The year began with me being woken on January 1 by an expletive from my wife. She was looking down the paddock to where Bruce the steer was straddling the fence, his forequarters in the neighbours' property, his hindquarters at home where they belonged.
Like many animals Bruce is good at the bright-idea stuff, not so hot on the follow-through. By the time I got down there he was well over and had been followed by Bambi the heifer. Several neighbours and a couple of hours later both bovines were back where they belonged, although not without some extremely challenging manoeuvring in the process.
So, not a great start to 2020. But already better than many people's 2019 which, according to their social media, was a terrible, terrible year.
You know it's been a bad year even the Pope starts lashing out at randoms, like the woman who got a slap for trying to grab his arm in St Peter's Square on New Year's Eve.
A young female relative texted me on January 1 to say: "You should do a column about how this is the decade the world will end." I could, but there's not really anywhere to go once you've said that.