The 2020’s – 3 Years Of Terror, Turmoil and Trepidation (Pt. 2: 2021)

2021

Right from the very first seconds of the new year, 2021 followed off from where 2020 ended: Chaos, pain, suffering.

Day by day, the government stated that the lockdown would only increase and increase - from February back until April.

There was good news however - in January 2021, it was confirmed my father's cancer was going into remission.

With no certainty on how long this would last, my parents started to look at moving house.

In Mid-to-late February 2021, I found one of my earliest mentions of The Isle Of Wight.

Throughout 2021, we prepared the house (had electricians and all sorts over) to move out.

In April, Prince Phillip passed away, he was 99.

Also in April, the the UK’s most recent lockdown to date ended.

Finishing Uni in May, I only failed one course. Public Affairs (started in Jan, assignment in March) – which was ok as I wanted nothing to do with Politics – but as part of the course, I would have to redo it in my second year, which, at the time, was doable as it was only one module.

It was a very quick sprint to the finish line, returning on 13th April and returning home on the 29th May.

Here I disappeared with my friends until July – but I shan’t go into any more detail as it’s happened now and it’s a year in the past, happened and forgotten.

During the summer (Aug.), I also hit my highest iRating (on iRacing) of 1339 – a year and five months (17 months) after bottoming-out at 620. 1 Year and 5 Months (17 Months) on, and the record still stood – the longest-held record…in my iRacing history.

Also in August, after previously inviting 2 friends to iRacing (in 2020), my first friend joined iRacing for the long term and went on to be the first of 3 real-life friends to join Kabort Motorsport.

August was also the month I broke up with my girlfriend. But small things.

But August wasn’t without it’s difficulties. In a blog named “Stressed Out and P*ssed Off” – I absolutely nailed how I was feeling:

~

September 2021

Initially, the buyers wanted to move in (to our house) in early September, but, thankfully, my parents convinced them to hold on out for a couple of weeks.

In the worst timing known to man, I was also due to go to Scotland in September 2021 – from the 3rd Sept, to the 13th Sept. (leaving a week or so to prepare for uni).

It was too late to cancel the Scotland trip now (as everything had been organised), so I went – eventually extending the holiday by 5 days as a new favourite artist of mine was playing a concert in the area (Glasgow) – and having fallen in love with him, I just couldn’t miss the opportunity, and what a concert it was.

Since I left my friend at the accommodation whilst I went (Tom Grennan wasn’t her thing), I allowed her to see a concert a few days later, just so we both got the concert experience and being left alone for a few hours. We returned home on the 18th.

During the holiday, my engine-check light came on – I got it “turned off” the following day (at Halfords) but as a pre-cautionary check, I had my friend check my car over on the night of the 18th.

Just past midnight on the 19th, I headed inside my house.

I had about 14 hours (most of them asleep) to remember 13 years of memories (since I was 7)

At 2pm the following day, I headed off to Uni.

Whilst at uni, my parents rented a house – and I honestly felt that I belonged no-where.

Come Christmas, I’d have to go “home” – so Uni wasn’t my “home” – it was just “accommodation” – the house my parents were in was only rented until the new house was ready, the new house wasn’t (strictly) ours yet, and the house we’d just moved out of well…had a new family in it.

My parents were also having a nightmare, being “pushed” out of our old house (by the buyers who had waited far long enough – yet couldn’t move into the new house because the sellers (of our new house) didn’t have anywhere to go (hadn’t found a house yet).

I had friends in Essex I could stay over, but that was an extremely short-term solution as I didn’t “live” there and wasn’t going to “live there”

Uni…was odd. Very odd. I started in September 2020 with one module in-person, then went through Lockdown 2 (Nov ’20), came home in the “Student’s Corridor”, and then stayed home until April 2021 (Lockdown 3) – by which time, we had a month left before we finished for the year.

So, I suppose Sept. 2021 came as a bit of a “culture shock” as everything had returned (almost to normal) and at the start of my Second Year (out of 3) I finally got the full-experience of being a University Student – and the full experience of what the course had to entail.

My accommodation "flat-mates" were also vastly different - whereas in Year 1, my corridor was only white males (my age), Year 2 was a lot more diverse - and I suppose, I got on better with the people in my accommodation in the first year - and went out and explored/"adventured" with them.

Come December, my parents finally got the keys and moved in with the stuff they had bought in their car.

Around this time (2019 – 2021) was also the time my dad sold his Audi – him swapping it out for an Abarth 124 – the first time in a good 21+ years that he didn’t own an Audi Estate – which was sad to see, because throughout my childhood, I had been in the back of two to three Audi Estates – and it was almost a tradition – and the road-trips/holidays we had (driving to Europe etc.) will always stick with me.

Come the following year (2022), he'd swap it out for a nifty little Jaguar F-Type.

December 2021

No matter, December. My parents moved in, I finished Uni on the 15th – and was told that the big bulk of the furniture was coming on the 20th (Dec.) in a big lorry.

Me…being me, I stayed over friends’ houses until then and came home on the 19th, and even still then the house was in “it’s infancy” of our ownership – on the evening of the 19th (when I returned home) – there was no internet or hot water and I had to spend a night on the spare bed…well, at least I had a bed. This was 6 days before Christmas day.

I had an assignment due on the 20th, but honestly, I had bigger fish to fry – and even if I did make a start, I don’t think it would have accurately reflected my hardest work with all the stress.

Furniture was quickly being loaded in and the internet was still… “being funky”.

I eventually got my rig and everything set-up and working on the 22nd I had my first race in the new house…which went…well.

Zandvoort GT3 Challenge (22/12/2021)

iRacing has a system whereby if you enter a race session, you have until 2 minutes before the session starts to leave unaffected – if you leave the session WITHIN those two minutes, you will be “registered” for the race, and if you don’t race, iRating will be deducted as if you didn’t finish the race/finished last.

Long story short, I didn’t feel ready to race, left within those two minutes, and lost a chunk of iRating.

Following this, I had lunch and dad changed the internet settings – Seeing my computer was still connected to the internet, I thought it had transferred over to the new internet – and just before I was about to race…I was kicked. The computer suddenly realised that the internet it was on was wrong.

On the third attempt, I was involved in someone’s accident up ahead – and by that point it was about 7pm and I gave up (knowing the next race was at 9pm, and I’d be too tired).