But not all can be kept at bay behind an Exmoor wall. Walls don’t keep crazy out, nor all the worry. I worry about the valiant scientists fighting upstream against apathy and ignorance. I wince at yet another tale of a nurse exhausted beyond exhaustion by the unvaccinated. (No! No! Seriously, don’t go there or I’m climbing over my wall to smack you up the side of the head with ‘Get vaccinated or, if you don’t think you need one, stop calling ambulances and taking up hospital beds. Just. Don’t. Okay?) And I lament the lot of the hospitality workers of whom we have expected too much and given too little in this latest round of leaders telling us to ‘stay home but restaurants and hotels can remain technically open so no help from us, okay?’ Crazy, right? There’s only so much ridiculousness a six-foot stone wall can keep out.

Speaking of ridiculous, before writing this December 2021 blog, I looked back at my December 2020 blog. What was I thinking? A year ago I documented my covid-induced journey from brunette to tinsel sparkles like it was a joyride though a Christmas lights display. Now, with the transition complete, I still fight the urge to scream at the grandmother in my bathroom mirror, looking like a slightly less wrinkled version of Einstein, only without the ability to explain one single facet of the universe. I also noted in that blog from a lifetime ago that a vaccine was on the way. No worries for 2021, then. (Spoiler alert: there were a few worries still to come.) The naiveté of that blog astounds me now. As restaurants all around me close down once more due to omicron outbreaks and the travel plans I was so sure would be in full swing by now wilt on the British Airways vine, all is the same and all is totally weird for another New Year’s Eve. 2022 lies in the road like a giant bear and all we can do is poke it with a long stick to see if it is in fact dead already or just fooling us into believing it’s not going to bite. (Is my wall bear proof? Better check.)

Well, that got dark fast, didn’t it. Swimming back towards the light, I have a plan for 2022. It may not include the travel I’d hoped for or the return to more certain times. It will, however, include a) following the science (I used to be a researcher in communication disorders; I can read a scientific report), b) improving my odds of not being the person in hospital by using science and common sense as protective masks, and c) supporting as many local businesses as possible. Oh, and I plan to finish the manuscript that’s due to be with the editor by February. The novel, currently titled Life Like Lavender, involves starting over and jettisoning old baggage and finding sanctuary and cutting through the BS to find truth. There’s travel and new homes and French food and hilarity and sadness and fighting for family and plans tweaked or completely rewritten to accommodate new realities, including shock diagnoses no one saw coming. But there’s no COVID in this tale, which either makes it sci-fi or pure escapism. Your choice. But I need this story. And I need my stone wall. They are my sanctuary. I’m lucky to have both in my life.

The silver hair? Not so much. Maybe I’ll like it better next year. If not, I can always hurl the mirrors over the wall.

2022. It’s coming, ready or not. I wish you sanctuary, whatever that looks like to you.