After the 2018 and 2019 installments of my blooper reel blog posts, where I post some of the photos that didn’t make the cut from the previous year, I return with my latest and greatest version! In a year which feels like one big mistake, I’ve still managed to dredge up some silly photos from the past twelve months, even though there’s been minimum travel and a good two months spent in lockdown.

After that first paragraph of much ado about nothing, let’s get stuck straight in with the first month…

January

Pirate Briggs

Long before we were all protecting our mouths and noses, I was gifted an eyepatch whilst we were still in our previous office…

Boozy Bingo

Whilst down in Murcia, I posted a couple of photos from a bingo game that I thoroughly enjoyed in the local town hall. What I didn’t mention was the snack break, where I very much enjoyed a little glass of fortified wine…

Open Wide

Now that I’m in Spain and I’ve had to change to a private dentist, I’ve never had such thorough work done on my teeth. This involves a fantastical contraption that I’ve never had put in before, so I naturally had to grab a selfie…

February

Meme Queen

During the talk I gave at Prisma Design Fest, I naturally talked about my hometown (Burnley) and showed off some of Erretres’ latest work, but I also made space for a few cheeky memes…

Yin Yang

One day in the office, my colleague María and I noticed that we’d come dressed as the opposite of each other….

Amsterdam Excitement

In my blog post from my trip to Amsterdam with my colleague Zoe, I didn’t appear in a single photo. This usually happens in these kinds of post as I’m often the one taking the snaps, but Zoe passed me a few she’d taken of me. I didn’t post a single one, however, as I look rather miffed off in all of them…

March

The Crazy Ladies

One of the last trips out before Coronavirus came and ruined everything involved a trip to the theatre to see La jaula de las locas with Bogar and Hugo. Here’s a selfie from that mask-free time that didn’t make the cut…

Gammy Feet

Just before we were locked up in our flat by the pandemic, I snuck one last night out with Luis and friends for his birthday celebrations. One of his mates had included a fake foot in a box of new shoes, which of course wound up accompanying us for the rest of the evening…

Don’t Leave

Once I’d locked myself in my flat with some supplies on that fateful Thursday evening, I thought it best to pop a chair up against the door and write a note to myself that I wasn’t to leave. This little post-it reading “no salga” means just that: “don’t leave”.

April

Lockdown Life

April, the month of my birthday, was also the month that we found ourselves completely stuck inside. This saw us move online for work, which meant that many online meetings were spent secretly snacking…

Smooth Screenshotting

As well as work, we’d also to move all of our social lives online, which involved FaceTime/Zoom/Skype/Hangout meetings aplenty. We took a few screenshots over the months, but some were much more flattering than others…

May

It’s Carole Baskin

One of the highlights of the lockdown must have been the fancy dress quiz that Danni, Abi, and I organized. I dressed up as the infamous Carole Baskin, which I published, but I never published a work-in-progress shot from the extensive makeup session…

Seems Legit

We all remember the global toilet roll rush and the stockpiling chaos that surrounded it, but nobody wants to talk about my local supermarket’s apparent lack of disposable gloves. They tried to trick us with this pathetic excuse of a replacement, but I wasn’t having it…

We’re Free

In May, we were finally allowed to step onto the street, and to celebrate the occasion, the Madrid government pedestrianised quite a few of the streets in the centre. They soon turned into rivers of people wandering around wand socially distancing as much as possible…

The Photo Shoot

Soon thereafter, we were allowed to visit select groups of friends, and so Jhosef came over to record some videos for his final project at university…

June

My Pro Setup

As part of one of my projects at work, I’d to prepare a document in a program which wasn’t available on MacOS, and so I was promptly shipped an ancient Windows PC to complete the task…

Ominous Messages

I really have to translate this sign that I found outside Retiro, Madrid’s main park, it makes for quite ominous reading… “We communicate to visitors that, although no adverse weather conditions are predicted, they are entering a historic park with mature trees, with the inevitable associated risk that this brings.” I read this immediately as a rather passive-aggressive way of saying that I’m about to get crushed by a tree.

