Looking back at 2020
- courtneykdavies
- Dec 21, 2020
- 4 min read
This has been a year like no other. The year started off promising. Although we started the year off apart, celebrating in our home towns, we still FaceTimed each other on New Years eve to get ready and talk about our plans for the year.
January:
We took a cheap trip to Dublin for one night that we got a deal for on black Friday. We hoped this would be the first of many holidays for this year planning to book Ibiza in late January/ early February. We then returned to university in late January excited to see what the new semester held.
February:
We booked our holiday to Ibiza that was planned to go ahead in June, unfortunately this didn’t happen. Little did we know this was our last full month at University and living in halls, but luckily we spent it living in each others pockets, making tiktoks and going on nights out.
March:
It started off strong going to pubs, restaurants, bars and clubs which we didn’t know would our final nights out for a long time. Mid march we spent our last night together in the flat and went to the pub, we then started packing but we all thought we would be back in three weeks so we didn’t really have a idea what to pack. Towards then end of march a fews days after we all got home Anna went through a break up and we watched Boris’s speech announcing a national lockdown.
Final night out to the pub before Lockdown
April:
This was the month of going on daily walks, face timing your friends, the app house party, zoom quizzes, clapping at your doorstep on a Thursday night, binge watching your favourite shows and getting nominated for downing drinks and running 5K. We also spent this month revising for our online exams in may and finishing off coursework and assignments for University.
May:
We celebrated Anna’s birthday over zoom with a quiz and a few drinks. This is the month we first decided to make our blog and shared our first post. We also finished our exams this month and celebrated the end of our first year over zoom, although this wasn’t how we had planned.
June:
We got emails from our halls of residence giving us dates to move out. This was the month life became a little normal again you were allowed to see your friends outside and in back gardens. Therefore, when Anna came to collect her stuff from the university flat we decided to meet up outside at a service station on the motorway, which was the first time we had seen each other in three months.
The first time we saw each other after three months
July:
We moved to back to Manchester and into our house for our second year of uni. At the start it was only us two that moved in so we tried to keep ourselves busy and get comfortable living somewhere new and just enjoy time together for the first time in a while. We finished Gossip Girl, explored the city and found one of our favourite places which is the sunset at the beach.
August:
This was by far the best month out of the year, it was as though we took a break from the pandemic and life was some sort of normal. Everyone moved into the house and we took full advantage of the eat out to help out scheme, going out sometimes days in a row. We took trips to the beach, pubs, met up with friends, saw more of Manchester and we both took trips down to London.
tbf summer 2020 wasn’t even that bad but this is only part 1 x #fyp #summer2020 ♬ original sound – ocean_magazine
September:
At the start of September we took a trip to Leeds for the night, we finally went to Junkyard golf together after planning to for over a year and we enjoyed food and two for one cocktail. This was before everyone returned to university and the cases started rising. We began online university again but it was different to how we experienced it in April and May.
October:
We could no longer stay out past 10pm and cases began to rise due to all of the university students, therefore we couldn’t really see many of our friends as some had Covid and the others had been in close contact. But we managed to still get dressed up and go for a few nights out together, before it was announced that we would go into another national lockdown in November. We finished the month with a Halloween celebration in the house with those of us living there.
Enjoying one of our final nights out at Junk Yard
November:
We went back into a national lockdown so we were back to going on daily walks, but it was a lot better this time around because we could go for walks around the city since this is where we spent it. Our jobs were still open and we still had to go into university so life was slightly more normal compared to the first lockdown. In this month we celebrated our friends 20th birthday and spent time setting the house up for Christmas.
Setting up our best friends surprise bday afternoon tea in lockdown💗 ♬ Hard Times by Paramore – jana
December:
We came out of lockdown, however, because Manchester is in tier 3 we only had retail stores open so we still had to have take out food if we wanted a meal out. In Manchester there were a few mini Christmas markets and new Christmas lights so we visited these and went for walks around the shopping centres to finish our Christmas shopping. We spent our final night altogether having a house Christmas Day where we gave our secret Santa gifts and enjoyed a Christmas dinner. We are now both at home and looking forward to spending Christmas in our hometowns, luckily we are both in tier 2 at home so we can enjoy meals out and see our friends from a distance.
University House Christmas dinner
Looking back at 2020 it hasn’t been as bad as a year as we thought. Although we only got to leave the country once at the start of the year, we have still made the most of 2020 when we have been all together. We are looking forward to the new year, and what it holds.
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