The Year That Was …

This photo of us taken towards the end of the first lockdown in March-May when everything was closed. No hairdressers, no grooming, our hair grew long and shaggy … and we all had top-knots!

We did our best to remain positive and took the advice from this saying …

To make the most of all the days when we’re not allowed to live like we are used to. Mum was pretty good about it … well, she tried.

She thought it would be perfect time for us to get fit together. She took out her still new running shoes …

But within two weeks of “from couch to 5K,” she was limping! LOL! Which resulted in her getting a hip op in between Lockdown #1 and #2!

We counted our blessings when the second lockdown was announced – it was timed perfectly as Mum was recovering from her hip operation, so lockdown suited us. Mum as she couldn’t take care of us so I spent the second lockdown at the House of Mutt and George was with Stanley.

We were so excited to be reunited again and plans for Christmas was going to be fab – a staycation at The Connaught! But alas! London moved into Tier 3 and quickly into Tier 4. At which point, this is how we felt …

But we made it to the end of the year and as the sun sets tonight and the calendar year changes –

We pray for all of us that 2021 will be a “better” new year. We can all collectively hope we will return to more normal life and live in peace. That is all we wish for.

May’s comment: We have lived through the Year of the Virus and we somehow survived it. Nine months of living with uncertainties, worry and the unknown. We wore face-masks, didn’t hug anyone, actually I don’t think I have touched another person since February, come to think of it.

As the virus raged through Europe, one by one our travel plans for the year were cancelled. Needless to say, we stayed home a lot!

How lucky we were to have moved into our home less than a year ago and made it a place where we want to be. With all non-essential places closed, we fretted about dog-grooming and watched our grey roots make an appearance.

We went out for our “essential walks” – and sometimes we found ourselves walking in the middle of the road because there were no cars.

We saw flowers bloom in Spring and heard birds singing. And we would sometimes sit the courtyard after our morning walkies and look up in the sky to see the odd plane flying by.

I don’t think we’ve ever stopped to look at planes flying overhead. We hear them and dismiss them as noise pollution but now we wonder who’s in those plane and where were they going.

The sight of NHS ambulances parked in our neighborhood, ready for the next call out was a stark reminder of the invisible enemy.

Sometimes we waved to say ‘hello’ and ‘thank you – and they were always happy to see us.

There were rainbows everywhere – all saying a quiet thank you to the frontline workers.

And we clapped every Thursday at 8pm.

On the last night of clapping, we were at the Chelsea Westminster Hospital and had our photo taken for the BBC News. If I had known I would have straightened their bandanas and brushed their hair. LOL!

When the lockdown eased and we were allowed to go out to shops that reopened, we were reminded to keep a distance …

Sticking to the rules …

Who knew that we could eat al fresco in the English weather but we did – the summer was a scorcher!

We needed a change of scenery and did a few staycations in London …

and in the countryside. It made us appreciate all that we have on our doorstep – from enjoying London hotels to getaways in the countryside. There’s so much on offer and so much to discover.

Remember the empty shelves of toilet paper? It became such a topic of concern that it began to feature in other parts of our lives …

Mum got creative and used the empty tube at the end of the toilet roll for special effects.

Birthdays celebrations, any celebrations or just catching up were done over Zoom calls, FaceTime, Line, WhatsApp – we used every form of technology – and thank goodness for them!

And guess what? We survived a year of not “celebrating” anything with grand gestures. I managed to miss Valentine’s Day and Darcy’s birthday – though she had quite the party at the House of Mutt!

All other commemorations were done with great restrain.

One of the things I had consciously decided I would do was to spend more time with Darcy and George. I wanted to learn to teach them new tricks. To my astonishment, we achieved a lot more than I ever thought they could. Oh ye, of little faith!

In the process it helped me understand them both a lot more.

My home has never been more organised – as I Marie-Kondo-ed my way through every shelf, cupboard, drawer and under the bed. Even the storage where we keep things that we have no use of but purely for keepsakes have been tidied and organised!

And I have also never watched so much telly as I have done this year. One of our favourites was Normal People.

And we loved The Undoing, Designated Survivor, Modern Love, Little Fires Everywhere, Big Little Lies, This is Us (Seasons 1-4, started Season 5), Criminal: UK, State of the Union, Virgin River, Emily in Paris, Queens Gambit, The Morning Show, The Crown, watched all nine series of “24” (I have never watched it before), etc, etc. – the list goes on … and that was before I got to Christmas movies! And then movies about dogs! LOL! (Recommended: Dogs on Netflix, Togo on Disney Plus and Red Dog on Amazon)

We all used new vocabulary – PPE!!! R-rate, pandemic, COVID, … and I learnt how PPEs are made … though I never sewed even one stitch, I folded a lot of them! Well, maybe not 30,000 but quite a lot of folding!

One of my biggest achievement was to finish the first draft of my book at the end of the first lockdown and now deep into editing. I had been at it for three years now. I didn’t write the book intending it to be published. I am writing it for myself – a passion project and had become therapeutic. If it ever gets published that would be a bonus and nice to have.

Miraculously, I even managed to schedule a hip operation in the midst of all that was going on. Timed it such that friends were able to help out till I was able to manage on my own in time for the second lockdown.

So in the end, 2020 turned out to be a productive year – in ways completely different from what we were used to. It gave me the time to focus on the things I have always meant to do at home but never found the time because I was always running off to interesting places. Instead I found quiet joys and peace in being able to do the many dreaded things and taking more control of my daily existence.

But all these things that happened over the year were laced with sadness. Those scorcher days in May and June when we were making PPE gowns, sweating in the heat, walking home after a long day and stopping to buy some food in the opened essential shops. Then sitting in front of the telly to listen to Government news briefings.

There were many sad stories of loss, of tragedies and though we kept a happy, positive attitude there were two things that saddened me. I missed the kids – Sasha’s 10th birthday, not being able to spend the summer with him and Skye. They grow up so fast and every year are such huge leaps for them. I normally see them at least every six months – but it will soon be a year since I last saw them when we were skiing in Hokkaido, Japan back in February.

And saying goodbye to a few furry friends, Duke, Pandora, Claude – and not being able to be with their owners in their time of grief.

As the sun sets tonight on the last day of the year of Covid-19, we can all just hope that 2021 will be the year of victory over the virus.

In the meantime, while we remain isolated – we are together and we will get through this.