17 Moments Of 2021

Time for a little lookback at the moments of 2021. They are mostly highlights, but I didn’t want to totally forget the more difficult times – it feels easy to forget the misery of the first 3 months of 2021 when we were in perpetual lockdown. So, starting with…

17. That miserable lockdown

I remember thinking during the first lockdown how lucky we were that it happened in spring, especially given how glorious the weather was. I also remember realising around November 2020 that the upcoming winter was going to be really difficult.

It was. It was long and often pretty miserable. The best part of 3 months without seeing anyone except my housemate, living in semi-fear of getting covid and socially isolating myself.

In the first lockdown, there was plenty of Zoom calls and fun games we all kind of invented to keep our spirits up – though I think most people did it to keep other’s spirits up – there was a kind of camaraderie.

The winter lockdown I just didn’t want to see or speak to people. I wasn’t totally withdrawn, I did speak to people but fuck me it was a tough slog. And every time I think 2021 was good, I then remember that not all of it was good!

16. Lockdown birthday

My 2020 birthday happened before lockdown – when the virus was just a China thing and we had nothing to worry about. My 2021 birthday was slap bang in the middle of lockdown.

But I was intending on scraping as much enjoyment out of it as possible – at least until my housemate put an end to me dancing around my room at 11pm to a Cocoon Ibiza video. Yeah, I had gone on a musical memory trip.

Also, I cooked myself the Blacklock All-In which totally smoked out the kitchen but was meat sex. And had a £32 bottle of wine – first time I’d spent more than £10 on a bottle and boy it was worth it.

So I did enjoy my birthday.

15. You may drink outdoors

Not since I was 15 had I been so excited to drink outdoors in the cold – and typically the weather was cold for every time I drank outside. My excitement soon wore off.

But those first beers outdoors with people, under a heater. Yeah, they were memorable.

14. Trump fucked off

It feels a lifetime ago already, but Trump actually fucked off, despite attempting a coup. I’ve barely had to hear his banal fuckwittery all year…though said banal fuckwittery does seem to have seeped into society.

Alas, it may not be the last of him, and 2020 may well have been the last fair election in America, with the ongoing reports of Trumpists taking over important election roles in some states, which would make it easier for Republican states to overturn election results – as Trump was demanding. Not to mention new laws in some states to make it more difficult for more marginalised people to vote.

Even if everything is fair in 2024, there will now be the suspicion of wrongdoing. Though I don’t think the Republicans will need to rig an election to win one in 2024 – they have to be the favourites.

America is at least part-guarantor for our security and democracy in the UK, and our democratic freedoms have reduced a little too – the Policing bill is the greatest danger to our democratic freedom in, arguably, centuries. We need a stable America.

But let’s just enjoy Trump fucking off out of our lives whilst we can – and that he was a LOSER.

13. Christmas 2020

Speaking of morons, after Johnson cancelled Christmas in 2020, it needed to be re-arranged. We chose the end of May bank holiday weekend, and miraculously it was warm and sunny – not sure whether the greater miracle is warm sunshine at Christmas or warm sunshine in Hull or warm sunshine in 2021.

Me and my sister put our sequinned Santa hats on and drove up north, probably confused the hell out of my Grandma, and did everything we should have done in December 2020.

Soul restored.

12. Covid

Alas, Christmas 2021 didn’t go to plan either. Thankfully only delayed for 5 days instead of 5 months like the year before.

As omicron ripped through London, there was an inevitability to it – quite a few Christmas parties were cancelled, but one of the only ones I went to, was where I got covid. And watery gravy.

My heart sank and my energy drained out of me as I realised Christmas was delayed for the second year in a row.

Thankfully I was only in bed ill for two days, and tired for a week or so after. Thank fuck for vaccines.

11. Shit weather

I’ve alluded to it a couple of times already, but wasn’t the weather crap in 2021?

First we had proper cold spells that delivered very little snow – so frustrating. Then I was forced to use holiday on the last full week of March, and the weather was crap – of course, it was glorious on the Monday when I went back to work.

We had pretty much no spring – a cold April with more frosts than for decades, a wet May bar the end, another year without a proper thunderstorm – oh and we barely had a summer, almost constantly cloudy from mid-July.

And it was a total ballache to go to another country.

OK, no more moaning!

10. Sexy Food

Time to think about all the gorgeous food I’ve had this year – and this doesn’t include anything I’ve cooked.

