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Heaven: What were you doing this time last year?

BoogieBoogie Heaven Host
edited August 2021 in Limbo
On the 14th of January 2020 I had a fundraising coffee morning for Guide Dogs. We had cake and coffee. 30 people attended and I raised £200.

Lots of chat, laughs and fun.

It feels now like we were on another planet.
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Comments

  • This date, specifically, I don't know, but January 2020 I was actively, optimistically hunting for a full time position; spending the afternoons at the local library; on my way home for dinner stopping for a pint at my local to read the newspaper or have a chat; still going to the occasional dinner with/at friends; looking forward to Church on Sundays, not least that I might see my godsons (whom I now haven't seen since March); going on the occasional date.
  • Recovering from bloody eye surgery. Sporting a pirate patch and composing my writing orally. Eating tons and tons of chocolate...
  • I was planning a holiday in Sicily with an old chum when I got a call to say they'd died while out walking the dog.
  • Gosh, how terribly shocking, TheOrganist.

    I was hobbling around with a broken toe. The gardener was landscaping our garden with a digger. The 14th was a study day and I had a Skype meeting with my Supervisor - for some of us working and meeting online was normal before lockdown.

    (I actually started panicking about covid early and had to take a break from social media in early February to calm my nerves. I teach a public health module and have bipolar disorder so my anxiety levels became really high when I read about the new virus. Everyone thought I was overreacting...)
  • I have a five year diary so I can tell you exactly. We were looking at tile to use in remodeling our upstairs bathroom. Then the first lockdown came and by the time we could resume, all of our choices had been discontinued and we had to do it all over again. Currently it's torn down to the studs, and most of the plumbing and most of the wiring is in. Oy.
  • Oddly enough not to much different in the broad outlines than what I'm doing now. Working, and looking towards an eye appointment, and talking to my daughter. The differences are in the details. Work was totally different because Covid hadn't happened yet. My daughter still had hope her marriage could be saved. After my eye appointment I went out and had dinner with friends, that isn't going to happen any time soon. And my brother wasn't in a rehab after a stroke.
  • Sitting in the interim time between my father's death and the funeral. And dealing with all that entailed...
    (It wasn't the easiest time, but with the benefit of hindsight, far better he died then than during/as a result of coronavirus....)
  • We were in Vermont to see our 12 year old granddaughter in a school production of a modern version of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, with some songs added. None of us knew what a powerful singing voice she has, and she had the audience in tears. It was one of those moments that marks a special spot in your life.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    I've just been looking through last year's Brit thread here on the Ship, and the most momentous thing that happened to me on this day* last year was the sale of the former Château Piglet.

    I found it very heartwarming to read back on that thread all the lovely, encouraging things everyone said to me when I was clearing the house. :heart:

    * I can't be quite sure of the exact date, as the archived threads only show the month, but I'm fairly sure it was about right.
  • Much the same as I am doing now. We have been lucky with Lockdowns. It hasn't affected us much at all. We have merely swopped "Not going out" with "Can't going out.
  • Gracious RebelGracious Rebel Shipmate
    edited January 2021
    Went to the cinema to see 'Cats' that week with son and daughter in law. It was probably the last film we saw there. And one of only 4 or 5 times this year that i have even seen my son and d-i-l who live in the same town. Also went out to a new fish restaurant on 12th....would have enjoyed it much more if I'd known we would hardly be eating out again that year. And on the 13th I was trying to sort out travel insurance for a holiday to New Orleans in May that didn't happen of course....it was to have been a special one to celebrate my 60th birthday. All so unknowing of what was coming....
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    Making plans to visit my mother (in a care home) and my father for what turned out to be the last time before she died (non-Covid) on 12th August, when I broke my holiday to fly down from Glasgow to be with him for a couple of days the following week - my sisters and brother having been there between times.
  • That sounds like a heavy time, BroJames. I'm lucky Mum and Dad are getting rather old, but have their marbles and haven't killed each other yet over the last year.

