We normally publish a kind of review but as I have said before this year has been in such a state of flux it's been no sooner than I had a planned and at least partially written blog ready then it's been all change so it's different than the planned one.
The year had began on the face it fairly normally with a music review and a piece on Brexit although we were getting noises of an infection in China in the news and some talk of it taking hold on continental Europe by February.
By little more than a month we all saw what will in future be seen as an historical announcement on Tv that informed us that things were going to be very different thanks to Covid which while being found in China we'd assumed was likely to stay around there but that wasn't to be.
That was going on as unexpectedly I was returned for a couple of weeks to the world around which my old job revolved and while doing a little investigating on foot the best route to get there and having done that a bit of shopping in the City centre I was taken quite ill within a couple of hours for a few weeks with symptoms' that in hindsight did match Covid.
I wrote across the year about the need to draw from the lessons of our pasts as we all struggled with coping with restrictions which varied sometimes quite rapidly with fluctuating emotions and how the virus affected the things we wanted to mark such as VE day and so on.
It continues to be a struggle as I write this as Staffordshire with Stoke On Trent and the Black Country being in Tier 4 restrictions as of yesterday with non essential shops such as hairdressers and clothes stores shut.
That said there is cause for hope as at long last the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine that is less fussy about how it stored, being able to use a standard fridge has been approved for use with plans starting January 4th next week to really ramp up mass vaccination as the only way out of restrictions is to immunize people even if some infection control measure will be needed for a period such as mask wearing and social distancing.
School returns for most English primaries will be as planned from next week but because of concerns around older children and staff at English high schools, most will be returning from January 18th with exceptions for exam year group children and vulnerable children all with testing.
Online schooling just did not deliver for a significant number so realistically schools need to kept open as far as possible apart from the welfare issues of children unable to have contact with peers.
We marked on January 31st the signing of the act that would have the United Kingdom leave the European Union regardless of any agreement being reached or not.
That time is up, a agreement on trade and goods has been made voted and signed on Wednesday, not perfect by any means but one that removes tariffs, makes trade as easy as can be expected while restoring our nation's soveignity to the satisfaction of both the EU and ourselves.
Brexit can be seen as like marmite as an issue but the will of the people not least the the feeling resetting the entire post war settlement was needed here in the Midlands needed to prevail as much as some of you disagreed with it strongly.
That argument is over with, things changed this morning and everyone needs to work towards making our future that still includes being a part of Europe with travel, trade and other relations but on terms we have decided and not belonging to an economic and political institution that believed in ever closer union work.
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