By the way 2021 has started, maybe 2020 wasn’t that bad after all

Was 2020 the worst year ever, or was it just a warning of what to expect in the year to follow?

Maybe we spoke too soon when we said good riddance to 2020.

LIKE everyone else I couldn’t wait for the end of 2020.

So many lost their jobs, businesses and, tragically, some even their lives.

Yet, on a personal front, the way 2021 has started, I can’t help but wish for 2020 to return.

I should have seen the early signs in the lead-up to New Year as my left big toe started throbbing.

After spending three days of the first week of 2021 housebound, I realised I was under attack from the worst form of gout I’d experienced.

Seven weeks later I’m still limping.

On my third visit to the doctor in week six, she looked at my blood test results: “But your uric acid levels seems fine”, prompting me to ask if it really was gout.

“I’m starting to think it’s not,” she replied, instilling little confidence in me of her diagnosis abilities.

She wrote me another script: “Take these for a week”.

With even less confidence, I retreated home and took my medicine, and for three days I was walking almost without noticeable limp.

I’d worked the weekend so looked forward to a four-day break the next weekend with a spring in my step.

However, the health gods never let me off lightly.

The night before my long weekend I started sniffling and sneezing.

”Oh great! COVID!”, I feared.

The four day break turned into four days of couch and tissues.

Of course, come Sunday, the “COVID” had subsided but I couldn’t help notice the left big toe starting to turn red again.

Yes, by bedtime my toe was throbbing, signalling the return of Mr Gout.

After four days of sneezing, sniffling and watery eyes, I retired to bed early and was sound asleep by 9pm Sunday.

Some time later, which turned out to be 11.15pm, the second-hand cat woke me and, as I always do when I stir in the night, I looked to my mobile phone beside the bed for the time.

When I couldn’t see the mobile phone, my court reporting instincts kicked in and I grabbed my torch.

Hobbling out as quickly as I could, my suspicions were confirmed when I found my sliding door had been jimmied open giving access to, what I discovered later, four burglars.

As I spoke with police on the phone, a quick stock take found they’d taken my phone, wallet, rosary beads pouch, some bits and pieces and one stubby from the fridge.

Most distressing was the rosary beads pouch which contained two irreplaceable gold rings that are my eternal link to my late father and which I’d carried in my left trouser pocket since the mid-1980s.

To date, nothing has been recovered, but I commend the police who were not only very kind and understanding with me but had the juvenile culprits in handcuffs within the hour.

Fair dinkum! If the Premier thinks her reforms of the juvenile justice system will put a stop of juvenile offending, she really is Palisch in Wonderland.

The staff at my bank were also great in cancelling my cards before they could be used and to arranging replacements which, hopefully, are in the mail (hobbling about town without cash or card is no picnic).

Then there’s Telstra. Well, I’ll just leave that there.

So, please forgive me when I say: “Bring back 2020!”

Originally published as By the way 2021 has started, maybe 2020 wasn’t that bad after all