Well-Rounded

Happy Christmas to one and all!

What a diswonderful year 2020 has been. Here in Hackney we should, before we press on any further, praise the teachers and support staff at Hoxton Garden Primary School, who've been working their socks off to keep the kids both safe, and educated. Perhaps fate intended us to walk past the school today, and cast a rainbow in the sky above.

The teaching profession as a whole seems to have had a rough year, and the new year will be just as bad, I suspect, as what has gone before. We should be applauding from our balconies those wrestling with Google Classroom and trying to keep the class on the straight and narrow at arms length. I've met quite a few of the class, and I've used Google Classroom, so I have some sense of how difficult it all must be. Chapeau to everyone doing their best to educate, home or away.

Having nailed the thanks, it just remains to run through the highlights of the year. Alston Hall, Devon, during Storm Dennis was clearly a major success, in that no one got washed away in a flash-flood, the shopping arrived on time, and though we couldn't possibly have known at the time, a few weeks later Lockdown Part I started, and we were all very lucky to get away for a week beforehand in any conditions. Despite the rain. Can't say we saw much of South Devon, given the weather, but did get to swim a lot, and play a large number of boardgames, which is largely the point of these things.

I changed jobs, from worrying about climate change to worrying about climate change differently. It didn't obviously make much of a difference, though I've finally, through necessity, managed to 'master' home-working, or at least be tolerable at it, such that the quality of my output is not detectably worse. I guess it helps to have a new team. They don't know what I was like before. I like the new, shorter commute, though I'm not entirely confident that my new office colleague entirely appreciates my existence.

K got promoted. F & J got excellent school reports. Everyone had a birthday, which is an odd coincidence when you come to think of it. Tortoises aren't dead yet, and are going to get some fresh topsoil tomorrow -- their annual spring clean and refresh is due.

It occurs to me, as I sit here, trying to dredge up meaningful events from the last year that, for at least the 5th year running, we have totally failed to renovate either of the bathrooms. The kitchen is also falling to bits. We did speak to a builder about these things, so perhaps 2021 is the time for big changes around here. Like, a shower that doesn't leak. The cleaner begged us to throw the mouldy shower curtain away last week. I washed it instead. The mould is cleaner. What can I say? It's a Periodic Table shower curtain. I love it.

In sports news, Arsenal are so appallingly bad that, for the first time ever, I'm supporting a football team in a relegation fight. Take that Arsene Wenger! No more of this mid-table, scrapping for a slot in the Europa League. Now we have something really exciting to play for. I watched a big of rugby and was dimly aware of some cricket happening, though I can't recall any of it.

In cookery news, last week I made my own stuffing for the first time and, undeterred by the result of that effort, I shall stuff the turkey on Christmas Day. Huzzah!

Looking back through photos from the year, other highlights included a trip to Margate (which is a remarkable mixture of slightly grubby British seaside town with liberally distributed dog mess - which you don't really see much of in London - with a really beautiful tiny old town at the core, which, thanks to Kate, we were staying in), Legoland, Lego Dimensions on X-Box One (which really is the most remarkable computer game I've ever seen, despite my general disdain for modern computer games), The Wallace Collection, lots of Minecraft, mud-larking on the Thames, roses in all seasons (plenty in Haggerston Park, even this month), Greenwich, Peppa Pig World, the Green Room in Colchester, a really really cool watch-mender on Ridley Road, traffic calming measures everywhere in Hackney except on our street which re-routes ever bloody car in Hackney down our street, gazing out over Bristol Cathedral from the tallest multi-story car-park in Bristol on New Year's Day (which feels a lot more than 12 months ago), Port Meadow flooded (whenever isn't it?), the boys discovering hair gel, Eardisland and the heritage of Levicks, walking to Wales and cycling to Orpington.

So, there was a pandemic, and a lockdown, but somehow we still got to be.

I leave you with this.