It was a relief to jump back in time and watch insanely optimistic people decide to build houses with their own bare hands during wild storms, to see couples breezily declare that renovating a derelict barn would take mere weeks, and to witness Kevin McCloud barely disguise his eye rolls at the endless naivety. Eighteen series, stretching back over 20 years. The film list was abandoned, and my Grand Designs addiction took hold almost instantly. In March, I printed off the list of the New Yorker’s “100 best films of all time” and then immediately sat down and found myself glued to an episode of Grand Designs where a man put a swimming pool in an old church.

But if you slumped in front of another Netflix special (one of them was Bridgerton, don’t lie to yourself), then comfort yourself with the knowledge that you were probably in the majority.Īs someone who didn’t watch much TV before, I’ve spent a lot of this lost year glued to the screen. Three lockdowns later, if you did manage to end the year with perfect Italian, then brava. Home schooling children, working from the airing cupboard, trying to keep sane when news alerts ping every 30 seconds – it was all too much.

Did anybody really think they were going to learn a new language? Sure, we all started off lockdown part one with Big Intentions but anxiety and worry sandbagged our brains, making even small tasks feel gargantuan.

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