While, on the surface of it, 2021 could be described as a total wash-out, it’s also been a time of recalibrating, discarding old assumptions, taking on board new habits and learning things about ourselves that, if properly applied, will make for a brighter, healthier and all round better 2022. These are some of the lessons we’ll be carrying through to 2022.
Don’t wait until your birthday to have a party
If you do, guaranteed a new variant, extreme weather, petrol/Prosecco shortage or similar will mess up your plans. This year’s lesson was Just Do It. Slightest whiff of a problem on the horizon? Bring it Forward. Rain forecast on July 15? Have your birthday on the 1st. Planning a spring wedding for 150? Settle for 30 and go go go while the going is good.
What to expect: non-specific celebrations, especially at fairly short notice.
Never postpone
Postponing, we learnt, is no solution. Postponing only results in a postponing pile-up and that other new feeling that we all had to grapple with in 2022, ‘Social Overload’.
What to expect: everything goes ahead even if there are only three of you and the dog.
We need VPM (Value Per Meeting)
Everyone’s familiar with clothes that deliver Value Per Wear. Well, this year our socialising requirements shifted and now we require Value Per Meeting: quality beats quantity, small groups beat large groups, quality nibbles trump a chicken traybake and what we long for is not socialising for the sake of it but meaningful juicy chunks of interaction with life-enhancing people. Never again are we getting all the people we like and owe and ought to see together in a room – now it’s Joy Sparkers only.
What to expect: invitations saying It’ll Be A Small Party/ A Few People, or Just The Six of Us…
And we need strangers
Everyone needs friends, family and co-workers but this year’s lesson was that those day-to-day encounters with semi strangers (the flirty barista) and actual strangers (the bloke selling dusters door to door) are what puts the life in living. Irish readers – what with being predisposed to chat to strangers at any and every opportunity – will not necessarily appreciate the change that has occurred, but there’s no doubt the last year has unleashed something in the national psyche. Now we don’t hesitate to strike up a conversation with an adjacent table in a café, volunteer advice on a train, point out the grey heron to the nearest person. We’ve learned that luxury is connecting with people you may never meet again.
What to expect: more attendance at music festivals.
A staycation is only fun in certain circumstances
These are: if almost everyone else is heading to Spain. If the weather is roughly on a par with the SOF. If you can walk down the pavement in your nearest town without having to queue. Sadly, when none of the above is the case, staycations are a bit like staying in on New Year’s Eve – refreshing once in a while but not that much fun.
What to expect: long haul holidays and as many as possible.
Restaurants are a frontline service
We always liked a restaurant with a fizzy atmosphere and a lip-smacking wine list but now we feel about them the way Holly Golightly felt about Tiffany’s. This comes under the Things We Took For Granted umbrella but it’s not just that: now we feel affection for the staff, respect for the chefs, gratitude for the food, that very nearly didn’t make it as far as the kitchen because of driver shortages.
What to expect: eat out to have a good time.
We (women) have grown up
The slick, sassy, high heel wearing ladies who feature large in the sequel to Sex and the City feel like aliens from another century. Apologies to fans of And Just Like That but grown ups no longer aspire to be the kind of women who lunch (and think it’s crazily out there to order chips), who have walk-in wardrobes full of satin Manolos, and honeymoon ‘hot’ relationships with their husbands (thank God for the Peloton heart attack – we could not have taken another second of that). Just like that, we want no more of those deathly shallows.
What to expect: smarter escapism.
It’s good to stockpile (in a conscientious way)
To be clear, we’re not talking about hoarding loo rolls, or making your driver queue for eight hours to fill up the second Range Rover. This is the new habit of accumulating certain necessities gradually including, for example, tea lights, tinned tomatoes and Finn Crisps. When the item in question is not essential we’re pretty comfortable with laying down supplies.
What to expect: people being prepared.
TV is everything
We predicted that 2020’s TV gorge fest would get to us in the end – and it is true that a glimpse of Schitt’s Creek will send us running screaming from the room – but the central role of TV in our lives has gone from strength to strength. Now you rarely have a conversation in which you don’t mention your latest TV crush. Our TV taste is how we identify ourselves and sharing tips is how we establish intimacy with friends.
What to expect: Minute dissection of Peter Jackson’s Get Back, until the next big TV event.
Don’t really need a gym
Enthusiasm for exercising in the kitchen wears off, that is true. But we’ve gone sideways exercise wise and become quite inventive. Every home now has, if not a set of weights, then a skipping rope and exercise has become the cult activity smoking once was.
What to expect: a big, Radacanu-inspired, uptake in tennis.
We’ve reached Casual Overload
As we’ve discovered you can have enough of joggers and hoodies and – not just casual wear – but casualness in general is nothing like as appealing as it used to be. 2021 taught us that making an effort is not a bore but essential for our sanity, and even a treat.
What to expect: Invitations to Dress Up
Strides have been made to close up the town/country divide
We’re talking about Clarkson’s Farm, the programme that made urban Britain fall in love with its farming community from which it had been estranged for too long.
What to expect: more interest in smallholdings and keeping chickens.
