her triathlon training. She managed to entice me out on some of the shorter training exercises where I did by best!! But then we both managed to work on Geoff to get him out on increasingly longer bike rides in the Suffolk countryside at the weekends. As lockdown restrictions were eased and coffee shops started opening up this became easier to do. Coffee and a bacon buttie are an excellent incentive.

An unexpected find on one cycle ride in November was a very long grass snake in the middle of the road. What it was doing there on a cold, albeit sunny day I do not know. We got it off the road so it didn't get run over.

We also started doing some good long country walks, to start with walking from the house, but exploring footpaths that we didn’t know and that took us to neighbouring parishes. We found some fabulous walks, one of my favourite being out to Hintlesham where the carpet of bluebells in Hintlesham Great Wood was beautiful.

Again as restrictions were lifted we drove a short way to do some different walks. One of the benefits of all this walking and cycling was seeing more of your home area, places that I didn’t know existed even though I have lived most of my life in Elmsett. The second benefit was to our fitness! We definitely ended the year fitter than we started and were at least carrying on the cycling and short walks until early December. It has tailed off a bit since then. No cycling, but some walking.

We coped fairly well with lockdown to start with as we had all these activities going on and the weather was great. In July we were able to meet up with David which gave us a boost and we also started planning some escapes!!

Our first was to the Lake District. The triathlon was of course cancelled but the accommodation was there and so we decided to go for it. Mum was looked after by one of her carers as this was a trip for the Gillies family too. Ali and John had a longer break but we went up on Friday, back Sunday night so as not to leave Mum for too long. Long journeys but worth it. As the triathlon on the Saturday was cancelled, and the weather was perfect we decided to climb Skiddaw. On a cloudless, hot day this is probably not the best of mountains to scale, but it was the closest to our accommodation so why not! The last bit is almost a scramble up a scree slope but the views from the top were stunning and despite being exhausted it was a fabulous day. It was then topped off by a family meal out for my 65th birthday.

The Sunday morning was a more typical Lake District weather day, with low cloud and some rain. Not to be outdone by the weather we headed over to Buttermere and Crummock Water to walk there for a while before heading home.

St Kilda was cancelled of course, but both Alex and David had leave booked and as restrictions were still light we booked a late break in the Brecon Beacons. 3 nights in an HF hotel with guided walks and full board, then 4 nights in Crickhowell in a wonderful airb&b that was a converted Chapel. We had fabulous weather again and enjoyed the walks that were guided and those that weren’t, the latter probably being a bit more hit and miss when it came to getting the correct path!

Within just over a week of our return Mum fell and broke her hip and has not really regained mobility. This means she is now in residential care in Ipswich with all the challenges that brings.

However we did have some good news in October when Lee proposed to Anna. Fortunately she said yes!

As we began to plan for Christmas we knew it would be different, not least because Mum would not be there. I didn't want to go Christmas shopping nor did I want to use Amazon, so I decided to make Christmas gifts if I could, or support local or ethical businesses. it gave me things to do and it was actually a lot of fun making things.

Christmas was indeed different as we all spent it in our own homes. However over the months we had become proficient at using zoom, so we did manage to get together, sort of, on Christmas Day.

Despite all the difficulties this year nature continues to amaze and inspire. This was a sunrise that was worth getting up for one cold December morning.