Last year I posted a round up of the 2010s and looked forward to what the 2020s might bring. The first year of the 2020s has certainly brought us rather more than any of us might have bargained for but in the spirit of new beginnings, I thought I would assess my progress towards my ambitions.

Family. I hoped I would be able to spend more time with mine. Well, COVID certainly stood that one on the head and this does not look set to change for the next few months at least.

Home and Community. My bedroom has been decorated this year and thanks to lockdown, there has been some progress in the garden but I might have expected to achieve more in this regard. My community input has been limited to organising weekly Zoom coffee mornings and monthly online History Group meetings.

Work. This has altered to take account of 2020 circumstances. I predicted that I would be doing more online. I could not have imagined how much, or how quickly. My speaking engagements went online. I set up my own course of lectures and have a lovely, friendly group attending these, with room to add a few more if you are interested. I have also spoken to many groups across the country and indeed the world, most of these would not have taken place in person.

Travel. Clearly, 2020 has not been the year to achieve travel ambitions but we did sneak off to the wilds of Northumberland and there is always next year.

Writing. I published my second novel and one of two planned booklets. Marketing has been tricky but book sales have held up surprisingly well. I have written up some more family history stories and was thrilled to win a short story competition.

Leisure. I have had a few piano lessons, mostly virtually, I have definitely improved and can manage a few recognisable tunes, albeit a bit slowly. I also don’t look at the keys all the time anymore. Learning Cornish got no further than buying some books and I still haven’t got back to my spinning.

Family history. All-consuming rather than leisure, so it rates its own category. The highlight in this respect has to be my Certificate of Recognition from the Society of Genealogists. I have added a few new ancestors to the tree but unsurprisingly, my three major brick walls remain. I have found myself as the chair of Devon Family History Society, which is an interesting challenge. I hoped I would inspire my descendants with a sense of their past and I do have plans in that direction.

Health. Not so good here and I have added an unidentified allergy and pre-diabetes to my list of ailments. In a vain attempt to knock the ‘pre-diabetes’ on the head, last week I bought a fitness watch. It seems that that isn’t enough, you actually have to do stuff as well. The first challenge was to get it to talk to my phone. That’s ok, there are instructions. Line one, ‘wear the product on the waist’. Really? I know I need to lose a few pounds but no way can I get this round my waist. Ah. It seems I am the victim of someone writing instructions using Google translate, for ‘waist’ read ‘wrist’. After two days, I managed to get the watch and the phone to communicate. Apparently, I get credit for ticking off five healthy habits per day. One is reading! I have so got this. Others are getting up early, check. Having breakfast, check. Going to bed early, check. This is a cinch. Ah. The fifth one is movement. Well, I move, probably not enough but I’ll give it a go. I am fascinated that it will tell me how much I sleep. Ok. So, I was expecting it to reveal that I don’t sleep much but 0%, really? Mind you I was allegedly awake 0% of the night too. Perhaps I haven’t quite got this sussed yet. Added later – it turns out you have to be asleep for four hours for it to realise that this is your night time and you are not just dozing off in front of the fire and register. I almost never have four hours of unbroken sleep, so it won’t be giving me statistics any time soon.

Here’s to a positive start to 2021. Let’s take care of each other and ourselves.