,

My 2020 Year in Review

It’s that time of year again, and what a year it’s been… It barely seems 5 minutes since the start of 2020, and yet at the same time it feels like its been the longest year ever. I’m sure we can all agree that this year has been truly awful. Coronavirus has taken over the world, countless countries have experienced large lockdowns, and hundreds of thousands of people have sadly died from this horrific virus. What started off as a new year and a new decade filled with hope and excitement in January quickly turned in to a nightmare by the time March rolled around. The world changed before our very eyes and there was nothing we could do about it but stay at home and watch events unfold around us. Here in the UK, the entire country went into lockdown on 23rd March and has never really recovered since then. We had a couple of months during summer where restrictions were lifted, but now we are stuck in a never ending tier system of differing rules and regulations where nobody knows what they are doing.

 

 

It’s been a tough old year, hasn’t it? A couple of months ago I was hopeful that, by the end of the year, most of this would be over and we could enter 2021 with optimism and hope, but now I’m not sure I feel that way. Despite the good news of a vaccine being rolled out quickly, I still think we are going to be stuck in lockdown for most of January and February, but I hope that things will start to lift by the spring. I have tried so hard to remain positive but lately I am really struggling, and I am not ashamed to admit that. I miss seeing my friends and going out for dinner, I miss my old job and the buzz of working in the travel industry, and most of all I miss my family who I’ve barely been able to see this year.

Despite all of this doom and gloom though, there have been some positives that have come out of 2020. I bought my first house, I became a qualified TEFL teacher and I still managed to visit London, Liverpool, Bournemouth, Norfolk and the Brecon Beacons this year. I learnt to appreciate the smaller things in life and I found a new love for my local area here in Oxfordshire, enjoying my daily walks and exploring the Cotswolds as much as I could. Although when I look back at my 2019 Year in Review it makes me want to cry (!!) I am still excited to be sharing my 2020 round up with you. Let’s start right at the beginning, before Covid-19 spread across the world, before Zoom quizzes were a regular occurrence, and before the words unprecedented, furloughed and social distancing were floating around…

 

January & February

 

Back in January I celebrated my 27th birthday by taking a trip to London with my sisters. We had the loveliest day wandering around the city and heading to the Tutankhamun Exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery which was amazing! We stopped for lunch in Chelsea and then headed to a secret Harry Potter bar for cocktails in the Dungeon which was amazing. It was my sister Sophie’s 21st birthday at the end of the month so the Harry Potter treat was a double celebration, but we also enjoyed a spa weekend in Cheltenham and a trip to Liverpool to see our family at the end of January. Little did we know that would be the last time we had the majority of our family in one room together before the world would change forever!

 

March & April

 

 

As we all know, March was the month where the world totally changed and the country went into its first full lockdown. I was told to work from home from mid March anyway, but on 1st April I was put on furlough for three months. At first it was lovely to have some time off work and be paid 80% of my salary, but the novelty soon faded and before long I was feeling stupidly bored! I kept myself busy by enjoying my 1 hour of daily exercise, found a new love for reading books (I’ve read 35 this year!), and started a TEFL course to teach English as a foreign language, something I had thought about doing for ages but never found the time until I was furloughed. I think being in lockdown really taught me to appreciate what I have, not what I don’t have, and it made me stop and think about life for the first time in a long time. I was so used to going on trips left, right and centre, and going through life at a million miles an hour, but being forced to stop and stay at home made me appreciate the smaller things in life.

 

May & June 

 

 

May was probably the most exciting month of 2020 as my sister Hannah and I bought our first house!! We completed and got our keys on 1st May, after our offer had been accepted back in November, so our purchase took a whopping six months to go through but we were in the middle of a pandemic so can’t complain too much! We spent the majority of May & June doing up our new house whilst we still lived at home, painting every room, ripping out and laying new carpets, re-landscaping the garden and fitting new front and back doors. Being on furlough was the perfect time to do up my house without having to take any annual leave so the timing actually turned out brilliantly and it gave me so much to focus on at a time where I was feeling lost without my job. May also saw us celebrate Hannah’s birthday (lockdown style) as well as VE Day where we enjoyed an afternoon tea with our neighbour over the fence and listened to Vera Lynn on repeat. I also spent time going for long walks around the Cotswolds, where I live, and enjoying the amazing mini heatwave the UK experienced in the early part of this summer.

