If our town centres had experienced a rotten 2020, there was little let up in 2021.

While shoppers were eventually allowed to return in April after a third lockdown, they arrived to find gaps where big names once traded.

Debenhams announced the closure of its remaining Kent stores in Gravesend and Thanet as it disappeared from our high streets and shopping centres for good, after going into liquidation and being sold to online retailer Boohoo.

John Lewis pulled the plug on its 'At Home' stores in Tunbridge Wells and Ashford, while the latter also saw its County Square town centre shopping complex put on the market for £13.5million.

And fans of M&S in Maidstone were warned they needed to make the most of the Week Street branch as it is due to shut for good in January.

The pandemic-hastened switch to online shopping was further underlined by Amazon opening a huge new £205m depot in Dartford.

Meanwhile many others scratched their heads at the online retail giant opening its first UK 'Four-Star' shop in Bluewater, featuring a range of well-reviewed items from its website.

A major investigation was conducted into a house in Willesborough, Ashford after it exploded in May in a devastating blast which destroyed the house and injured seven people.

It resulted in the demolition of the entire row – four homes in total – and the site remains surrounded by hoardings.

A gas leak from a portable heater was blamed for the explosion.

Meanwhile, the owners of Maidstone nightclub Mu Mu were counting the cost after fire ripped through the building overnight in July.

No-one was hurt and, remarkably, the venue was able to reopen a neighbouring building just days later, and, after a rebuild, the main site in October.

On a lighter note, we had another contestant battling it our for a Paul Hollywood handshake on The Great British Bake Off this year.

Software engineer Tom Fletcher hoped to emulate the success of Gravesend's Laura Adlington who reached the previous year's final.

He didn't. He came out soggy bottom and received the boot in the first week.

The stars of BBC hit Killing Eve were spotted filming in Margate for the new series – due to air next year – with the suspicion being the seaside town is doubling for Cuba.

Which is some achievement, if true.

In April, Neighbours star and Torn singer Natalie Imbruglia was spotted filming a music video at Nell's Cafe, in Gravesend.

The popular diner, just off the A2 at Marling Cross, appeared in her comeback single "Build it Better".

And just four months later it was closed to customers once again as it became the backdrop for another film shoot, this time for a new Sky Atlantic series.

Other big names in the county this year were the likes of Tom Jones and Olly Murs who headlined back-to-back nights at Paddock Wood's Hop Farm.

The fans, no doubt delighted to have witnessed a live show, might have had some of the gloss taken off proceedings when there were the inevitable problems with punters waiting hours to leave the site when the shows ended.

But Covid spoilt the fun of many, with the Black Deer Festival, near Tunbridge Wells, called off again.

The headline acts were due to be Van Morrison, Robert Plant, Jake Bugg and Frank Turner.

In Canterbury, Michael Bublé postponed his show at Kent cricket club's Spitfire Ground.

And The Jacksons' eagerly anticipated appearance as part of the delayed Rochester Castle Concerts was also pulled because of the travel difficulties caused by the virus.

Soul II Soul were drafted in to replace them.

However, it was sport which pulled in the biggest crowd, as tens of thousands of golf fans headed to Sandwich for The Open.

Originally due to have taken place in 2020, the £100 price tag didn't deter 30,000 spectators descending on the east coast town each day to watch the world's best battle it out for the Claret Jug.

US rising star Collin Morikawa, 24, was undaunted.

He won the event at his first time of asking and pocketed a cheque for £1.5m.

The weather was ideal for the tournament but was its "new-normal" erratic self for the rest of the year.

After snow fell in February, by the end of March we were enjoying unseasonable highs of 24C.

And then, a mere week later, there were flurries of snow over the Easter weekend.

Storm Arwen brought chaos to our roads in November and was swiftly followed by Barra in December, with heavy rain leading to flood warnings.

Talking of the climate, all eyes were on COP26 in Glasgow when is started at the end of October amid a wave of hope for major agreements to be signed to ensure the planet could reverse the damage already done.

Two weeks later, the final deal was not quite what many had been hoping for.

Which will have done little to dampen the desire of Insulate Britain – a campaign group which emerged this year on a mission to highlight the need to insulate homes in order to reduce energy demands by 2030.

The way they sought to achieve this was by blocking many of the nation's major roads.

And so motorists on the M25 and in Dover in Kent found their journeys regularly held up by protests which included those taking part glueing various parts of their body to the tarmac.

They also blocked that Amazon depot in Dartford.

The rest of us were too busy working out how we were going to heat our draughty homes this winter after energy prices rocketed to unheard of levels, leaving a heap of energy companies unable to continue given the government-imposed price cap on our bills.

Concluding with travel, after years of commuters complaining about it, train company Southeastern was unceremoniously dumped as the county's primary rail operator after it was revealed it had not paid £25m owed to the public purse.

It was stripped of its franchise and the awe-inspiringly named 'Operator of Last Resort' – set up by the Department for Transport – took it over instead.

We are, it goes without saying, promised huge improvements.

Like so many things with 2021, we'll believe it as and when we see it.