An 'Interesting' Year

Well, I am starting this on the last day of 2020, hoping to finish in time for the end of the year, but who knows?

It has been an 'Interesting' year for all of us and one that will go into the history books for lots of reasons!

So far, we, and our family, have been among those fortunate enough to have avoided  Covid-19. We are lucky enough to be among those who understand how viruses work and have been careful and sensible throughout the pandemic. So, we decided to embrace the positives in an awful situation and turn it to our advantage as best we could.

Being retired has been a  blessing for us this year. Without work to worry about, we are luckier than many. Since retiring, we have filled every minute of our time and now we found ourselves with more minutes to fill!

However, this is not about the pandemic, or Brexit, but just about some of the things we have been up to during the year thanks to the pandemic. 

One of our first ventures when lockdown started was to start learning yoga. We now start every morning with a view of the sunrise across the rooftops, Enya music playing quietly in the background and working our way through 30 different poses. Works wonders at keeping our aging joints and muscles supple and gives us energy to start the day.

My camera has been very busy, but (unlike my wildlife posts) I don't want to make this an epic, just a selection of pictures tracing the year. Not even my best pictures but hope you like them.

Strange at first, but now so familiar.

Bournemouth and Weymouth bays have been popular spots for the storage of these behemoths! Sometimes just one, sometimes up to around 5. I dread to think what damage the pollution causes to our fragile sea beds. Probably in a minority I know, but I am not a fan. As an engineer by trade, I find them impressive from that point of view, but they are ugly and cause damage to some of the most fragile environments on the planet.

Nevertheless, they have formed an additional memory for 2020.

The Great Outdoors!

We have always been keen walkers and I could fill a whole blog entry, but as walking is something we always have and always will do and not unique to this year,, just a couple of the lovely skies we have walked under to show you.

Clear Skies

A lot of us noticed that the sky was clearer during the first lockdown as the haze caused by our activities got considerably reduced. This provided lots of great opportunities to get some good pictures.

Even with a fairly modest camera, a bit of care and patience can produce good shots of the moon.

Just a tip: The bottom left corner of the moon is always worth a closer look. Lots of lovely, clear craters.


Expanding kitchen skills.

I have always spent a  lot of time in the kitchen. Apart from Mince Pies at Christmas (which has become a sort of tradition), I have normally only prepared main meals from around the world.

The first lockdown presented me with more time to expand and I now find I enjoy baking as well. Here are a few of my modest efforts:

Bread

White loaves and rolls. Getting into bread making is something I have toyed with for years but never got around to. Lockdown gave me the incentive to have a go and avoid the shops. The first attempt was with our bread machine. It broke down on the first use, but that all worked out for the best! Sleeves rolled up, suitable recipes found and onto proper bread making! Better results, smells and tastes than the machine so no looking back!

We now regularly have the sight, smell and taste of fresh bread in the house.

Soda Bread

Soda bread is another thing that has been in the back oif my mind since we fell in love with it years ago on a trip to Ireland. Now I am so annoyed I did not try sooner. It is SO easy (honestly)!!! Looks and tastes great!

Home made soda bread with home made Greek salad - a lovey refreshing summer lunch!

Various Sweet Treats - all home made!

Belgian Buns - Really popular with the Grandchildren and one of my all time favourite cakes. Now made at home!

Homemade Scones - Another lovely summer afternoon treat!

Shortbread. Why haven't we made this before??? One of the easiest things in my new repertoire and tastes just like shop-bought!

And then there was Christmas!

The mince pies have been my job at Christmas for a good many years, but this year I added sausage rolls to my portfolio!

That's enough about food for now!

Our garden in lockdown.

Lockdown has given us a lot more 'Us' time this year and during the first lockdown, our days largely consisted of long walks in the morning and afternoons sunning in the garden, sometimes followed by a seafront run. 

We spent more hours sunbathing this summer than the total of all our years of marriage before. And we are talking about 44 years of marriage!!!

It has been an amazing year in our garden for wildlife. Every night we had our pair of foxes, up to 5 hedgehogs on film at the same time and a myriad of bird and insects as well as a family of breeding slow worms and our little frogs during the day!

,I have hundreds of photos from this time but here are a few at random, many taken from my garden chair!:

Everything about our garden is aimed at being wildlife friendly. Consequently, wild flowers play a big part.in the design. Many garden center flowers are created NOT to produce pollen or nectar so are not as good for bees and other insects as many people might think! They may appear to be attracted to the flowers, but they do not get what they need from them.

With  blossom on our cherry and apple tress and a full bed of wild flowers, we had an amazing year for bees and butterflies. Good to see so many bees after several years of decline.

This is one of our insect houses in front of the shed. Lots of holes, gaps, rotten wood and more to make a home to a large variety of bugs. This not only gives us a variety of bugs to enjoy but also provides food for our birds, reptiles and amphibians.

In front of our rockery we have several large slabs of tree bark. This provides a wonderful environment for slow worms and never fails to attract them on sunny days. This year we also had a brood of tiny babies (second photo).

Lots of birds this year. Sparrows in particular did very well and we regularly counted up to 30 in the garden at a time. Closely followed in number by starlings. Just two of our less regular visitors to show you below though. A little wren who visited regularly over a few weeks, and a pair of goldfinches who we only saw a few times.

And just a few more.....

And just to use up a little bit more of our newly found free time, we put in a second wildlife pond which started to attract various creatures within days!

Sometimes, the weather was not quite good enough to enjoy the garden so after too many years in the loft, out came my watercolour paints. Just a bit of a dabble, but great fun.

And finally, we decided to give our dining room a complete makeover. Stupidly, I forgot to take a 'Before' picture but here are some during and after shots. We painted the ceiling and all of the woodwork including renovating the wood where it was damaged. The whole room papered and a new fireplace built. Really happy with the result!

That is probably enough to cure you all of insomnia for now. Just finished in time to post at the end of 2020, so I would just like to finish by saying:

' HAPPY NEW YEAR'

To everyone. Lets all hope that 2021 sees an end to the madness of 2020 so we can commit it to history and look forward.

Bye for now.