    As for me, this time last year I was going to work. Not been much of that in the meantime, though I am lucky I still theoretically have a job.
  • A year ago this week I was part of a small group at church getting ready for our annual (except for 2021) Spaghetti Dinner and Outreach Auction. This year we're trying to figure out how to raise money for our outreach ministries without in-person contact.
  • I do not have any idea what I was doing a year ago.
  • I do not have any idea what I was doing a year ago.

    It's a long time since I was at a party like that.
  • It's a long time since I was at any party!
  • HuiaHuia Shipmate
    Booking tickets to visit my brother who is in care. I was lucky in that I got a full refund and was able to see him later in the year.

    Also had a short visit from my brother who lives in Chicago and his partner. So glad they came when they did. There are no quick trips home for New Zealanders now as all incomers have to spend 14 days in managed isolation.
  • Leorning CnihtLeorning Cniht Shipmate
    edited January 2021
    Boogie wrote: »
    On the 14th of January 2020

    Hmm. Drove one child to a class on the way to work in the morning. Had a fairly normal day at work - nothing unusual happened. Picked another child up from ballet on the way home from work. There's a reasonable chance that we stopped at the supermarket on the way home, because we often did, but I don't care enough to trawl through old credit card statements to find out.

    The class, ballet class, and my work now all happen on zoom. I still go to the supermarket from time to time.

    @Gracious Rebel: did you enjoy Cats? I liked the film, although it seems to have been fairly universally panned by critics. Some of it was a bit iffy, but I was especially fond of the dancer who played Victoria, and the tap-dancing Skimbleshanks.
  • I’m pretty sure I was busy trying to tie up some aggravating lose ends at w*rk while planning to go on vacation the first two weeks of February. We did actually get away as planned, but it would have been a close call a week or two later.
  • Exactly a year ago I was quite sick with what may have been covid now I think about it. There were some local cases but testing was not widely available and you had to have been to China to get tested. However the gp I went to see, panicked about the possibility and got me out of there as soon as possible. At the time I felt this was overkill but now it seems quite a plausible differential diagnosis.
  • MaryLouiseMaryLouise Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Another diarist here.

    16 January 2020 was a Thursday and terribly hot, temperatures reaching 34°Celsius (109, 4 °F). It bothered me my life was so overcrowded and sociable following a festive season of parties and reunions. My neighbour came across for lunch, I made an Asian slaw and we sat in the shuttered living room with glasses of ice-cold homemade ginger beer. I gave her drought-tolerant cuttings of carissa and spekboom. We began planning to travel together to the Kalahari in winter with two other friends. Later I dashed down the road to give a jar of my gloopy grape jam to a retired theologian with a sweet tooth.

    I was also hoping (and saving up) to get over to British Columbia in May to see my younger sister. Her daughter was going on a study trip to Puglia in Italy in June, so I was fishing out reading recommendations.

    What was on my mind? Foreign currency fluctuations, power blackouts, attacks on young trans activists, water restrictions if the drought worsened, an old friend ill with cancer, tetchiness between parishioners, the vagueness of publishers. The usual stuff. My turmeric tubers were unfurling stripey leaves , a joyful triumph.

    In the evening I went to a community conflict resolution meeting that was vociferous but productive. Afterwards we all stood outside laughing and gossiping while looking up at the very bright constellations of the Southern Cross (extra-bright because the effing street lights were out yet again).

    On the Ship, Lothlorien had recently died and I was thinking of a quotation posted from Shakespeare’s Cymbeline

    Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,
    Nor the furious winter’s rages;
    Thou thy worldly task hast done,
    Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages


    Went to bed early because I was leaving early the next morning to walk around a new architectural build at the coast and interview the Belgian architect, then having lunch with friends and walking along a clifftop path to see if we could spot the last lingering Southern Right whales in Walker Bay.
  • MaryLouiseMaryLouise Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Whoa, sorry that was so long.
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    That would have been about the beginning of the great garden revamp aka Best Life Decision Ever.
  • @MaryLouise But quite vivid, quite beautiful.
  • This time last year we were still under the smokecloud of the massive Gospers Mountain and Kellys Ridge bushfires which either overran or threatened communities not far south of us. Today is bright and sunny, with a landscape greened by plentiful spring and summer rain.
  • I was involved in co-leading a prayer/study day for our Ely pilgrim (Cursillo) community. It was a great (and dear I say it, holy) day and I felt very blessed, if exhausted.

