According to internet search stats the biggest increases in search terms during 2020 were for “how to grow tomato plants” (up 300%), “weights” (up 200%) and “face mask for sale” (up by over 5000%, an increase normally only seen on Halloween by people who’d forgotten a costume for a fancy dress party). While lower down the list “dog for sale” was closely followed by “puppy for for sale” and then “horse for sale”. Which makes me think that somewhere, someone is currently looking at an Arabian Stallion in their living room and wondering if they may have just been a little bit rash when the Chihuahua’s were sold out.

“I’d like a dog please!”

“Sorry, we don’t have any dogs.”

“How about a puppy?”

“Gone too. But can I interest you in a three year old jump racer?”

“What the hell, you’ve got a deal!”

But just as people were looking for plants to grow and pets to love there were a few other things which benefitted from a lockdown bounce and one of them was Wild Swimming – as every loch filled up with people desperate to swim while pools were closed. And while the lochs were full there were also a lot of people looking for information about where to go as we noticed a big boost this year in our visitor stats as TwinBikeRun was viewed over 10,000 times and by far the most popular posts were about wild swimming.

Top 10 Posts:

It was also great to see the number of countries that visited us this year (in a COVID safe, non-travelling, visit over the internet and not in a superspreading global pandemic creating way). We had vistors from most of Europe, North America and parts of Asia and South America. Africa was a notable gap but I assume that when you’re wild swimming consists of dodging hippos and crocadiles then reading about the danger of not wearing the right wetsuit when the temperature drops in a Scottish loch is hardly going to cut it.

Countries

And while the majority of visitors were from the UK (over 9,297 of them) it was great to see the countries where just one person had visited us because it kind of suggested that one person checked out the site and went “no, never again, this is not for me!”.

Also, during a pandemic, it suggested that there were genuine visits from other countries and it wasn’t just our Mum on a world tour checking in from every country she visited. With no one travelling anywhere, then each visit had to be from someone we didn’t know. So, hello to Ukraine, Brazil, Iceland, Pakistan and a big shout out to our one and only visitor from Outer Mongolia!

2020 was a difficult year for everyone. We’ve been lucky in that we’ve not been directly effected by COVID and we’re both in jobs where working from home was a possibility throughout lockdown. And while working from home we were also lucky to be near so many great spots where we didn’t break COVID laws (and tried to keep within the guidance too!). We hope you enjoyed the stories, that you found the reviews helpful and that you have the chance to run, bike or swim happily in 2021 too!