2020 and 2021 have not been the years anyone was planning for.

I can’t minimise the impact it has had and I can still appreciate the way we used the time; more local exercising and exploring, and being able to spend time in summer visiting exhibitions and getting away for a bit, making choices how to spend money on local businesses (such an excuse for takeaway). A Civil Partnership that was meant to be on Star Wars day but ended up being brought forward to the first day of lockdown. I realise I haven’t written a lot of it down – the occasional Facebook post and a photo maybe, but it’s good to reflect as well as to look forward to the future.

I’m incredibly grateful for what I have; I remember making a promise in my 20s not to waste time and to take things in; I spent a lot of 2020 doing exactly that.

The year started as planned, though – a trip to Amsterdam in January 2020 and a trip to Belgium at the end of February – 51 weeks ago. The trip to Belgium had a real impact; we visited Antwerp, which is a really interesting city with excellent museums, and then headed to Ypres. We were in the In Flanders Field museum on 29 February 2020; there was one leap year during World War I and in the museum, there are screens showing the Roll of Honour of the names of the soliders who died each day of the war. I realised that seeing the Roll of Honour for 29th February on 29th February is a rare way to commemorate the dead. The following day, we headed out onto the Ypres Salient on bicycles; we stood on the lines of the Allied and German fronts that were often only metres away from each other. We saw one of the left-over bomb craters and walked in left-over trenches.

I have missed museums during lockdown and exploring new places for these reasons – on one hand, there is a lot you can learn from books and online and I’m glad to have the time to do so. But the experience of being in places, and reading about them in situ is a different situation and one that I will try to experience as often as possible.

Here are some photos of that trip:

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There were other trips, many, many photos from local exercise and other things to share. I’m trying not to plan too much for this year, but it is hard not to look forward to new experiences. And half the fun is in the planning!