    A year on, in lockdown gloom, it is time to look over my presentations on prayer and try better to follow my own recommendations. Physician, heal thyself!
  • MaryLouiseMaryLouise Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    This time last year we were still under the smokecloud of the massive Gospers Mountain and Kellys Ridge bushfires which either overran or threatened communities not far south of us. Today is bright and sunny, with a landscape greened by plentiful spring and summer rain.

    Those terrible wildfires across Australia. I thought that would be the saddest news of the year.
  • Playing music in pubs. Planning trips to County Clare in Ireland to do more of the same. Deciding which Summer festivals to got to. seems a lifetime ago - much longer than one year.
  • EigonEigon Shipmate
    On the evening of 12th January last year, I was going round the local pubs with a group of singers and a Mari Llwyd, singing songs and hymns in Welsh. It was enormous fun, and I think it was hoped at the time that it would start a new local tradition.
  • TrudyTrudy Heaven Host
    January 16 last year, we were getting forboding weather forecasts about the big storm due the following day, and, as usual, I was wondering if it was going to translate into a Friday off school for me, and whether it might actually be bad enough that we would have to cancel church on Saturday. In my wildest dreams I could not have imagined a "storm of the century" that would cancel church for two weekends in a row and result not only in closed schools but closed stores, impassable roads, and a week-long state of emergency for the entire span of time in between those two weekends.

    A year minus one week ago, on Jan. 24 2020 as everything prepared to re-open, I was thinking that we had just lived through the biggest, weirdest, most disruptive interruption to daily life that we had ever seen, and probably ever would see for many years to come.

    I was wrong about this.
  • Gill HGill H Shipmate
    Grieving our old life in London and our church of 27 years. We moved to Wales on 4 January and were just coming to grips with a life where everything was closed by 10pm, theatre was no longer a possibility and we rarely saw anyone except our parents. It took the rest of the world a little longer to get there...
  • NenyaNenya All Saints Host, Ecclesiantics & MW Host
    Nenlet2 had come back to us here to take up a lectureship at the local university. Once Lockdown#1 was looming he headed back to his house and partner at the other end of the country and is teaching remotely from there.

    I had just put in my "preferences" at my job - changes had been afoot for a long time and we had to say whether we wanted to relocate or take redundancy. I chose the latter. :smile:

    16th January is my mum's birthday and she would be 101 today if she were here. Last year, on her 100th, my Christmas Rose (helleborus niger) - one of her favourite flowers - was blooming its heart out in her honour. It clearly exhausted itself and has only put up one leaf this year.
  • MiffyMiffy Shipmate
    I may well have been in London. If it wasn’t a London day, I probably went up to a church prayer group in the evening. Round about that date, we’d have been booking the animals into kennels for part of the summer so that we could go on holiday and attend Greenbelt Festival.

  • Boogie wrote: »
    On the 14th of January 2020



    @Gracious Rebel: did you enjoy Cats? I liked the film, although it seems to have been fairly universally panned by critics. Some of it was a bit iffy, but I was especially fond of the dancer who played Victoria, and the tap-dancing Skimbleshanks.
    Well it's a long time ago to recall the details but I do remember coming away with the impression that it had been better than I expected. But I went with low expectations having read the critics. I think son had free tickets or something.
  • Some where about this time, we were skiing in British Columbia. It snowed just over a metre overnight. Was in a group of the first 20 or 30. It was the best skiing of my life. People cheered and laughed all day long. If there a heaven, I'm going skiing there in conditions like this.
  • AravisAravis Shipmate
    Exactly a year ago yesterday we had just been to visit a rescue cat with her new kitten, and were deciding on names for them. As they appeared to be black cats with small amounts of white we decided to go for constellations (Cassiopeia and Lyra) - though on closer inspection Cassie turned out to be entirely black and Lyra about one-third white. But the names suit them.
  • We were on our way back to the UK having spent Christmas with our eldest daughter and family in the Far North of New Zealand. We passed through Hong Kong in transit not knowing about the news that was about to break. Honestly feels like a lifetime ago!
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    I was teaching in a classroom like I have for many years.
  • We were on our first (and last?) trip to Cuba to escape -50C weather. It was glorious to be warm!
  • mrsshrewmrsshrew Shipmate Posts: 9
    I was planning a quilt for my best friend. I finished making it in May, a week before she died suddenly.

