A look back over 2021

 The end of the year is always a time for casting your mind back over the last twelve months, at the highs and the lows.  At the moment though I feel there are just too many 'lows' in life, so I'll focus on the highs.

Last January I was looking back on 2020 and saying it wasn't a year I wanted to repeat. Err ... guess what? 2021 didn't honestly seem a lot better, did it? In part, I feel the shock of living with a pandemic had started to wear off but to end 2020 with a lockdown and no seemingly reliable way out of covid was depressing. So 2021 started off on the footing of 'make the best of things'. And I tried to.

Through the post-Christmas lockdown I kept myself occupied by trying to go vegan for a month, and with my new friend Dodo the sourdough - from naan bread to pizza base, and even bread it kept me busy with something that needed to be done almost every day.

Throughout lockdown there was talk of police monitoring local parks and beauty spots and fininf anyone who'd traveled too far so we played safe rather than sorry and stayed home but eventually, at the end of March we were allowed out and about again.

Kedleston daffodils

Days out started with visits to see daffodils - at  Shipley Country Park , and the first of many trips to my regular haunts, Chatsworth, Kedleston and Calke - and soon it was time for a longer trip to somewhere new, near Malham in Yorkshire. 

Malham

We were only away from home for a few days but managed to pack a lot in - a visit to the RHS garden at Harlow Carr, walks around Malham to the Cove and Janet's Foss, a walk along the river Skirfare, and to see
waterfalls at Aysgarth and Grassington.

After so long being forced to stay home, it was amazing but a little scary to be somewhere different - and we always remembered to keep our distance!

Before I knew it, we were off again - this time to the Lincolnshire Wolds, another new-to-me area,
visiting Doddington Hall Gunby Hall, the castle ruins at Old Bolingbroke, actually completing a 5 1/2 mile walk (!), and calling in at Tattershall Castle and Belton Hall on the way home. I didn't really get to see the sea though - there always seemed to be miles of dunes and mus flats between me and it.

Through the summer months I mainly stayed home fearing that anywhere remotely seaside-y would be dreadfully busy but close to home I discovered stunningly beautiful wildflowers growing along the edges of farmers' fields in Shardlow in June, the village of Barrow on Trent, more wild flowers at Kedleston, magnificent views from Curbar Edge, heather in full flower near White Edge during August and wandered back in time to the gardeners' sheds at Calke and to  a hermit's cave at Dale Abbey

As everyone else settled back into autumn, off I went on holiday -  to Argyll  but stopping off on the way there and back with our youngest daughter in Manchester. The weather wasn't great (I'd hoped to go swimming) but we walked through forests, round gardens and seaside villages, and along the Crinan canal, ate overlooking the sea at Melfort Hotel, then a bit more casually with fish and chips in the seaside park at Lochgilphead.

Back home the weather improved for an autumn visit to Chatsworth  and another to Derby's hydrangea collection

I'd rather hoped for another short break during autumn but that didn't work out. In November though we went with family to visit dinosaurs at Thoresby Hall, and this visit to the Dukeries inspired me to visit Clumber Park  - an almost adjacent National Trust property - the following week. 

I also took part in an online art initiative with the Helen Hallows FB group. Making time to play with drawing or collage is always something I intend to do, but I rarely do without an outside push.

With December thoughts turned to Christmas with two trips to Chatsworth to see their magical illuminated garden, and a great deal of keeping fingers crossed that everything would work out for the holiday itself - no illnesses, no lockdowns. Fortunately everything worked out, though somebody (possibly the toddler super-spreader) picked up a cold and passed it among us all, and I missed the glorious warm weather that ushered in the New Year.

It's been a time of up and downs. Busy phases interspersed with idleness. Sometimes the year feels like it flashed by; at others it stretched on forever. Fingers crossed that 2022 will be better.