2020 comes to an end...

Today we say goodbye to 2020 and if you are a Brit, you also say goodbye to the EU.  It has been a roller-coaster of a year and it looks like it isn't going to improve any time soon even though there are vaccines available oh and a Brexit Deal has been agreed!

We were up and about early - before the sun had risen fully and in the low lying areas there was a whispy mist sitting in the dips.  This December the weather has been so much more like we remember when we used to come out for Christmas and New Year before we moved here.  Today looked like it was going to be glorious and we were walking!!!  Not our normal New Year's Eve activity but with restrictions in place (although slightly relaxed today bizarrely as we are sure that Covid doesn't know not to strike anywhere tonight) we have been open to new challenges.

This photograph will show you the glorious conditions we had when we set off.  I had used my little Kamoot App to plot this walk and save for a couple of glitches with my fat fingers and two little unscheduled sorties off-piste and the view of a particularly nasty pile of fly-tipping it was a successful mornings work.  It is a challenge to find something that excites Liselotte who is a hardened walker but she said she enjoyed the walk too which is great.  We are careful to distance ourselves, although we really don't have to be that careful as we have already worked out that John's stride length is infinitely longer than Liselotte and mine and if I am not bringing up the rear Liselotte and I walk on opposite sides of the track.

We set off from Kathikas and walked cross country to the outskirts of Kritou Tera (which was mainly downhill) and then back across a ravine and up back to Kathikas which was therefore mainly uphill.  My little app is good but isn't 100% accurate and so the anticipated distance of the walk and the amount of uphill and downhill were actually less than we actually completed.

On a particularly steep, long, uphill climb we tucked ourselves into the verge as a truck came up behind us.  As I turned round to look at the vehicle I realised that my friend Georgia from Droushia was in the passengers seat - the same Georgia who had come round before Christmas to bring me a bottle of wine.  I am not sure who was more surprised to see the other but she was kind enough to ask if I was ok - at that point I could have willingly flung myself into the back of the truck for a lift up the hill but I didn't.

The one disappointment about the beautiful walk was the dumping ground we had to pass by on the outskirts of Arodes or maybe it is Kathikas - what a terrible sight to greet you and what must visitors to the island who come for the walking think when they encounter a dump like this which, sadly, is not uncommon on the island.  Who on earth thinks this is acceptable???

The weather began to change as we reached the end of our walk but then we had been walking for about three hours!!!  This was by far the longest I had managed to date and about 3Km back I was saying that I was ready to take my boots off and then we had one of the impromptu off-piste in the wrong direction sorties so the end was even further away than it should have been.  But I made it and I didn't moan and I felt a tremendous sense of achievement having done so.  My goal to fit in my proper walking shorts has begun in earnest!

We hadn't actually planned to do anything for New Year's Eve as we have, for the past yay many years been out on New Year's Day for lunch, and we have never wanted to do that whilst nursing a hangover.  With everyone's plans for the New Year thrown out the window due to restrictions, Nicky and Mark found themselves unable to meet up with their friends as planned.  For this evening the rules were relaxed to allow one other household to meet in another's house providing that the total number of people did not exceed 10 and the curfew was pushed back to 1.00am.  This gave us the opportunity to ask Nicky and Mark to join us for a couple of hours, have a drink, something to eat and a game of cards.  We knew that none of us would see the New Year in proper as they, like us, like to be in bed early so we were all done, dusted, cleared up and in our own beds by 10.00pm and we now have 10 days of no mixing.

Goodbye 2020 - please lets have a better 2021.