Deepest winter

Deep frost out there this morning. Picturesque and satisfying. Footprints on the lawn where someone took shortcuts to or from the shed last night. A slow start to the day. There is no rush.

Our tree is not long for this lounge. It has shed its needles more quickly this year for some reason. Symptomatic of the whole of 2020 perhaps. 

Although we knew about the virus at the beginning of this year it didn’t inform our travel plans early on. In February we flew to San Francisco for the NANOG conference. I was a NANOG virgin amazingly, at the age of 58. We arrived a few days before the main cohort and spent a couple of nights in a signature suite at the Fairmont on top of Nob Hill. Fantastic room and views although the hotel is a little faded.

Moved down the hill for the conference and then drove down the Pacific Coast Highway taking 4 days to reach Venice via Santa Cruz, somewhere near Hearst Castle and Santa Barbara. Far more relaxing than doing it in one long hike like we did when we took the kids. On to Palm Springs and then Vegas through the desert. That was a terrific drive.

Looking back it felt as if we were just keeping ahead of the spreading of the virus. Two weeks later and we were locked down. A totally memorable trip in great contrast to the rest of 2020.

Now that we are locked down again, albeit with a vaccine showing a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel, it feels as if a change would be appropriate moving into 2021. The kids will have all gone back to their lives away from home and peace will return once more to Wragby Road. It’s not that we don’t like having them back but we also like the pre-kid freedom of the early days of our relationship.

The shed is a perfect place to exist in a lockdown. Good communications with the rest of the world yet nicely isolated. 

Walked down to the new bypass with Hannah. My idea was to count the lorries on it. In theory it is meant to take up to 25% of the traffic away from our road. Not the best day to do the monitoring. Only saw 2 lorries go down it in 10 minutes plus one that turned off to go to Wragby and away from our house. It’s a very nice bypass anyway.

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