    I was also planning a trip to a local ish indoor and outdoor play centre with my daughter. So looking forward to going back there when safe to do so!!!
  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    I can't remember exactly what I was doing, but my New Year's resolutions had included going out more and I was pleased that I'd been to the cinema to see Little Women, and had organised going to various exhibitions. Well, that didn't last long.
  • The choral group to which I belong was rehearsing for its trip to Salt Lake City, where we had been invited to sing at the convention of the Western Division of the American Choral Directors Association.
  • We'd just celebrated the Hatchling's first birthday with a big family bash, and he was about to "graduate" from his Baby Sensory class and start nursery. Daily life was work during the week and travelling the country watching sport at the weekend (to Kings Langley on Jan 18th - we lost 2-1). Going swimming and to soft play centres with the Hatchling. Birthday parties, seeing friends, going to the zoo.

    All the normal, unremarkable, run of the mill stuff of life. All now only distant memories and vague hopes for some time in the hopefully-not-too-distant future.

    I laughed a lot more and cried a lot less back then.
  • finelinefineline Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Facebook informs me of what I was doing on this day last year (or any year). On this day last year, it was a Sunday, and I went for a walk in the woods and took a photo of Asda in the distance, and then went to Asda, and took a photo of the sunset. Apparently I overheard two kids arguing fiercely about whether the sky was pink or orange. I was also making plans to go to Caffe Nero for the next couple of days, as I'd had an email from them saying there were double stamps until Wednesday. And I was searching online for a new sofa (which to this day I still haven't purchased - I've been without a sofa all of lockdown, just sitting in my armchair, which isn't so comfy).
  • MaramaMarama Shipmate
    Watching appalled as an Australian Army helicopter, attempting to fight fires in the ACT, managed (accidentally, I hasten to add) to make the situation a whole lot worse by starting a new fire.
  • Watching the Australian fires, and being appalled. Being in at work in the office, and wondering how much longer I could do that for.

    Also, starting the year off as I planned to carry on, going to performances. We saw Lucy Porter and Bond early in the year, and it looked like I might get to see up to 50 in the year.

    Little did I know. I do have tickets for 2 gigs this year though - carried over. And one for a festival, also carried over.
  • BoogieBoogie Heaven Host
    On the 21st of January last year Mr Boogs was in Uganda visiting dear friends he made when he used to work for a charity. I was baking a chocolate cake from my Mum’s recipe and a vegan version of the same recipe as I was having friends round for tea.

    Such an ordinary thing ‘having friends round for tea’ has now become a hope for the future!
  • Celtic KnotweedCeltic Knotweed Shipmate
    edited January 2021
    The 21st of Jan last year I was back in the office having had the afternoon of the 20th off to go to a funeral (mother of a friend I've known since I was born). We were sorting out plans for an office move at the start of Feb; such as where we would all work from over the 2 days when the computers were being moved from site A to site B, and what could be packed as not likely to be needed till the "new" office was set up. (Not exactly new, the building is a 1960s/70s one with no air con and windows which open - this was much much better for 2020 than the one we moved out of :lol: )

    Well, the office move went fine, and the 3 people who don't yet have laptops are still working there.
  • DeeValleyBantamDeeValleyBantam Shipmate Posts: 16
    Boringly enough, investigating having a new kitchen
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