January | 2021 | Woolgathering

I recently looked at my posts from 2020 and saw the last post I did ended with “hope everyone has a great March!” or something like that. That didn’t go well did it? Think that may be the last time I ever wish anyone well on the blog.

The writing was starting to appear on the wall though at that point in early March, but we, or at least me, remained in the belief if it did come, it would blow over very quickly. We were only a month away from leaving on our Trans-Siberian adventure and we confident enough to apply for our transit visas for Belarus in the middle of March. Sadly, by the time we picked our visas back up a week later, the borders of the countries we’d be travelling through had shut and we’d shelled out €60 each for a stamp we’d never see the use in having. Luckily it sits proudly next to our Russian travel visa, which also became redundant.

I wanted to keep up my writing through the year. I certainly thought about it a lot, but when it came down to it I would think, “what is there really to say? Nothing.” I think that sentiment was and remains mostly true. There’s not a lot to say. I’m very grateful to have a pretty sweet life set up which doesn’t make this all that uncomfortable. We have subsequently made it more comfortable for ourselves as the lockdown continues on. We also have an adorable cat, whose photos make up the majority of my picture gallery from the last 10 months. Our family and friends have remained in mostly very good health throughout the pandemic too, despite a number of them catching Covid.

I would like to start writing again more. I don’t know how that will pan out in 2021. It would be nice to report back on something grand we’ve experienced, but those instances are lacking currently.

We got half our road repaved last week until the roadworks burst the water main and we lost water for a few hours. Water is now back on and back to the doldrums of sitting in the flat.

Our cider company is giving us a bit of a bright spot during all of this. We’ve become quite close with a few other cider people and it’s been a joy to manage to actually make friends despite not being able to really go outside the house. Along with that, all the travelling we’ve done in England in the last 10 months has been related to cider. Including today. We’ve spent the weekend pruning trees in Kent and will do some more over the next few months.