When I think back to this time last year, I can’t help but think how naïve and innocent we were, having no idea of what was coming. Perhaps ignorance is bliss?

Sometimes you don’t appreciate what you have until it is gone. I think I took my ability to travel freely, when and wherever I wanted, for granted. I miss visiting our house in France but not as much I miss seeing and hugging my family and friends.

Over the years, my blog has developed and evolved. I originally set up the blog as a means of recording our search for a house in France. Once we achieved this, I wrote about our time in Castelnaudary and this extended to travel, mostly to places not far from our French home, including Carcassonne, Toulouse, Perpignan and beyond.

It seemed as if my French blog had morphed into a travel blog, describing trips to Barcelona, Vienna, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dubai and the ultimate trip to South Africa.

In 2020, there were no trips abroad as we were in lockdown, so my blog became a ‘lifestyle’ blog or, in reality, whatever musings or ramblings that came into my head!

One of the main events of the year was the arrival of Zeph, our Border Collie puppy and he features frequently in my blog. He’s now eight months (adolescent in dog terms) and in the photo below he’s got his ‘I know I shouldn’t really be up here’ expression!

My travel posts last year were focused on the local area, in particular the Surrey Hills. I’ve always liked where we live but I have come to appreciate our neighbourhood even more.

Christmas was very different this year, for so many people. Here is one of my Christmas presents. It says it all really. I have to say I am so over mud now.

I get enormous pleasure from writing my blog, partly because it’s a creative outlet for me but also because I like connecting with other, like-minded bloggers. I don’t pay a great deal of attention to the statistics attached to my blog but, at the end of the year, I do like to see which posts have been the most popular. Below are the most viewed posts of those I have written this year. I have to say that this isn’t a scientific analysis, it’s based purely on numbers of likes and comments!

Photo by Miguel Montejano on Pexels.com
Photo by David Bartus on Pexels.com

I’ve enjoyed looking back at the posts I wrote during the very strange year that was 2020,I hope that you have too! Thank you for reading and all best wishes for a Happy and Healthy 2021.