Skip to main content

2021 - A Year in Review

Well, this is why I should do regular blogging - because trying to catch up on a whole year at once takes forever!  But it's kind of fun looking back. 

It feels like a long time ago that we were homeschooling in lockdown, back in January and February!  As the restrictions eased and the weather improved, we got out to some new places and some old favourites.  We visited family (and they visited us!), kept busy at work and school, followed England's football fortunes in the Euros, and made some furry friends.

A local alpaca farm

Of course, these are the edited highlights.  We had a few ongoing issues as well - some have resolved themselves, so that I look back and think, "Oh yes, I'd almost forgotten we spent ages dealing with that," while others are still chuntering along in the background.

Big events

We had a summer holiday in Somerset - we stayed in a dinky little AirBnB cottage and visited Wells Cathedral, Glastonbury Tor, the Fleet Air Arm Museum, Blue Anchor Bay, and Taunton.

Picnic on the beach

Playground at Fleet Air Arm Museum

Rainbow path in Taunton



Wells Cathedral Close


We had a weekend in Wales in a big blue camper van - and I did blog about that!

We bought a convertible Mini (the MG died)

It holds all four of us!

And we smartened up the house a bit, with new windows, a new front door, and a few licks of paint.


Toby

Had his first overnight trip away with school, to an outdoor activity centre near Buxton

Achieved Merit on his Grade 1 keyboard exam

Went to basketball, dodgeball and zorbing clubs, and tried karting.

Took some friends to Nottingham for his 11th birthday, to see Ron's Gone Wrong and eat at Taco Bell.



Applied for secondary school (eek!)


Theo

Got a bike and pizza for his 7th birthday





Enjoyed playing guitar

Tried to make things explode


Got covid - entirely symptom-free

Graham

Learned archery and joined a club

Celebrated his birthday in style


Went for long bike rides with friends

Was very busy at work



Martha

Wasn't able to open the cafe until May, so I painted a labyrinth and sold afternoon tea boxes instead.





Kept on reading

Got given some flowers


And grew stuff, as usual (lots of tomatoes this year!)

The wider family

Exchanged Christmas presents with my parents in February - but we still couldn't let them in the house!


Visited John (my brother) and Katie in Glasgow, where they've recently moved.


Met up with Mark (Graham's cousin) and Andy not once but twice this year - possibly a record!

Smashed up a sideboard for Graham's mum, and enjoyed a trip to the Media Museum in Bradford with Colette (Graham's sister) and Karl.



Finally got together for a meal to celebrate Graham's dad's life, only a year and a half after he passed away.

And my grandma sadly died in October, at the age of 92.


And we got outdoors...

...in floods and ice and snow...




...in mud...




...and in sunshine.



There's been some ups and downs, but lots of smiles too.



Let's see what 2022 brings!

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Drought

Two days into Stage One water restrictions, and I looked out of the window to see the guy over the road washing his car. Admittedly, the restrictions don't actually forbid you to wash your car.  They limit you to using a hand-held bucket (does it count if you put it down on the driveway?) or hand-held hose "for quick rinses".  But they are pretty much "if you don't mind" rules at this stage anyway, with holes large enough to lose whole buckets of water through (hand-held or otherwise).  For example, we are now limited to watering our lawn twice a week, but this only applies to sprinkler systems.  You can still use a hose as much as you like, presumably on the assumption that you will get bored of standing there holding it very quickly.  And besides, everything you read about good watering technique says it's better to water thoroughly just once a week.  Our garden would think Christmas had come early if it got watered every three days! So hopefully...
2 comments
Read more

Jesus came to earth... to reflect God to us

Do you remember playing with a magnifying glass on a sunny day?   That curved piece of glass you held in your hand captured the scattered rays, narrowing them down to a fluttering patch of brightness.   And all the light’s power was held in that one small circle, shrinking and shrinking… until finally you were rewarded with a sudden curl of smoke, and a neat charred hole. Imagine, then, that God, seeking to reveal himself on earth, condensed his essential being through some kind of celestial magnifying glass.   That wavering point became smaller and smaller, losing none of its power… until it became the exact size of a human baby, growing in a womb. Jesus is the image of the invisible God, says the verse in Colossians, the perfect reflection of God’s glory.   This is the first and greatest reason that Jesus came: to show us what God is really like.   Yet sometimes, reflected and refracted through 2000 years of history, the image that Jesus shows...
2 comments
Read more

A foodie post

Despite the title of the blog and the tantalising picture of caramel slice at the top of the page, some of you may be feeling that my entries have been sadly lacking in food content. Rest assured that I haven't given up cooking in the least, and would like to prove it by offering some photographic evidence of the latest creations. So, first up: the other day at work one of my colleagues grabbed a left-over piece of bread dough, rolled it out thin, slapped some pepperoni and cheese on it and rolled it up to form what she described as a stromboli - basically a rolled-up pizza. I'd never even heard of this delicacy before, but after one slice, hot out of the oven, I had to make it for myself. The ingredients are up to your imagination and whatever you happen to have in the fridge, so mine consisted of a smear of tomato paste, a few blobs of ricotta left over from a spinach-and-ricotta-lasagna experiment, some grated cheddar and parmesan, chopped slices of sandwich ham and some f...
2 comments
Read more