 

July & August

 

 

July brought my dad’s birthday and our first meal out as a family at a local pub once they finally re-opened as lockdown ended. At the end of the month Hannah and I finally moved out of our family home and into our brand new house which we love! I also spent the majority of July volunteering in my local community, collecting prescriptions and shopping for vulnerable/elderly people in my town, as well as doing over 1000 hours on-call for the NHS volunteer responders which I signed up for at the start of the pandemic. Volunteering gave me a real purpose at a time when I needed it, and I still volunteer today helping out as much as I can. Unfortunately July was also the month that I was made redundant from my job in the travel industry after three months on furlough. I was absolutely gutted to have lost a job I loved so much, but I was so lucky that I found a new job just a week after being made redundant, at the estate agents where I worked for five years between the age of 18 and 23! In July & August two of my cousins, Amy & Emma, also came down to stay at our new house and it was so lovely to finally see our family after a rubbish few months. My lovely friend Rachel also came down to visit and I took her on a mini tour around a few of my fave places here in the Cotswolds which was super fun!

September & October

 

The only time I managed to squeeze in a couple of day trips and overnight stays was in these two months, and I certainly made the most of being away from home for the first time since January! In September I visited the Brecon Beacons with my parents as we took part in the Four Falls Trek for the Pituitary Foundation, and the weekend after I went down to Norfolk for a mini break with my family and was reunited with my lovely nan which was amazing. My other nan and grandad also came down to stay with us in September for my mum’s birthday, and my aunty and uncle stayed in a hotel in nearby Burford, so it was nice to spend some more time with our wonderful family. In October I took a day trip to Bournemouth with two of my closest friends and their little girls. It was super quiet as it was after the school half term and we had the best day wandering along the beach, having fish & chips at Harry Ramsden’s and running in and out of the sea.

 

November & December 

 

November saw us enter another national lockdown here in England, with all pubs, restaurants, shops and leisure closed again for four weeks. I spent November doing nothing but reading books and enjoying my daily walks again, as well as finishing my TEFL course and gaining my teaching qualification. I went to a couple of our local garden centres and we put our Christmas decorations up early to try and cheer us up a bit. My sisters and I were due to go to Edinburgh in November but our trip got cancelled so we are hoping to visit next year instead. In December we had a wonderful Christmas together just the five of us, and even enjoyed some beautiful snow here in Oxfordshire which made our tier 4 restrictions a bit easier to cope with!

 

My 2020 New Year’s Resolutions 

 

As you can probably imagine, half of my 2020 new year’s resolutions were no where near close to being completed this year with everything that has happened because of the pandemic! But let’s take a look at the resolutions I set myself at the start of January to see what I acheieved and what I missed out on this year.

I want to buy a house – SUCCESS – I am so happy I managed to achieve this and finally get on the property ladder! My sister and I absolutely love our little 2bed semi in Oxfordshire and it’s been the highlight of our 2020.

I want to focus on my new job – FAIL – Sadly being made redundant from my dream travel job has meant I have failed at this one!

I want to travel to 5 countries – FAIL – I made it to Wales, so that counts as one country, right?! After visiting 7 countries in 2019 and 9 countries in 2018 I didn’t think 5 countries would be that hard this year, but that was before a global pandemic occurred!

 

 

I want to start working out 3 times a week – SUCCESS – Hooray, something I have actually manage to stick at this year. Lockdown really helped me to focus on my fitness, with my one hour daily walks and three 30min workouts a week helping me to gain some routine and structure to my day whilst I was on furlough, and I continued it for the rest of the year too.

I want to start dating again – FAIL – lol, we are in a pandemic, it’s hard enough to meet people at the best of times without the shops/bars/gyms being shut too. Maybe next year I’ll get better at this one but I’m not holding my breath 😉

 

I hope that 2021 brings hope and optimism for us all and that we are able to enter this new year feeling excited for the future once Covid disappears (if it ever does!). I’ve decided not to write any new year’s resolutions for 2021 because I don’t want to put any pressure on myself and I think I did well this year to hit 2 out of 5 of my goals all things considered. It feels very weird not setting myself any goals/resolutions or even having any travel plans set in stone as I usually do at this time of year. I simply wish that, by this time next year, all of my family and friends will still be here with us, and that they will be healthy and happy. I hope that we don’t have another year where this horrible virus rules every aspect of our lives, and I hope that we all get through it as best as we can.

So I’ll sign off now and wish you a happy new year. Here’s to a happier and healthier 2021 for us all!

Love Jess x