2020 : Year of the Lockdown

A few more days and 2020 will finally come to an end. It has been a strange year and the end of year festivities will be equally strange. I’ll be glad the year is behind me but unfortunately the outlook of at minimum the first quarter of 2021 is bleak : covid-19 ruling the agenda. But even in 2020 there were a few good things that happened. Working from home became the norm and for quite a few jobs at least the pandemic demonstrated there is no need to go and stand in a traffic jam for a few hours each day. It also highlighted for which aspects it is important to be at work together. Being at home made my agenda a bit more flexible and I managed to get in some more exercise. I started running again during the first lockdown end of March and managed to run more than 500 kilometers this year. Last week I reached the 100 run activities milestone on Strava for this year and I also ran my first 10k in a very very very long time. In unsuspecting times I had decided to start playing hockey to improve my hitting technique so that the practice sessions with Hannelore would become more effective for her. I think I managed to get maximum 4 start to hockey training sessions in before the lockdown struck. But it did help get me/us going and busy with hockey in the March-May lockdown period. We converted an old pallet into a goal and practiced in the garden as the pitch was closed. We also got some good discounts on goalie gear with all competitions cancelled and Hannelore made it to the ‘first’ team when the new season started in September. Which was unfortunately interrupted again by the second lockdown. But she did manage to go on a goalie training camp in July and we still went on vacation to the Pyrenees in August even though the hockey camp in Barcelona had been cancelled. Everyone needed to get away from home for a while. Now, in the second lockdown we built a new and better goal which has so far been sitting idle in our garden as the pitch is not closed. And as the temperatures have been mild so far we have been able to go once or twice a week to the field to keep on practicing and take our minds of the imposed limitations for a while. Also, with Hannelore not having an ‘ideal’ teacher for math in her 3rd year, the lockdown came at a good time from that perspective as we were both home and I could help her increase her skill level in mathematics and physics in between meetings. A final ‘benefit’ of the lockdown has been that I am always home early enough to make dinner. And everyone at home agrees this is an improvement with respect to the dinner quality.