As a reader of this blog there's a good chance you enjoy counting things. You might even have a spreadsheet somewhere to help you. I have a few including one called Countz, one called Outgoings, one called Travelcard and one called Blogstats. And because it's New Year's Eve I can now tot up all sorts of things that happened this year, as perhaps can you, to bring you my definitive Counts of 2021.
When it comes to where I've been, I counted how many days I've set foot in various administrative areas. Here are my top 5 London boroughs...
361: Tower Hamlets 244: Newham 178: Hackney 112: Waltham Forest 57: City of London
....which is basically the Olympic Park plus the City of London. Only four days this year have I spent entirely away from home. On average I've been to Newham two days out of three, Hackney every other day, Waltham Forest twice a week and the City once a week. But over half of London's boroughs appear on the following list, which is shamefully poor.
Twice: Havering, Lewisham, Wandsworth Once: Bexley, Brent, Bromley, Ealing, Hammersmith and Fulham, Hounslow, Kensington and Chelsea Never: Barnet, Croydon, Harrow, Hillingdon, Kingston, Merton, Richmond, Sutton
Even though I pumped out over 400 posts this year, I'm sort-of-hoping you didn't realise quite how geographically restricted they were.
As for counties outside London, this year's tally is thin gruel.
Nine days: Norfolk Twice: Essex, Lincs Once: Cambs, E Sussex, Northants, Rutland, Notts, N Yorks Never: everywhere else
Worse, three of those were for less than an hour on a day trip to Stamford, and one of the Essexes was only half an hour too. Thankfully two trips to stay with my Dad in Norfolk upped the numbers slightly. I'm mildly astonished that I've been to Lincolnshire more often than Ealing this year, and to Rutland more often than Croydon.
I've also been counting how I travelled, specifically how many TfL journeys I took and the average number of miles walked each day. Let me show you this data for 2020 and for 2021.
2020
TfL Journeys
Walked daily
2021
TfL Journeys
Walked daily
Jan
143
5½ miles
Jan
0
10 miles
Feb
113
6 miles
Feb
0
9½ miles
Mar
41
4 miles
Mar
0
11 miles
Apr
0
3½ miles
Apr
0
12 miles
May
0
5½ miles
May
4
11½ miles
Jun
0
7 miles
Jun
7
8 miles
Jul
0
7½ miles
Jul
5
8½ miles
Aug
2
7½ miles
Aug
3
9 miles
Sep
1
9 miles
Sep
8
9½ miles
Oct
0
7½ miles
Oct
6
9 miles
Nov
0
9 miles
Nov
2
10½ miles
Dec
0
9½ miles
Dec
3
12 miles
It's easy to see how I've switched from riding to walking during the pandemic. I used to make over 100 TfL journeys a month - nipping on buses, tubes and trains here, there and everywhere - but since March 2020 I've never topped 10 rides a month. Shockingly I made 41 TfL journeys in the month we locked down but still haven't made that many during the 21 months since.
As for walking, back in normal times I used to walk about 4-6 miles a day and now it's more like 8-12. I've discovered I can get a long way in four hours, there and back, be that to Elephant & Castle, Islington, Wanstead or Gallions Wharf. April and December have been my walkiest months - I've averaged 12 miles a day - whereas June's total was held back by having to stay in for builders to do their stuff.
As things stand this morning my iPhone tells me that I've walked a total of 3638 miles this year. This is roughly the distance from here to Washington DC. The numerate amongst you may have spotted that 3638 is very close to 3650 which would make an average of exactly ten miles a day, and I am absolutely intent on hitting that total by the end of the day. It'd be a phenomenal achievement to average ten miles walking every day for a year, indeed I doubt I'll ever manage it again, so here's a box for me to tick later today when I finally attain that goal.
In related counting, my weight is still the same as it was this time last year, and a stone less than New Year's Eve 2019. You can't beat a lot of long walks.
Also, because I keep a tally of what I spend, I can tell you the cost of all my travel this year, which was £224. In a more typical year, say 2019, my travelling total was £2498 so that's a massive drop. I also know which transport operators got my money, at least notionally speaking.
What I've been spending my money on instead is rent, bills and replacement items. Altogether those three categories accounted for 94% of my spending this year. Food and drink and travel fit into the remaining 6%, as do all the nice-to-have non-essential items I've treated myself to during 2021. My most expensive luxury purchase was a ten quid bread bin. I'm sure you keep tabs on your finances to a similar degree.
Please allow me to slip in my usual analysis of Archers episodes. These are the five characters to have made the most appearances in Ambridge this year.
Other things I've been counting this year include...
Number of photos taken: 20,100 (↑2300) Number of photos uploaded to Flickr: 630 (↑150) Number of visitors to the blog: 857,000 (↓4000) Number of comments on the blog: 10,900 (↓1300) Number of bottles of Beck's drunk: 11 Number of Creme Eggs consumed: 10
If you've been counting something interesting this year do share it with the rest of us. And if not then do consider starting to count something in 2022 because I'm likely to ask you again next year.
n.b. Proper counts only, thanks. If your count is zero or one then you're not a proper counter, more a raconteur.
