Goodbye 2020

Sunset 31 December 2020

Goodbye 2020, the year nobody has loved.  As chance would have it, the last day of the year seems to have been trying to make up for the previous 364 days – a lovely winter’s day, bright, sunny, calm and cold, with snow lying (patchily) on the ground.  We made the most of it by going for a walk.

Out for a walk

On Monday last we awoke to find a couple of inches of snow over everything; at least it was an improvement on a couple of nights previously, when Storm Bella swept through, with torrential rain and gales.  The snow continued intermittently and mostly lightly that Monday and part of Tuesday, and it stayed cold; there was a slight thaw on Wednesday, clearing snow at least from places where the sun managed to reach, but the local roads remained too icy for us to feel like venturing out.  Today, despite the sun, it has been too cold to improve the situation.  So all that food in the fridge has proved useful after all; no shopping until after New Year!

The garden, Monday morning

Thinking back over the year’s weather, the main events in my memory are a stormy February, a warm, dry and sunny spring followed by a miserable June and most of July, another hot spell in early August, and nothing very pleasant after that, including the wettest October on record. My usual failure to water the potted plants thoroughly enough during the dry spells caused a few losses, and is the likely reason for quite a few other plants not performing well. Those plants that had their feet in the soil did rather better, and the fruit trees obviously enjoyed the weather, as we had a bumper crop of apples, plums and raspberries – and much the best pear crop we’ve ever had (six juicy pears).

It was also the year when potting compost was unavailable for months, the result of gardeners panic-buying ahead of lockdown and then suppliers being closed; and apparently seed merchants were so inundated with online requests that deliveries of seed orders were taking ages to arrive (although I had all my seeds bought by late 2019 so didn’t have that problem).  On the plus side, thousands of people took up gardening for the first time, having nothing much better to do, and that can only be a good thing.  Let’s hope they continue in 2021!

And now we're back into lockdown.  Well, there's plenty to do in the garden - weather permitting.

Goodbye 2020 – it’s been a rollercoaster, and on the whole one best forgotten.  Let’s enjoy 2021.