When we first went into lockdown a year ago, I don't think any of us could have predicted the 12 months that have followed. People have lost jobs, and many others have lost lives. I count myself fortunate to be in neither of those categories, but I wanted to share a visual account of my lockdown, if for nothing else, to remind myself years from now how things can change in an instant.

​Before I begin, if you want to read my thoughts on the coronavirus from a year ago you can do so here, but just remember things have changed a lot since then. If you want to read my review of the year 2020, you can do that here.

If there's one thing London does better than anywhere else in the world, it's museums. There are a lot of them (around 200), and almost all of them are free of charge.

That shouldn't be a surprise, the British Empire spent two centuries sailing around the world collecting priceless treasures and artefacts. Yep, as beautiful as these museums are, they're also controversial, and I'll explore some of the controversy in this list.

A few years ago I wrote a list on my favourite museums in New York (which you can read here), so it's about time I did something similar for London - so here are my 10 favourite museums in London.

The pandemic has allowed me to explore places closer to home. It's easy to forget that I live in a city that ranks the second most popular in the world for international visitors and so I've spent this spring and summer walking around and exploring new parts of the city.

From my travels around the world, I've realised that London is a relatively 'green' city and that's largely thanks to the eight Royal Parks of London, as well as some of the non-royal ones (a Royal Park is one originally owned by the monarchy and is now preserved as an open access public park). In this article I review each park in order of size, from smallest to largest - with a ranking of my favourites at the end.

Segregation, provocative marches and murals, relative deprivation and not a lot of brown people. You'd think I would have hated my time in Belfast, but I didn't. It's probably the most interesting city in the UK - and yes that includes London. Not for the landmarks it has, or the things you can do - but to study and understand the effects of two groups of people who live in close proximity but who couldn't be more different in their world views. You can read my in depth review of Belfast here, but below are the 5 things I loved about Belfast. 

(Disclaimer: I took the photo above from the Emirates Cable cars - not from the climb)

​I've been to the O2 a few times, but I've never managed to experience Up at the O2 - an opportunity to climb the famous dome and see the London skyline from a different perspective. 

So when my friend decided to take me along for a climb, I was looking forward to ticking off something from my London list..