Wow. On a scale of 1 to a million - 2020 sucked a full million. Luckily I am sure we can rely on 2021 to kick Covid's butt and bring us back into the light. I mean - how bad could it get? Literally - if Aliens landed on the Whitehouse Lawn it wouldn't surprise me. Or anyone these days.
As I write this - Trump has been impeached once more for being a complete tool. Not sure his end game? Total Civil War? Zombie Armageddon? Again - it wouldn't be overly odd if he peeled back his mottled orange skin to reveal some sort of giant semi-sentient turd beneath. This might explain alot.
In the meantime - we have a man with the looks and intelligence of Wurzel Gummidge on a bad day in charge of the worst pandemic crisis since the Spanish Flu. He probably means well - but you get the impression that Eton only gave him the life skills to slap other naked men on the bum with a well-aimed towel-flick after a game of rugger, to sire random kids with whichever poor cow of a woman seems to be in sniffing distance of him at the key moment when he is feeling randy and to scare small murmerations of starlings and a few ageing crows out of a recently planted arable field.
So - on the basis that we are totally screwed What good has happened recently? Here's my photo summary of the last few months:
1. Boba Fett called me up on Christmas Day really pissed and we had a good chat.
2. We chased a dodgy Santa down the road in the back of a white van and danced to Last Christmas on his Santa Sound System without being legitimately Whammed - cos it was still November. It was ace. Cheered us all up.
3. We had a mega table tennis Christmas disco-athon.
4. I hung out with a JCB but couldn't work out how to hotwire it.
5. I met my workmates in a giant beer Tee-Pee (not to be confused with a giant She-Pee). It had a massive fire in the middle but no one was dressed as Hiawatha.
6. We ate 12 donuts and met a glowing painted dog at the zoo
7. We hung out with John Lennon at the cavern - and were the only crowd there.
8. We didn't die.
Well - we paid a Christmas visit to the zoo and hung out with the lemurs. They really are quite cool to see up close in their actual enclosure as you walk about amongst them. We got to see the Chester Zoo lanterns at dusk. Which, when you can't get a ticket, counts as a stroke of genius. Pick a dull wintry day at the zoo, loiter in the bar drinking hot chocolate and then slowly wander past the glowing animals and attractions as you leave. Certainly fooled Caitlin - who was absolutely delighted with it.
As per the entire nation - apart from all the ones who totally ignored the government advice and are probably dead by now - we didn't see our loved ones. Instead, even though it tore at our hearts, we had multiple zoom and Facetimes with relatives cocooned against Covid in their homes. So much for Boris and his "Jolly" Christmas. What a total incompetent buffoon. Complete Moomin. We did get to see some friends at a socially accepted bucks fizz sipping distance, which was cool.
It is the first year that we were unable to eat all the cheese, pate and chocolates we had stocked up. I think I went into auto-pilot and continued to buy as if Christmas was going ahead as normal. Despite actual reality. For a start, I had bought a 14 person Turkey. Which was ambitious when it only had to feed 2 adults and 3 kids.
This may explain why I currently feel and look like a cave bear just prior to entering a particularly harsh hibernation during the last Ice age. I've literally stocked up with enough reserves to keep me in a state of Torpor for at least 9 months judging by my pre-hibernation weight. My hair is now well into full cave-man look. I have once more lost sight of my ears and no longer worry about looking like a tramp because everyone else I meet looks exactly the same. Scientists have recently revealed that primitive man may actually have survived deadly winters by adopting exactly the same method as me. So I am only following my natural captain caveman instincts!
Before Christmas, the canal trust came along and pointed at trees and looked very wise and then prepped the land adjoining our garden with about a tonne of gravel. In preparation for re-laying the cycle path along the canal. This has made for some comedy moments of a morning. It is not often that you trundle downstairs to work (approximately 17 steps from bed to study). Stagger 9 steps into the kitchen to boil the kettle and stare up to see two random blokes in hi-vis and hard hats driving JCBs and massive ten tonne travel trucks past your kitchen window. Daisy is literally having a sh*t fit barking herself into some sort of crazed excitement every time a JCB goes by. It's bad enough when she sees a squirrel or God-forbid - a magpie. This is even worse.
When they leave - we inspect the set-up. There is a canal boat with its very own crane and a mini-JCB in it. There are two other JCB diggers and a portacabin. I am so excited. This is surely my chance to recreate that scene in the Jizlopi video, hotwire one of these yellow bad boys and steam down the street with the kids as I sing "I'm Tom and I'm 45 - my Dad's Bruce Lee - and I've just stolen a JCB!" But it all looks very complicated to drive these things...so I settle for a JCB selfie instead (look - you must remember - we had just been in a November lockdown so you had to take your entertainment where you get it).
Early in December - we find ourselves donning masks and heading for Liverpool so the kids can have their Piano Grading. Of all the places we wanted to visit - Covid Scouse central in the middle of a pandemic was probably not one of them. I love the city, but not when it is totally plague ridden! But - I'd be blowed if we'd miss out - we'd already paid for the exam in advance.
So it was slightly surreal as we wandered past droves of newly released Christmas shoppers queuing (I kid you not) to get into Primark. If only all those kids in Bangladesh working for one pence per day knew how their efforts were not in vain! Christmas be damned!
We somehow found the Quaker Meeting house but I was pretty disappointed not to meet the bloke from the Quaker Oats box at the front door. To pile on the pain - the building was modern and very fancy. I had been hoping for a couple of puritans sitting on an upright turnip and quoting bits of bible. Instead, I listened to the kids play some beautiful pieces on a grand piano whilst I read up all about the Quakers in Liverpool. Bloody hell - they had a tough time - generally getting arrested or beaten up and totally killed for ages.
After that - we pegged it over to Formby so Fintan could play his Badgers Hockey match for Chester. We had intended to check out the red squirrels nearby but it was so damned cold - we mainly decided to freeze to death by the pitchside instead (well -me and Declan did whilst Caitlin and Sarah fell asleep in the nice cosy car!).
Which leads us to today. January - apparently this is the day we're all most likely to top ourselves. The Monday of doom. All I know is that I am genuinely worried that Caitlin has forgotten what the outside looks like in lockdown 3.0. And I am beyond sick of homeschooling and work combined. I hated long division the first time - let alone the second!
I also know that as I lay beneath my computer desk today - waving the printer plug up through the gap - I nearly became a member of the castrati.
"Sarah - can you grab the black plug - the black plug when you see it!" I tell her. My head up against the top of the desk from below.
"Have you got it?" I ask and wave my arm above my head and above the desk...grabbing not the desk - but in my youthful yet total innocence, my wife's buttocks.
Instead of a kind hearted reciprocation or a loving "Ahhh Tom - you are so misguided but wonderful...," - she "accidentally" stood on my nuts. I wonder if this is a new symptom of Sarah's post-covid recovery. "Covid Foot". If so - this is a very worrying development for me and all married men. We are vulnerable...extremely. It must be! Definitely...maybe.
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