Clay’s curries, Aktar Islam’s roast dinner box, those £10 chips at Beast – and the best steak I’ve ever had.

Valentine’s doughnuts from Doughnut Time, 2x Blacklock All-Ins at home, that garlicky egg thing at Little Georgia – these are the ones off the top of my head anyway.

9. Roast Dinner Of The Year:

Roast dinner of the year happened in the middle of “summer”, which was the gorgeous Fox & Pheasant in Chelsea – a proper old-school feeling boozer yet totally modernised with posh totty and coiffured miniature hounds.

Smoky parsnip puree, a soft yorkie, nearly crispy roast potatoes, really nice pork belly, good gravy – sure, it wasn’t quite perfection but it was the best of the year.

Plus on the same day, I had beer of the year! It was actually at a different pub, I was running early (ok I had a bad hangover which needed curing and I couldn’t wait until our roasts) so I popped in kind of randomly.

The pub was nothing special and totally dead – I was the only customer at 1pm, and it was a large pub. I got chatting to the barmaid and she was talking about the Dutch beers they had (part-Dutch pub) so I ordered one after a little sample, and fuck me it was gorgeous.

Then the price flashed up – £7.90. Yet we came back after the roast and I had several more.

It was just another Sunday in London with good friends, sat outside admiring the weirdo’s of Earl’s Court. But with the added bonus of a great roast dinner and gorgeous beer. And that is a very good day, isn’t it?

8. The genius of Gareth SouthGREAT

I admit to not being convinced about Gareth Southgate before the 2018 World Cup, but even if he wasn’t a good football manager, then I’d still have a huge amount of admiration for the way he brought the country together.

Allowing the players to take the knee and supporting them after being booed by neanderthals, was just genius – and that letter was inspirational – explaining why I could and should be proud of my country despite the neanderthals, the moronic government and all that Brexit brought in the way of disdainment of national identity.

There was some fun along the way – Boxpark is a really fun atmosphere to watch an England game – even I ended up standing up singing Atomic Kitten and all kinds of football-ish drivel songs that I usually scorn. Shame about the game – the 0-0 draw with Scotland.

And the football? Well, it wasn’t the sexiest, at least in the group stages, yet Southgate and his team had studied how teams win tournaments – and I really want us to win a tournament at some point in my life. I don’t care if we have to win every game 1-0 to do so.

Then we beat Germany 2-0. We totally deserved it, were utterly convincing and Gareth SouthGREAT had got the formation spot on, despite the whingers claiming he didn’t know what he was doing.

Beating Ukraine 4-0 followed, and Denmark 2-1 in quite a nail-biting semi-final. Then the dream was on…we were in a final of a football tournament for the first time in my life.

Thankfully I’ve finally got that damn Atomic Kitten song out of my head.

7. Defeat

Alas, the neanderthals had the last word. There was a real sense of shame that we all seem to have totally glossed over, with how England “fans” stormed security at Wembley to get into the stadium – report after report of quite disgraceful behaviour.

So there’s definitely part of me that believes that we didn’t deserve to win – as a country we still seem to be sliding backwards socially – the country is still has far too many fucknuts, and I saw a fair few of them on the day.

We watched it in Megan’s, of all places, a proper girly brunch place in, erm, Notting Hill. In our defence, it was the only place we found with tickets available.

And the game? Well, those surreal moments when we were ahead slowly went back to reality as Italy became the better team in the second half, then equalised. The inevitability of penalties was ahead, and we just didn’t have enough in us to convert them. Close, but no trophy.

And then I went home, too distraught to wear a mask, on a tube which became rammed with those fucknuts at Wembley. Ahhhh.

6. Hi Mum!

When we could meet each other outside, the first weekend possible we arranged to meet as a family in Matlock, which is kind of halfway between Hull and London.

Granted, the rules stated that we could not stay in the same accommodation…but in hindsight, thank fuck we decided to break the rules.

We had an Airbnb in Matlock, on the top of the hill with great views and a good pub within walking distance that had a large garden.

It was a soul-repairing weekend after nearly 6 months of not seeing my parents, and the frustration of having Christmas cancelled on us.

Back as a family.

5. Visiting Friends

The problem with my group of friends is that many of us were dreamers and achievers, and thus many have moved away from where I met them to live out their dreams.

