#At least it's not covid again but my GOD my brother in christ these insane allergies are so unsexy

[marciliedonato]

Me, may 12/13 2022 Me, may 12/13 2023

🤝

Sick (?) and listening to foundations

[wexlerkimberly]

oh god, yearly round-up.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

side note: this is my TENTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! year of doing this!!!!!!!!!!!!! i have been on this website for OVER 10 years!!!!!!!!!!!!!! jesus christ.

ok. on a completely personal level, last year was so fucking dreadful that i remember falling asleep at my friends house on new years eve and thinking: “well, at least this year can’t be any worse”. HMMMM. in all seriousness though, despite everything, i have had a mostly decent year. i’m very lucky in lots and lots of ways. i’m lucky none of my closest family or loved ones have been effected too deeply by covid. just mild inconvenience, at most. i am lucky that i live in a house with such a large garden, so i could enjoy fresh air and family-free time if i needed to. i am lucky the weather has been mostly nice this year so i could go for plenty of walks. i’m lucky that i’m naturally a very quiet, anti-social person anyway so i haven’t felt the strain of isolation as severely as others. 

most of all, this year has been boring, if anything. but there’s still been things that have made it nice. january - birthday!!! i don’t usually go hard or anything for my birthday but it stands out to me as a really lovely day. i went for a walk to one of my favourite hills with my dad & dogs during the day. in the evening, i had badminton with my friends as i used to most thursdays (INDOOR SPORTS?!?!?!!? REMEMBER INDOORS SPORTS?!?!!?!?!) and then, as per our tradition, i went back to their flat for take-away chips and halloumi burgers. because they are so unbelievably generous and lovely, my friends bought me a new badminton racket for my birthday. i feel like i’ve barely got a chance to use this year, for obvious reasons, but i can’t wait to use it so much more as soon as possible. the following day, i went to work as normal but then went out to a really nice italian place with my family for a meal and we did birthday cake & candles when we got home. feeling stupidly grateful for so many thoughtful people in my life. february - again, this year has been so dry that a trip to the cinema could be considered a high point. but it was my only cinema trip of the year and just a really nice day. me & my friend saw jojo rabbit (which was great, if you haven’t seen it already) and afterwards we ambled around town looking at things in shops. it sounds so simple but i haven’t done any of that stuff since really, so it feels so exciting and exotic when i think back on it. 

february - stayed at my grandma’s house for the weekend. we do that as often as we can, usually, and it’s always nice. but - obviously - we haven’t been able to see my grandma much at all this year. it was nice to sit in front of the fire with her and watch tv and be given access to all sorts of baked goods and walk up the hills around by her. on the sunday, we managed to pop-in on my nana & grandad too and eat many baked goods there too.

march - meal out for my brother’s birthday. i feel like a lot of my “special days” this year revolved around someone’s birthday this year. but i think this was our last day of ‘normalcy’ before things went a bit crazy here. my family went to a caribbean pub with my brother and his gf and we had lovely tasty food and a nice night out. i think that was the last day i wore anything other than pyjamas or leggings for a long time.

april - no joke, i remember going to the vets during the peak of lockdown when the whole country was essentially shut down and it felt like THE most exciting day of my life. my cat was fine (she’d been bitten and needed painkillers for an infection but she was absolutely fine!) but i remember being near giddy in the car. my sister came with us too even though she didn’t need to because of how exciting it felt. 

may - my brother’s birthday. the other one. the first of our lockdown birthdays. we popped in to drop a card off at a friend’s who shares the same birthday as him. then we drove (DROVE! IN A CAR!) to a stretch of really lovely canal that my brother likes to walk on and had a great walk. in the evening, we ordered in an indian take-away and my sister had made a FAT four-tiered chocolate cake to celebrate.

may - ok this is very dumb but i finished breaking bad this year and i set aside a special date to watch el camino. i made a very sickly millionaire’s cheesecake and my whole family gathered round the tv to eat and re/watch el camino. it’s so dumb and silly but i was so excited, it felt like a special cinematic event. i cried. 

june - my dad’s birthday. my dad, my brother & me (plus dogs) drove out of the county (rogue fugitives!!!!!!) to meet my grandad for a socially distanced chat and picnic. it was a bit weird not being able to hug him and sitting on separate benches but it was still great to see him. we had a takeaway chinese for dinner and a chocolate cake for dessert.

july - my sister’s birthday. we technically celebrated it 4 days earlier because she had to move into her new flat but we had a nice indian take-away and another bloody chocolate birthday cake.

july - my mom’s birthday. i honestly cannot remember what we ate - i think we had homemade pizzas in the garden??? it’s weird when food dictates the differences between days. anyway, i definitely made another birthday cake.

july - went for a socially distanced walk with a friend i haven’t seen in ages. it was lovely and the weather was very kind to us and it was great to go walking across fields and to a reservoir i hadn’t been to in years and years. 

august - my brother got his GCSE results and we ate pizza in the garden to celebrate. after the monumental government fuck-up with results, we were a bit nervous about how badly they’d ruin his chances but he did very well.