The Party Car

Once lockdown was over, we had a socially-distanced “party” at work, which involved four of us bundling into a car like the good old days of our lifts to work…

July

Exploring Madrid

July saw a return to some kind of normality, where Jhosef and I explored some spots in Madrid that he was a fan of. This took us to the Debod Temple, where we made the most of the lack of people to host a little photo shoot…

Scrapped Selfies

We also made a point to eat out as much as possible just in case we were put back into lockdown, which led to some rather unflattering selfies along the way. I’m not sure what’s going on here…

Street Rat

Jhosef also found some excellent new street furniture along the way, and insisted I take some photos, so I guess he wanted them posted here…

August

Surprise Bags

August was the month that saw me lucky enough to visit both Murcia and Tenerife, where I spotted these suspicious “bags of surprises” at a car boot sale. I did consider that, for an authentic surprise, I should buy one and take it through airport security without opening it beforehand…

The Best Model

As my trip to Tenerife ended, I tried to take some selfies by a red way-finding light atop a rocky outcrop, but I do feel that Cami’s dog Luke stole the show…

A New Do?

The salty sea air also wreaked havoc on my hair, but I did consider that these new wavy locks could become a new look for me…

My New Crew

After Tenerife I wound up in Murcia, where I spent over a week with my auntie and uncle. I did, however, enjoy spending lots of time with all of their friends there, and so snapped this pool selfie of the lot of us…

September

Hon Hon Hon

I was very excited to visit my colleague María again after many months of remote working, but I was also overjoyed to meet her little kitten Kiwi. During a lovely evening of burgers, cider, and petting the cat, María snapped this little selfie of the two of us…

Spa Evenings

I I couldn’t get to a spa, I’d have to bring the spa to me, and so many a night during lockdown was spent with my hair tied up and my face covered in Lush face masks…

October

Day Tripping

Me and Jhosef kept up the day trips during October, when I decided that I wanted to see how the autumnal wind had left the usually green Retiro Park. Here’s the two of us by the very beautiful but also very closed Crystal Palace…

I Put A Spell On You

I’m not a huge fan of Halloween, but I will absolutely milk any excuse to spend money on novelty containers full of sweets…

November

More María, Less Hair

María has once again snuck into this blooper reel, with a selfie taken with her fabulous new hair at the great burger joint that is El Toril…

An Autumnal Frolic

Once Autumn really hit and I had a new phone to take out for a spin, me and Jhosef held a photo shoot in a leafy part of the park by the river. This involved some of the typical burst shots of the two of us throwing leaves, which seemed a bit cliché, but I’ll throw one in here…

Paint Me Like One Of Your French Girls

I also bagged myself this shot of Jhosef, who’d thrown himself on the ground next to the bikes we’d rented…

December

Karen Wine Evening

Just before a lovely meal with Sara, the two of us spent a good while downing some wine and chatting at home, where she insisted on taking a photo of me looking like a middle-aged woman…

High Wire Act

I live on a third floor, so you can imagine the shock when a man with a paintbrush suddenly descended past my window one day as I was lying in bed. It turns out that they were using ropes and pulleys to paint the building, which I found quite amazing…

Pre-Christmas Drinks

Just before flying back to England, I met up with some friends for some last minute drinks. One evening saw lots of beers with lots of people, and after bumping into an old colleague I hadn’t seen for ages, things got quite blurry as I toasted another round with another old colleague, Helena…

So concludes this quick look over the outtakes from a year which most of us which had never happened in the first place. It’s been a challenge, for sure, but taking a look back over my photo library has made me realise that there were a good few highs between those difficult moments.

I hope you’ve all had as good a Christmas as possible – given the circumstances – and let’s all work together to ensure that this new year is as good and virus-free as it possibly can be. Although I’m not a fan of odd numbers, and very aware that global pandemics don’t care much for the Gregorian calendar, let’s make this 2021 a better year than this one!

I wrapped up my last post saying that I hoped to bring a new blog post to you all before I leave Spain for Christmas, and so here I am a mere five days before I jet off back to Blighty for a while. Naturally this last month of 2020 has been spent winding down, enjoying the Madrid festivities (prepare for many photos of Madrid’s iconic LED Christmas trees), and preparing to bid farewell to this year – a year that we can all agree hasn’t been the best!

I kicked off the month as many others did: with a spot of Christmas shopping. A few trips into the city centre and some long queues at the local Correos (Post Office) and I was pretty much done, so it was time to enjoy the Christmas lights that have been draped all over Madrid.

One weekend, me and Napo made a date to catch up, and seeing that we hadn’t seen each other for a good while, we thought that we had best make an occasion of it. We met up in the centre for a wander, then headed to a reservation at Goiko Grill, one of my favorite burger joints. Here I finally tried their biggest and best offering: a burger with a tonne of rib meat thrown in!

