Happy New Year

So bored of Covid. It has had it’s fun and games, killed loved ones, turned upside down daily life and prevented us from seeing the people and things that make us happy. Please just do one. Of all the hopes and aspirations for 2022 I want Covid to become no more than a nuisance factor and it no longer gets to run roughshod over our lives.

2021 didn’t quite hit the shitty-ness of 2020 I suppose, and I was happy for simple pleasures like finally seeing family and friends in the UK and going to The Valley again.

I was lucky, and determined, to try to bring back some kind of normality last year. I got on a few planes, had a summer break in Florida, and even did a long work trip, which was a joy although I was heavily out of practice.

My favourite night of the year was being at Wembley for England’s Euro semi-final win over Denmark. It was probably Covid central, but some times you got to do what you got to do, and I’m very glad I did. I really enjoyed the Euro’s, I am sure we all did, and it has got me excited about next year’s World Cup in Qatar.

We have been mostly quite lucky in Bermuda (yes, I know 🌞🏝😉) in that we have had spates of normality where we were back in the office and things have been opened, but we have been hindered by strict testing regimes and rules that change overnight to the point that no one knows what they are and the locals are generally a nervous bunch.

Bermuda has a gross debt of approaching $4 billion, which is preposterous for a country of 60,000 people that doesn’t actually make or export anything. Shops and restaurants are boarded up and it needs the tourist and the business traveller back onshore pronto.

One nice thing that happened this year was that we moved office. In all my years working I have never actually worked in a brand new office designed solely for our occupation, and it is pretty sexy with a view to die for.

Work was busy, stressful, frenetic and rewarding all at the same time, although much of the year was spent planning for a major acquisition that never happened. I suspect too that we as a family have actually gotten a year closer to leaving this strange but beautiful isle.

My daughter’s schooling is becoming more important, and although she is doing really well and is as conscientious as she is competitive, our end game here will be all about her. I have felt for her though as she excels in sport, particularly swimming, and these kids have had two years of fun and adventure ripped from them.

Meanwhile my son has his whole life mapped out. He is loving work, has a close-knit group of mates, is enterprising and goal-orientated and about as chilled out as you can get. God knows where he gets that from!

I’m ever envious of my brother who sold his business and retired to Ibiza in 2021, and my parents have just returned from there, which has given them a massive confidence boost that they still can do stuff in the twilight of their years despite everything they like others of their age have had to to sit on the sidelines and helplessly witness.

One constant in the interior-designing-other half’s and my life has been the project to completely renovate the house we bought in Sarasota, Florida in 2016. I will write a book on it one day, but it is finally starting to look like a home and we love it.

The other constant in my life, well since 1975, is Charlton Athletic, happily into the second year of new ownership. We wouldn’t be Addicks if we didn’t moan about stuff, but my it was bloody awful for most of 2021 on the pitch, but the appointment of Johnnie Jackson has given us all a spring in our step and hopes and dreams for better times ahead. Surely we deserve them.

We have an early dinner booked tonight at a local restaurant where we will toast in the UK’s new year at 8pm our time and then go home and attempt to stay up to toast Bermuda’s.

Thank you all for taking time out to stop by here to read my musings, when isolation and lock-down have been words commonly used in our language in 2021, it felt good and made me feel happy that you lot were out there as an extension of my life.

Happy New Year to you all, and we all hope for better, happier and more adventurous times in 2022.