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The island continued to enjoy fine weather and liberty and there was even time for some non-covid stories to hit the headlines.
Invoking groans and excitement in equal measure, August was the month we officially heard that the Real Housewives of Jersey was no longer just a rumour but an actual thing.
How Jersey could be seen as a place of glamour and idle chat in the middle of a global pandemic, people did wonder. Yet perhaps such mindless and soporific distraction was just what our collective soul needed.
We also had some related celebratory tittle-tattle when pop princess Alesha Dixon was spotted in the Island, fittingly on the yacht of Style Awards founder Tessa Hartmann, who would later be named as one of those housewives.
Pictured: Alesha Young was spotted mixing with some real housewives in Jersey.
In other explosive news, an elderly woman got a few pulses raised when she drove to the police station to drop off a live wartime grenade that she’d found in her home. Quite where it had been for all that time - in the grandchildren’s toy box perhaps, or used as a doorstop - no one knows, but the offending item was quickly blown up by bomb disposal officers.
The courts didn’t have much of a summer break. Firstly, Constable Chris Taylor was given a £4,000 fine and an 18-month driving ban after being found guilty of dangerous driving.
Pictured: St John Constable Chris Taylor was fined £4,000 and banned from driving for 18 months in the Magistrate’s Court.
The Father of St. John had denied deliberately driving his red Ford Fiesta into the legs of a cycling race marshal, an off-duty police officer, at low speed during a dispute in Trinity last June. He had already resigned as an Assistant Minister and faced the wrath of many by getting the parish to pay for his legal expenses.
Another court case that elicited strong views ended with the jailing of a “nightmare neighbour”, who police had to visit more than 100 times over extreme noise complaints.
The end of this saga was a relief to everyone living close to Maria Ivone Vieira but it also cast a light on the difficulty of dealing with problem neighbour cases, particularly when they involve alcohol and domestic disputes.
The temporary home of many criminals - HMP La Moye - also made the news over the summer, specifically the fate of its governor, Nick Cameron. It transpired that he had stepped down from the role but for what reason remained a mystery.
The plot thickened in August when Express reported that a member of the board monitoring the prison had quit her role over the government’s treatment of Mr Cameron.
Documents released following a Freedom of Information request also showed that there had been a big blow out over the provision of PPE at the prison before the Governor had gone MIA. By the end of the year, it was still not clear why this widely respected prison head had quit his job so soon after committing to the Island.
Pictured: Guernsey police were lampooned for a high-octane recruitment video.
Guernsey might have kept covid under wraps but that didn’t stop people taking the mickey out of their police force for making a high-octane recruitment video complete with car chases and explosions. The video was ridiculed by everyone from social media commenters to the national press, who compared it to the comedy film 'Hot Fuzz', forcing the force to quickly take it down.
Finally, a taxing issue for many in August followed the Government announcement that everyone who paid their tax a year in arrears would move on to a current-year basis. Unsurprisingly, more than 6,000 people signed a petition to write off the 2019 £320m tax take but this was pooh-poohed by the Treasury Minister in short order. Still, it was worth a try.
January, the calm before the storm
March, it hits and we lockdown
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