Goodbye January 2021, the month that felt like a year…

So here we are, the last day of January. I bet you are like me and glad to see the back of it. January can be a tough month generally, but throw in a lockdown and you have a recipe for a really grim time. The first lockdown will go down in history a fabled time of everlasting sunshine, but this one will be remembered for harsher conditions.

There were some beautiful sunny days at the start of the month, I took the above photo during a walk in Lady Dixon Park. But the blue skies gave way to a dull grey, the weather seemed to match the general mood.

This lockdown reminds me of the dementors in Harry Potter. If you are not familiar with Harry Potter I will let JK Rowling explain it for you:

“Dementors are among the foulest creatures that walk this earth. They infest the darkest, filthiest places, they glory in decay and despair, they drain peace, hope, and happiness out of the air around them. Even Muggles feel their presence, though they can’t see them. Get too near a Dementor and every good feeling, every happy memory will be sucked out of you. If it can, the Dementor will feed on you long enough to reduce you to something like itself — soul-less and evil. You’ll be left with nothing but the worst experiences of your life.”

J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Lockdown sucks the joy out of life. It is funny the things you miss. It is not really the shops, travel, the office etc, no you tend to miss most human connections. Visiting peoples homes, going for a pint, parties etc. You can meet people outdoors but as times this can feel like the prison exercise yard.

But tomorrow is February, the shortest month of the year. Spring is just around the corner and you can feel the days getting longer. We may not be back in pubs by St Patricks Day but you would like to hope that things like restaurants could be open again by Easter. I am going to book an Airbnb for Easter time to have something to look forward to.

It is very positive news that they seem to be making great progress vaccinating the high-risk groups, you would imagine this should cut the death rate considerably. Plus there is the fact that these things seem to die down naturally coming into spring and summer.

Never has the phrase take every day as it comes been more appropriate. All we can do is make the best of it and hope that soon the grey skies will clear and there will be blue skies again.

Until then stay calm and stay safe.

Brian O'Neill

I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism, I am not a member of any political party. Oddly for a member of the Slugger team, I am not that interested in daily politics, preferring to write about big ideas in society. When not stuck in front of a screen, I am a parkrun Run Director.