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Well, 2021, where do I start?
The year started with another lockdown, which probably pretty much set the tone for a lot of the year. As ever, there were highs and lows. The most significant low early in the year was the death of our beloved Lady Lurcher. She suffered from a heart condition for the last couple of months of her life, but we were able to maintain her quality of life, so that was what mattered, but saying goodbye is always so hard. She was such a sweet dog.
Two days later, Gwen the Greyhound entered our lives. She's a great big soft lazy lump who loves to lick everyone and everything. She gets on so well with Trigger and we feel very lucky to have her in our lives. In many ways, she's so very like Lady, especially as she quickly leaned the art of assertive sitting to get treats!
We were finally able to get back to France at the beginning of June and had to clean the house right through after an infestation of mice, who'd also chewed a water pipe in the utility room! Little buggers. We spent five weeks there, and another five weeks in October/November when we were also joined by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
goldarrow and bigtitch for a fortnight in the most glorious autumn I've ever known. The colours were absolutely fabulous. I continued by labour of forest management cutting back the underground around the fence, eliminating the dogwood and leaving hazel, maple, oak, juniper, hawthorn and the younger blackthorn. It's looking much nicer and less dense. No mice issues this time, thank goodness.
We spent a few lovely trips away in the campervan at Rivington Pike, which was great. I do love that area. And I've managed a few caving trips, which I've really enjoyed, so all in all, it's been a fairly active year. I've continued my outdoor swimming at the lake and the winter swimming had been a (cold) joy, with temperatures dipping to a low of 5 degrees C last week.
Things haven't been great in the latter part of the year with Mr FB's mum. She's 93 now and a lot more frail. She's had various hospital stays and on one occasion we though we were about to lose her but she rallied and is at home again now. We were able to arrange a carer with the council, who is great. She comes in four times a day, which is a big help, but we've spent a lot more time up there, which does mean other things suffer, but I don't mind spending time with her and for the first time ever, we spent Christmas away from home, with her. It was very quiet and nice, and we celebrated our own Reindeer Day on the prior Thursday.
I suspect we'll have have to get used to living with covid going forward. The main issue for us is when borders close, but we both agreed after our gorgeous autumn, that we don't want to give up the French house. We love it there too much, and it does give a way out of the clusterfuck the UK has turned into with Brexit and the Tories.
On the writing front, it's been a great year! I started the year with two resolutions: 1. Keep a diary. I received one in the club secret santa and as I no longer use a paper diary for appointments etc, I used it as a diary. I'm delighted to say I kept this up! 2. Try to write 100 words or more a day of creative writing. I haven't totted up how many days I missed, but it was no more than 7 in the whole year! So my word could ended up as a whopping great 182,892, which I am delighted with! This was made up of 42,009 for Primeval, 135,609 for Alex Rider, 4,400 for Tolkien, and 874 on a Musketeers RPF.
My goals for 2022 are to continue with the diary keeping, continue with the same writing goal, do more sketching and painting, swim as often as I can in as many places as possible and see as much of my friends as I can on and off line. Zoom has been great again this year and we've kept up with the (mostly) weekly zoom watches, with a wide variety of shows. It's been huge fun.
Thank you all for your friendship in 2021, it means a huge amount to me! And here's to a healthy, safe and happy 2022 for us all!
Below the cut, for my records is my yearly writing totals since I discovered fandom in 1007.
( Read more... )
The year started with another lockdown, which probably pretty much set the tone for a lot of the year. As ever, there were highs and lows. The most significant low early in the year was the death of our beloved Lady Lurcher. She suffered from a heart condition for the last couple of months of her life, but we were able to maintain her quality of life, so that was what mattered, but saying goodbye is always so hard. She was such a sweet dog.
Two days later, Gwen the Greyhound entered our lives. She's a great big soft lazy lump who loves to lick everyone and everything. She gets on so well with Trigger and we feel very lucky to have her in our lives. In many ways, she's so very like Lady, especially as she quickly leaned the art of assertive sitting to get treats!
We were finally able to get back to France at the beginning of June and had to clean the house right through after an infestation of mice, who'd also chewed a water pipe in the utility room! Little buggers. We spent five weeks there, and another five weeks in October/November when we were also joined by
goldarrow and bigtitch for a fortnight in the most glorious autumn I've ever known. The colours were absolutely fabulous. I continued by labour of forest management cutting back the underground around the fence, eliminating the dogwood and leaving hazel, maple, oak, juniper, hawthorn and the younger blackthorn. It's looking much nicer and less dense. No mice issues this time, thank goodness.We spent a few lovely trips away in the campervan at Rivington Pike, which was great. I do love that area. And I've managed a few caving trips, which I've really enjoyed, so all in all, it's been a fairly active year. I've continued my outdoor swimming at the lake and the winter swimming had been a (cold) joy, with temperatures dipping to a low of 5 degrees C last week.
Things haven't been great in the latter part of the year with Mr FB's mum. She's 93 now and a lot more frail. She's had various hospital stays and on one occasion we though we were about to lose her but she rallied and is at home again now. We were able to arrange a carer with the council, who is great. She comes in four times a day, which is a big help, but we've spent a lot more time up there, which does mean other things suffer, but I don't mind spending time with her and for the first time ever, we spent Christmas away from home, with her. It was very quiet and nice, and we celebrated our own Reindeer Day on the prior Thursday.
I suspect we'll have have to get used to living with covid going forward. The main issue for us is when borders close, but we both agreed after our gorgeous autumn, that we don't want to give up the French house. We love it there too much, and it does give a way out of the clusterfuck the UK has turned into with Brexit and the Tories.
On the writing front, it's been a great year! I started the year with two resolutions: 1. Keep a diary. I received one in the club secret santa and as I no longer use a paper diary for appointments etc, I used it as a diary. I'm delighted to say I kept this up! 2. Try to write 100 words or more a day of creative writing. I haven't totted up how many days I missed, but it was no more than 7 in the whole year! So my word could ended up as a whopping great 182,892, which I am delighted with! This was made up of 42,009 for Primeval, 135,609 for Alex Rider, 4,400 for Tolkien, and 874 on a Musketeers RPF.
My goals for 2022 are to continue with the diary keeping, continue with the same writing goal, do more sketching and painting, swim as often as I can in as many places as possible and see as much of my friends as I can on and off line. Zoom has been great again this year and we've kept up with the (mostly) weekly zoom watches, with a wide variety of shows. It's been huge fun.
Thank you all for your friendship in 2021, it means a huge amount to me! And here's to a healthy, safe and happy 2022 for us all!
Below the cut, for my records is my yearly writing totals since I discovered fandom in 1007.
( Read more... )