The burger was delicious, and the two of us had a lovely evening, which I ended with a bike ride back down to my flat – a decision which, in retrospect, may have been an error. I was so full after the huge burger and a very sweet dessert that I had to take a moment halfway through the trip for a moment to rest and digest!

Speaking of resting, Jhosef and I headed for a relaxing spa afternoon at Hammam Al Ándalus the day after. The last time I visited was with Bogar the weekend before Madrid was plunged into lockdown, so I was excited to be back for an hour or so of chilled-out bathing and a relaxing massage.

After two hours of complete zen, the two of us were keen to carry on our day of total relaxation, and so stopped for a bite to eat in Plaza Mayor in the centre of Madrid. After a couple of bocadillos de calamares (Madrid’s classic snack: squid ring sandwiches) and morcilla (a kind of black pudding or blood sausage), it was time to start the working week.

Between my typical work in the office, I’d also to run a few work-related and personal errands around the city centre, which led me to traverse a few streets that I wouldn’t normally potter down. One of these was the newly renovated area just east of the Puerta del Sol, the center of the city, which has been beautifully decorated and pedestrianized for the Christmas shopping season.

I also took a wander down Gran Vía, the main artery of the city, where I turned down a few side streets that I’d never noticed before. This led me to find a few old gems of shops, which cheered me up so much that I decided to carry on wandering around the city and check out the decorations in some of the main squares.

Madrid still sometimes throws up the odd little surprise.

There’s a differently coloured conical tree around every corner.

That evening, me and Sara headed out to a place that I’d had on my radar for a while, an Asturian restaurant just a ten minute walk from my house. We had a delicious and rather fancy meal of cachopo (a delicious beef, cheese, and cured ham filled concoction that I have enjoyed many times in Asturias) and chopitos (fried squid) – all washed down, naturally, by a few bottles of natural cider.

This kicked off the early December puente – Spain’s version of a bank holiday. We were blessed with a whole two extra days off, due to All Saint’s Day and a day celebrating of the country’s constitution, and we all made the most of it. Me and Jhosef, after a lovely film evening, visited another restaurant in my neighborhood that seemed interesting, a modern-looking Italian spot.

There, we had an absolutely lovely meal, including a fried starter followed by pizza and pasta, all of which was recommended to us by our lovely Italian waitress who talked us through most of the menu! Our eyes were definitely bigger than our bellies, however, and so I took half of my pizza home to finish at work the next day.

Last weekend saw me out again with Sara, who took me out for some drinks and a bite to eat in Lavapiés, a great area of the city to head out in. There, things got a little out of hand, with the waiter serving me some of the strongest gin and tonics that I’ve ever had. We ran into Jhosef, his sister, and her boyfriend, who stopped by for a quick chat, and then me and Sara headed out to a terrace to polish off another drink before heading back home.

After sleeping off a little hangover the day after, I headed down to the shopping area by the river to pick up the last couple of gifts. It was a nippy but pretty day, so I stopped to take a few photos and test out the lenses of my new phone.

Despite having to take some funny detours in order to avoid the pungent smells emanating from a cheese stall within the shopping centre, I managed to pick up the last few bits that I needed. This then take us into this, my final week at work before Christmas, which is as exciting as it is busy: the end is in sight, but there’s plenty to wrap up before we do!

I end this post with a couple of little anecdotes: the first being that, after around three and a half years living here in Spain on and off, I have finally managed to get hold of a proper residency permit in the form of a shiny new plastic card! I headed off there just this morning to pick up said card, and celebrated straight after with a very Spanish breakfast of a toasted baguette with grated tomato, olive oil, and cured ham.

The second little anecdote is to clarify something that may have had you confused since the start of this post: its title, “December Bridge”. This is a joke which I find hilarious but which you will probably groan at, and continues a trend that me and Luis begun at work years ago: directly translating Spanish sayings into English and laughing at home stupid they sound. The bank holiday we’ve just had in Spanish is called “puente de diciembre”, with “puente” meaning “bridge”. The idea of bridge comes from the fact that these holidays usually fall on a Tuesday, creating a “bridge” of days off with a working Monday in the middle. So the name of the holidays we have just enjoyed literally means “December Bridge”.

So yeah, maybe not all that funny, but you have to chuckle at your own terrible jokes every now and then!

Anyway, I bid you happy holidays until the time I post here, which will now probably be from the Tier 3 lockdown in England. Until then: happy December bridge!