Granted so have I, but London isn’t too far from Reading. I’d guess 25% of what I’d call my closest and hopefully life-long friends live in another country, 40% live in other parts of the UK.

So to meet any of around 2/3 of my closest friends involves a train or a plane. Which is difficult enough without a pandemic. However in 2021 I did both make it to Ely to see the magnificent Martin in his new palace with robot lawnmower, and also down to Somerset to both see and stay with the wonderful John & Lisa in their hotel in Dunster – and also to the adorable Benski for his knot getting married ceremony.

4. Reading Meetup

And the old Reading gang did actually manage a meet-up, well a fair portion of us did anyway, at the end of August.

Weirdly I think the deflation of losing the Euro 2020 final stuck with me for a while, on and off, into August – the perennially cloudy weather didn’t help either, nor the feeling of being stuck in the UK. I really should have booked a few days off to reset myself, but I didn’t.

However salvation came from meeting up with everyone at a semi-dodgy pub in Reading (they sold Neck Oil so I was fine with this) – many of whom I hadn’t seen since Before Covid.

It was just a really fun afternoon, a bit drunken, but just wonderful to see a sizeable chunk of my friends.

My soul was repaired by seeing people. And not for the first time. Maybe I should go to the office once in 2022?

3. Promoted!

Yes, Hull City actually got promoted, and won the league for the first time since 1966!

Though I’m actually talking about my promotion, to senior software engineer. I battled in the early part of 2021 to get a decent pay rise – and was actually offered a 25% rise, though then it was clarified that offer was wrong and I’d been offered 14% but they’d increase it further in 6 months. Not bad but way off what I could earn elsewhere. Though I did then also get a company-wide 2% pay rise shortly after.

I really felt like I grew hugely as an engineer, becoming irreplaceable (too much so as I want to go work on the new tech stack teams but there is nobody to replace me) and really growing my reputation across the business. I became front-end team leader (albeit of now only 1 person), released some pretty cool features that have gained us significant extra revenue, and spent time learning React and TypeScript – which is the way our tech stack is going.

I was again put into the top performing bracket in the HR thingy, and then when in October I asked for the rest of my promised pay rise, they countered by offering to make me a senior engineer. Which comes with a guaranteed proper pay rise (and a car allowance)…albeit it wasn’t confirmed until the very beginning of 2022. And now I’ve changed my job title, I keep getting e-mails from recruiters offering me £30k more. Lol.

Yes, I really have finally made it. I will one day have a vegan roast dinner to say thank you to my manager.

2. Floaty Theatre Thing

Was this the number 2 thing I did in 2021? Not sure, but it was fucking cool.

Set in Battersea Arts Centre, there were 70 dancers who would roam around the whole arts centre – like statues at first, but slowly became more playful and exotic in their dancing, set to a mysterious soundtrack that varied across the centre and during the whole piece.

The magical thing about it was that we could wander anywhere in the building – not just the main hall, but all the side rooms, the basement, the laundry, the outdoor area, the winding staircases – we may not find anyone, but likewise we could find some dramatic performance by 1, 2 or more dancers.

And the eye contact. Oh, after 1.5 years of barely seeing human faces (and no we didn’t need to wear masks – behold!), having the eyes of the dancers telling us exactly where to go to follow them was so fulfilling to the human experience.

Difficult to express just how wondrous this experience was.

1. Lake District

It was my only real proper holiday this year, 5 days in the Lake District with my sister and my dear friend, Alena,

I don’t think I actually booked a week off otherwise, though was forced to for Christmas in the end as covid disrupted my plans.

It probably was the highlight of my year – there was one afternoon when we were sat outside – bear in mind we had no spring, and the week in May that we went was 13’C with heavy downpours everywhere – except in our little corner of the Lake District. Anyway, this particular afternoon was the first time I’d be able to sit in the sunshine all year, it was 14’C but felt glorious where we were, totally sheltered from the chilly wind.

I had a beer, we had sandwiches followed by scones and jam, and we’d just had a good walk along the coast – so the beer and food went down even better. Oh that was a blissful moment.

And the whole holiday was good, some really enjoyable walks, some stunning scenery, some really good food – yes, Cumberland sausages and gravy happened. It did pour down one day, but otherwise it was actually sunny. We lucked out so much on the weather.

But don’t mention our very brief visit to Whitehaven.