Living and coping: Year #2 of Covid-19

01 Jan 2021:

AND so it goes; another New Year’s Day following yet one more New Year’s Eve. Ho hum.

After enduring a long line of such pairings, I still have yet to gather much sense of endings and beginnings.  Something more than the mere flicking over a page in the diary. Day follows eve; yeah, I get that. But so what?

On the contrary to the usual nonsense about fresh starts, this line in the global calendar signifies more of the same. As it has always done. No different from moving from Monday to Tuesday, or October to November.

Our lives are in a constant state of flux and uncertainty. None of us are seers. None are blessed with foresight. (Who really wants to know what awaits them further along the road when change is out of their hands?)

The year that has now run its course has, as we are repeatedly assured, been like no other.  Even unprecedented, as the cliche-mongers, would have us believe.

However, one does tend to doubt this claim. Considering the events that have assailed the world in the previous two thousand or so years. Plagues, wars, massacres, holocausts, earthquakes, tsunamis, mass starvation, epidemics and numerous other large-scale disasters have been our lot throughout the centuries.

So, 2020 was unprecedented?  Not really. Bad perhaps, even horrifying? Yes, especially for those experiencing the coronavirus at close hand.

The change from 2020 to 2021 thus felt much like any other. Except that the usual wanton excesses of NYE were somewhat muted and the excruciating hard-won hangovers of NYD were much reduced. Win-win. Maybe even a lesson learned for future years.

With the annual run (or muddy trudge) up Brown Willy cancelled (thanks Covid) my traditional active start to a new year was reduced to a mild walk/jog/run and repeat over three hilly miles.

Not quite the same test of heart and legs but a satisfactory outing on another crisp morning.

Medicine for survival. May there be many more in the days ahead.

Left: Mud, mud, glorious mud. The route up to the summit of Cornwall’s highest peak blows away hangovers for 600 or more runners on New Year’s Day – but not this year.

THIS IS THE FIRST POST IN WHAT IS INTENDED AS A REGULAR DIARY OF 2021