So Long 2021

More than half of my Christmas/New Year vacation is already done, and I never posted once, although I had planned to post a lot. Somehow, I couldn’t motivate myself to sit down at the computer and start typing. I kept composing posts in my head during my walks with Curious Dog without actually writing them down afterwards. Well, I was quite busy with other stuff.

Today I should have travelled back to my place in Baden-Württemberg to celebrate the turning of the year with Partner and Mum, after having spent Christmas just with Mum while Partner, as usual, was off at his place. But Partner had his Corona booster vaccination yesterday and didn’t feel well enough to drive today, so we postponed our trips until tomorrow. A pity that we won’t be together tonight but getting one’s booster is important so we will deal. I had my booster planned for the beginning of February at work (which would have been six months after my second vaccination) but in the meantime the government has decided that one can get the booster shot after three months. So, I went and got mine at a test centre in Bavaria without an appointment, just by turning up on December 27. There wasn’t much of a queue, and it only took about half an hour. It was Moderna. I never had any side effects with my two BioNTech/Pfizer shots but on the day after my booster shot, I felt quite ill with a headache, a feeling of chilliness and a slight fever. I had to lie down in the afternoon. At the end of the day, I felt better again and was fine by the second day. An interesting experience.

Anyway, since I’m not spending hours driving today, I thought I’d pull myself together and write a short update on the blog and wish everybody a Happy New Year.

Before Christmas I was busy baking Christmas Cookies, going grocery shopping to get all the ingredients, and preparing the house for the holidays (which meant vacuuming all over, because Curious Dog is in a very strange shedding phase). CD seems to be losing his warm winter fur already or else it’s being renewed. In any case, everything is covered in dog hair all the time. It’s odd, because winter hasn’t really started yet – maybe his body has decided that this winter won’t bring any real cold. The weather has been mostly well above freezing and wet. CD and I got absolutely soaked three times (once on the morning of the day I was sick because of the Corona shot) and damp uncountable times. We did have three days when it was sunny and freezing and pleasant for walks, but that was before Christmas. Today it’s still wet from all the rain, but at least sunny – it’s like a last friendly farewell from an otherwise rather unfriendly 2021.

In between grocery shopping or baking or having my vaccination, I spent a lot of time reading. I finished The Tale of Genji, the Arabian Nights, the second two books in the Howl’s Castle series, the last two Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes books (I finished the series, yay!). I read a Murderbot short story that I’d been saving up and even a German crime novel by Leonie Swann, Glennkill, about a herd of sheep who try to solve the murder of their shepherd (it was a very hyped novel more than 10 years ago and I gave it to my Mum for Christmas at the time, but never felt a real urge to read it, as I don’t read many German books). It has a bit of a slow start, but I enjoyed it. After those books, I didn’t continue with my reading goals for the year. I got side-tracked by a middle-grade children’s fantasy series which I found on A Book Owls Corner – the Guardians of Ga’Hoole series by Kathryn Lasky. I’ve finished Book 11 with about 5 more to go. It’s a fantasy series about owls and it is just fabulous, amazingly creative and original. The owls have a culture, history, mythology, even special words for owlish concepts. They deal with magic and science and ethics. Easy reading since it’s middle grade and each book is only around 200 pages long so that I’m sure I’ll have finished the series in a few days (I’ve got it on Kindle). It quite derailed my reading plans, but I don’t care. I’ll blame my non-posting during the last half of December on this reading binge – yep, definitively, blame it on the owls.

That said, I need to take CD on his last afternoon walk of the year (while the sun is still shining). Then I want to get back to the next Ga’Hooleian book. So, it’s time to finish the post.

A Happy New Year for everyone for whom tomorrow is the start of a new year. Let’s hope it’ll be better that 2021 (shouldn’t be hard to beat, right?).

Keep safe, world.