september - went to visit my grandma. she had been living by herself for the entirity of the pandemic (she doesn’t mind, she’s loves to garden and she does online latin and pilates classes, she’s a very busy lady) but i think she enjoyed seeing us. we were plied full of food once again. we went for a lovely evening ramble on the hills right by her house. on the sunday, my dad went for a walk with a friend he hasn’t seen in ages while me, my brother and my grandma went for another hill walk elsewhere. i think my grandma really enjoyed that because she hasn’t been able to go walking much because she was so anxious about tripping and being completely alone, or being rescued by someone carrying The Virus. so it was nice to accompany her. after that, we had a nice socially distanced meeting with my grandparents in their garden. it felt very risky to me because i am insanely anxious but my grandma, my grandad and my nana are all very safe and healthy.

october - halloween!!! i never celebrate halloween BUT this year, i was so sick of being the house every single day i decided to organise something different. so in the evening, me, my dad & my brother went for a halloween walk in the countryside through a graveyard, then through a field where there used to be an old abonnonded saxon village, and then finally through hagley wood where bella of wych elm was found. my dad & my brother were completely uneffected but i was absolutely shitting myself at every tiny little thing. my dogs had their little flashing colours on and we all had torches but i was still so pathetically spooked by everything. after the walk, we met my mom in the car (i had to get changed in the car from my walking stuff to vaguely presentable clothes) then we went to a goddamn PUB!!!!!!!!! to eat a meal!!!!!!!!!!! i went a bit overboard making my family santise their hands every 5 minutes but we definitely had a lovely meal.

november - did a bonfire in the garden for bonfire night. ate homemade vegan chilli and then apple crumble. it was freezing cold and we tried to stay out there for as long as we could. i even managed to find some sparklers and me & my brother waltzed around the garden with them, likesay we’re not an adult and a child-grown. the others melted marshmallows on the fire and i just enjoyed watching the fireworks i could see and throwing balls for the dogs.

november - we’re brits lmao but when joe biden’s presidency was finally confirmed, we celebrated with an indonesian take-away because fuck it!!!!!!!! gotta celebrate where we could this year!!!!!!!!!! 

december - christmas!!!!!!!!!!!! we usually have christmas every year at my grandma’s house with my aunt and her boyfriend. it’s a fairly decent sized house out in the countryside and she has a wood-burning fire and it just Feels more christmassy there, especially as i’ve literally only ever spent one single christmas at home before. but we still managed to make it very special this year i think. my sister came on the 13th and we got quickly into a routine of watching christmas films in the evening. on christmas eve, i made vegan gingerbread biscuits and vegan mince pies and my sister made a chocolate yule log cake and then we watched a film. on christmas morning, we all opened our presents in our own living room which felt weird but was still lovely. afterwards, we went for a family walk. my mom pretty much single-handedly (me & my sister helped) cooked a whole christmas dinner for the 6 of us with all the trimmings. usually it’s my grandma, my aunt and my mom but the fact my mom managed to cook such a goddamn feast with our shitty oven where the grill doesn’t work and you have to slam the oven door at least 5 times before it shuts.......... i’m convinced she Might be superwoman?!?!!?!? and it was SO good. in the evening, we had cheese & crackers and my sister’s tasty yule log and we watched many a film. boxing day was much the same but still nice. this whole stretch between christmas and new years day is usually painfully boring but this year has been good, i think. i have consumed an entire army’s worth of cheese and chocolate and i have definitely enjoyed the snow we’ve had here recently.

so. yeah. this is very basic and boring. none of these things would usually end up in my write-up of the year. but i haven’t been to a single concert or theatre trip or even really left the midlands at all. in my round-up last year, i wrote some stupid sentimental bullshit about romanticising “the most basic and boring aspects of life” and never has that been so apt. on the face of it, this year has been SO boring. but i’ve managed to make it enjoyable in the tiniest ways.

for example, i enjoyed every single sunny day. i would jump on the trampoline and listen to podcasts. i would go running and listen to podcasts. i would go walking and listen to podcasts. i owe a lot to podcasts, i think. but i definitively owe a LOTTTTT to walking. i walk for a living (i’m a dog-walker lmao) but i would still go out for walks with my own dogs in the evening or go out for walks with my dad in the morning where i could. if we thought we made good use of the pizza oven last year, this year has been insane. i have made and cooked SO! MANY! pizzas this year and they were all excellent. i feel like food has been really important this year. like i said, it helps distinguish the days, especially “special” or “treat” foods. like everyone i have done a lottt of baking this year. especially when it’s been such a great year for fruit!!! there’s a field near me and there’s just simply shit loads of blackberries and raspberries that grow there. i remember one evening sat in the garden eating some mango sorbet my sister made with some raspberries i picked from the field and thinking that life simply does not get better than that. idk. it’s nice to take pleasure in the smallest things i think.

but, like i said, i have been so lucky this year. i was only off work temporarily and none of my immediate circle have been directly impacted by the effects of covid. as annoying as they are, i’m very lucky to have spent so much time with my family - as opposed to be being by myself - because it’s nice when we make food for each other and watch tv and films together or go for walks together. 

god. this is long and waffley. if you read all this: what the fuck is wrong with you? but also: thank you! i know 2021 is definitely going to start off rocky but i strongly believe - and i’m a massive pessimist - that things are going to get better.  love and strength to everyone. wishing you peace and comfort x 

(again: i cannot believe i have been writing up this silly little incoherent things for a decade!!! sometimes i like to go back and read the earlier ones and remind myself of old fun times and cringe at teenage me. here’s to... 10 more years??? hahahahaha. anyway:here’s the other 9 years of nonsense: 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, and, finally, 2011.)