Following yesterday’s post covering the first 6 months in photos, here is the last half of the year!
July 2020 – Instead of going to Bluedot Festival, we stayed at home, for the most part. A few more park meet ups, and a sort of gig – live socially distanced music at Tap Social. My photographing abandoned objects picked up pace – as the weather stayed dry, people just started leaving boxes of things for people to take from outside their houses. I continued to explore on my bike -including the city centre, with there being so few cars around I built my confidence. I also made some facemasks and learnt the mosaic crochet technique.
August 2020 – Sunday Roast – at a pub! sitting outside of course, Daunt books finally opened their Summertown branch. It was hot, I had to go Abingdon for an exam, which got cancelled and reinstated the following week where it was raining cats and dogs – it also has a huge yarn store. I bought lots of yarn, as well as some online. I discovered an off-road cycle path that took me to Marston, and Record Store Day went ahead in a weirdly better fashion (timed slots).
September 2020 – I visited the office for the first time since March, my friend got a puppy, I dyed my hair pink again. A very small group of friends went away for a weekend glamping, there were animals – it would be my only time out of the county let alone country, all year. I took a covid antibody test as a randomly selected person for the study at UCL (it was negative). I started my first CAL (Crochet A Long) and then at the end of the month, I sort of slipped and twisted my right ankle on the bottom step of our staircase, which in itself would be bad, but this caused me to fall onto my left ankle, popping the joint out the socket – rotating and smashing my tibia in two places. So I spent the end of the month with my feet up in hospital getting surgery.
October 2020: Back home and my non-broken foot/ankle started to bruise and I received lovely flowers from my mum and my colleagues. I had my first major ‘frogging’ of my crochet project (first of many), had my stitches out and a new, lighter, fibreglass cast put on. I also took part in Sober October, and managed to take part in a Beer School – having a good foray into alcohol free beers. Ended the month buying more house plants.
November 2020: Finally got my butt in gear and had some cards made to sell on my website, bought more craft beer – this time a Hitachino Nest case from the House of Trembling Madness somewhere up North. Had some facemasks made with my photos on them, because why not? For the first year since 2013 we did not spend early November in Iceland for IcelandAirwaves festival, but it did go virtual – I won a competition for a gift bundle including several icelandic snacks and drinks which eased the pain somewhat. Went for a walk to the park! Put the Christmas tree and lights up early.
December 2020: Nipped to the local garden centre and admired their Christmas display, bought a baby norweigan spruce (but not from the garden centre), enjoyed opening both my beer and yarn advent calendar, especially when the colours matched. Made a cross stitch hop cone for my beery secret santa gift, had a delivery from work for a Christmas party care package and had my last visit to the surgeon, got a photo of my metal work. Invented the ‘warbys square with cheese and hashbrowns’ delicious hangover cure. Ordered a Swedish Julbord from the local Swedish Cafe (Skogen Kitchen – its amazing) for Christmas Eve, portions were for 4 people so we only got a few items and were stuffed. Christmas Day was our first alone and at home, we usually visit one half of the family the weekend before Christmas and my family for Christmas week. So it was very chilled, and I made the Christmas Dinner. The rest of the year was much the same, eat, sleep, chill, repeat.
Lets hope 2021 has more adventurous opportunities!
Culturenator 