Jack of All Trades, Mother of Two

  2020. Where do I start? A lot of people would just say that it was a really shit year. For many people it was the most awful year of their life with loss and tragedy across the entire globe. Words that had never been part of our vocabulary such as lockdown, the R number and quarantine quickly became daily phrases. We all lived through a year that we could not have anticipated or imagined.   Now we have reached the very last day of 2020 and I ‘ve been thinking about whether, amongst all the bad stuff, was there anything positive? Has 2020 left me with anything good that I can take forward into the new year? I started thinking about things that I had achieved during the year and even made a list. ·         Learnt to make sourdough bread ·         Started riding a bike for the first time in 40 years ·         Grew lots of fruit and vegetables myself ·         Walked more than I drove ·         Won a Fitbit ·         Read some amazing books ·         Watched some really great films ·    

I t may seem strange, but this post was actually inspired by a Taylor Swift track. I was so excited when she released the Evermore album and could not wait to listen to it. It was when I got to track 5, Tolerate It, that it hit me. I instantly could relate to the song and when I read the comments on YouTube, I was struck by how different people had related to the song in different ways. Some talked of past relationships, some of their parents and some even thought it related to Princess Diana. I started thinking of how we often do accept one sided relationships where we put in all the effort without it being reciprocated.     I was genuinely shocked to realise that this may have been an ongoing theme throughout my life. This saddened me but also gave me clarity as situations and relationships that had made me sad at times or sometimes even constantly, suddenly made sense and I could see exactly what was wrong.    My relationship with my mother was often troubled but I had never doubted