Recollections of my COVID Year

Back in 2012 I put a blog together along the lines of ‘Twelve for 2012’, I’ve been posting that long!

Recently not very frequently.

Travel often prompted me to write, this year,

travel has not really happened.  

Despite all the downs, there have been some ups.  Twenty pictures for 2020 could be stretching a point, so I’ll stick with twelve and peg on a few words.  A year with much gloom, made me some good memories.

January and I went to London.

The millennium bridge.  A visit to see my son before my much planned and long awaited India trip.  There were rumours of a flu like illness in China, but hey that was a long way away. I remember thinking it was no matter, the Himalaya was between China and India.  Where were aeroplanes in that thought process?

I almost choked on my carbon footprint with a flight to Delhi.  Then six weeks travelling by train, over a thousand photos.  How to choose?

What I enjoyed most of my independent travel trip, no agent involved, was engaging with people.  Particularly women.  In Udaipur this flower seller and her daughters were just typical of fun I had.  Teenagers all over the world clearly pull tongues when mum tells you to do something!

With a little time in lockdown to reflect on past, present and future.   If you’ve browsed any of my other posts, you’ll see I have loved travelling the globe. Seeing the wonders of nature, meeting other people and learning how they live.  I’m almost ashamed now to admit how many flights I have totted up over the years. Travel is forcibly curtailed but I hope I stick to my resolution of travelling more slowly, more sustainably.  The trains in India were one of my best life experiences. 

I dropped back into Manchester on the first day of March.  Fully expecting to be working in the hills from the middle of the month.  As sitting on  trains and strolling round city streets was not sufficient to dispel the wonderful food I consumed, I leaped into action trying to ratchet up my fitness.  

I scrambled across and around the fells enjoying the last vestiges of snow until mid March.

Then it happened. Grounded.  Well almost.  The fields and fells are not that far away from Kendal.  Stepping from my backdoor I discovered trails and lanes never before considered.  Spring sprung in slow motion.  Vison and vistas  somewhat myopic.  Flowers unfurled by the millimetre and I had more time than ever to enjoy the bluebells.

In April and early May, with the most wonderful of irony, the weather was delightful.  Warm and windless.  Skies clear of vapour trails and the sound of birds singing with a clarity unusually unrivalled.

Indoors we’d become experts at Zoom, Skype and all  other platforms.  My son was thirty, how did that happened?  Celebrating his birthday remotely lacked a little but as we were all becoming experts at understanding R numbers, furlough and face-coverings it was accepted, just.  Like many, the hardest thing for me has been the forcible separation from those we care about.  I say forcible because I have removed myself from my friends and family before, once for a year.  It’s the lack of choice has been the hardest thing of all.

When a modicum of release eventually came I tramped over dry bogs.  Sphagnum moss lost  its squelch, foxglove leaves wilted and streams were depleted

True to form in June the rain began again and foxgloves produced their usual show.

Rules of six and bubbles were being grappled with.  Who with, where, when could you go?  For a while Scotland and Wales remained firmly closed.  Few hopped on flights to the sun, most headed to National Parks.  Signs which at one time flashed Lakes is Closed (their grammar not mine), could well have read Lakes is Full.  As it was, to over flow. With campsites brimming, visitors pitched anywhere. Unfortunately when the perpetrators left, their detritus did not.

In July there was a degree of normality.  I bought my first coffee and cake from Sykes Farm in Buttermere.  

Unfortunately my father, 94 and increasingly frail was rushed into hospital after a fall and head injury.  Until then I had not appreciated how dreadful it was for anyone unable to be with loved ones during their last stages of life.  My father’s brief, week long stay stretched to eternity.  Dad’s treatment was amazing and he returned home fitted with a pacemaker and equipment to help him potter on.

Needing a break Nidderdale became my own holiday escape. Staying with friends, less than two hours from my home in my next door National Park.  I was able melt into the comfort of those who know me well amongst the rolling dales.

August and the Lake District was well and truly open.

I was working!  Taking people up into the hills.  For a few months my life plan kicked back into action as I helped the team at Secret Hills make memories.  Though the dreaded virus had certainly not gone it was possible to push it out of mind.

Confidence returning I risked London.  A London trip like no other before.  Trains strictly organised.  Alternate seats and rows.  Face-coverings at all times.  Once there we stayed local.   Surprisingly renovated docklands has quite a lot to offer in its restored trails and tiny wild reserves for wetland birds.

We were encouraged to mix and mingle.  I can’t remember the timescales, was it September or was it August when there was ‘eat out to help out’?  September I celebrated my birthday with a walk round Levens Park and lunch in their delightful café.  A year previous I had been in the Alhambra, Granada, but this was 2020 and things were different.

This ninth month was the only time I spent a night in my backpacking tent.  Following the ancient Roman Trail of High Street.  A beautiful sunset but a morning of mist to meander through.

October: the summer faded, the vigour of ‘the virus’ accelerated.  Were people just hugging more?  Whatever the reason R was rocketing. I squeezed in another trip to London and more leading in Borrowdale.  

The  weather totally inclement with high winds and so much rain many of the trails in the valley were flooded.  There was much late night planning and route rearranging.  But the autumn colour was fabulous and clouds are more photogenic than clear blue sky.  Then Lockdown Mark Two

Tiers now added to the vocabulary of COVID with differing restrictions.  Another lockdown before Cumbria was released into the relative freedom of Tier 2. 

Not only in November did I feel the privilege of living in Cumbria.  As well as the hills I love the coast.  Arnside is tucked away from the main tourist routes.  Just outside the Lake District.  The area of my childhood and a constant source of solace in this rather strange year.  I could probably find a picture for every month of 2020 taken somewhere on the Kent estuary.

December was bound to be different.  At first there was the promise of mixing and matching for days.  We, I think, all knew this was really a bad idea.  Though it didn’t stop me having my own personal melt down when London went into Tier 3 and a decision was made for the generations not to mix in my small family.  I’d almost got over it by the time Boris changed the rules again and five days turned into one. 

On Christmas Eve the sun shone intermittently and despite the biting wind; one of my favourite Langdale walks, Stickle Tarn, Easy Gully, Thorn Crag.  Grateful that it wasn’t I that had to call out the rescue helicopter.

The year drew to a quiet close.  Our hopes rising with the vaccine on the way.  My father is booked in for his.  Early Jan and we are all in Lockdown Mark three.  From my local hill I can see the mountains draped in snow!  

A fabulous day on NYE and yes, this is over the twelve I set myself.  But as it’s now January 2021, there’s room for hope, and time for one more image.