To miss the first lockdown?

Incidentally, lockdown accelerating the cashless society played straight into the hands of those who thought the government was “up to something”.

”They want to ban cash so they can control our purchases, and make sure we can’t buy non-essential things such as Easter eggs, social credit here we come…”

Christ almighty! Just because a person has had a personal positive lockdown experience within their own walls, does NOT mean that they liked the pandemic or lockdown as a whole.

Nobody is saying “I’m so glad all those hundreds of thousands of people died, and their relatives went through hell, and children couldn’t go to school, just so I could have a few months of peace”.

They are just stating that despite the chaos that was happening outside, their own experience was a nice few month’s rest.

I agree, our UK business, run remotely from Spain was affected for us, not our team in the UK obviously but not a lot you can do and we just tried to enjoy the freedom for a few hours...yes lucky it was only 1 day ...but I'll cherish it. Regarding cash, in Spain cash is king especially if you are having work being done on your house 🤔....so it was a given to have cash.😁

A relative had her cancer operation delayed by lockdown. Fortunately, she survived.

This month, I discovered a lump. I was told that there's a backlog for mammograms for NHS Fife. I phoned appointments and was told that if I agreed to be seen outwith the region (in Larbert) the waiting list for my criteria would be 15-18 weeks.

I'm fortunate in that I was able to afford to self-fund a mammogram at a private hospital. If I'd had to fund cancer treatment, however, I would have been stuffed. I needed to know so that I could make appropriate arrangements for various matters.

At the consultation, two members of staff told me that - according to NHS criteria -- my waiting time should not have been anywhere near 15 to 18 weeks.

wrong example

You can put the blame on someone for deciding to be a mistress
You can't blame someone for having a great time in exceptional circumstances, especially when their time was caused by these circumstances. That's what it comes down to.

I find the "performance triggering" of some posters who jump on a thread to tell the OP she's not allowed to have feelings or to post completely ridiculous (I didn't mean YOU specifically, but we had some seriously over-the-top ones on this thread)

A lot of people dont realise a lot of that. They are just back getting on with their lives. Cost of everything is going up for a variety of reasons. Lockdown is not a trigger for lots of people.

I don't think it has gone back to "normal" for anyone. Economically it was a disaster and the cause of the cost of living crisis, inflation, and the forthcoming tax rises. The NHS hasn't recovered. It almost certainly caused Labour to win the last GE which has adversely affected lots of people too! Very few people will have been completely unaffected adversely in one way or another because of the lockdowns.

@crikeyalmighty and what do the results of the poll suggest to you? What does the fact there are so many varied responses on here suggest to you? Perhaps it isnt the 'only say it in your head' thought that you think it is.

But lots of people were not traumatised by lockdown, lots of people's lives went back to normal. I would imagine very few women would be happy finding out their husband had been having an affair. That's the difference. Lockdown was so varied for everyone.

As I said earlier if someone posted -‘ I miss being a mistress - thoroughly enjoyed my affair with a married guy and had a fab time ‘ - people would be all over it with negativity, because so many many women on here have had a shit time with exactly that situation and life changing situations for them - be it money, careers, mental health - whatever. I just think there are some things that are real ‘think it in your head ,but don’t voice it on forums’ situations - and this to me is one of those situations, although yes I accept others don’t feel as I do about being sensitive about posting what are real big triggers of the ‘I enjoyed/I miss ’ kind — in situations that so many had a totally shit time of.

So the OP should lie or feel guilty about her experience of lockdown in light of all the horrible stuff that was happening and that wasn’t directly affecting her at the time? Okey doke.

so what? That's completely irrelevant here.

It's not the OP who put the restrictions in place.

No, because those things highlighted were a DIRECT consequence of the covid restrictions and lockdowns and many issues were, mostly, avoidable or could have been mitigated with more sensible appropriate restrictions.

It was shit. My DP is self employed as are many of our friends. We were all skint, and isolated from family and friends. At least we were lucky enough that I was working (although semi-furloughed) and bringing in some money. My friend's mother died in the first wave and he was unable to return to his home country for the funeral.Another friend's mother wasn't able to access a doctor and get tested quickly for worrying symptoms and when her ovarian cancer was finally diagnosed, she was too far along for anything but palliative care.

I became depressed over that first winter. Many people I know never completely recovered psychologically. I would be delighted if I never saw a bloody Zoom "pub quiz" ever again.

So while I am happy for you, OP, that it wasn't too awful for you, YA still being VU.

I hope you are not voting because you are spectacularly missing the point.

Well, with that argument, nobody should get any positive experience from anything, as there is shit happening everywhere all the time.

Do you also like the economic disaster and the inflation and drop in living standards as a result of locking down the economy?

Do you like the hundreds and thousands of excess deaths as result of health service becoming Covid service, the drop in output from the NHs.

And don’t like children’s education being decimated and their mental health being destroyed.

Some people really have no clue. Scary to think that these people get to vote.

@AgitatedGoose I’m 63 and not that fit but look reasonably ok - I have a friend though mid 70s who is slim, mega fit, does Pilates and swimming several times a week - she is fitter than most30 year olds

Bit like being in the eye of the storm. That quiet, peaceful spot where if nothing bad was happening to you personally it could be nice to have no responsibility and take a breath from the everyday rush. Just a short distance away though others are experiencing the chaos of the storm.

It was a weird time. I had to carry on working outside the home with toddlers so no PPE, no social distancing. We felt abandoned by the government in that everyone else in the world had to be protected except us with the age group less capable of keeping germs to themselves! They were also the children of key workers so it meant their parents were also working outside the home, many in hospitals.

Im a single parent and youngest was in Y6 so I had to leave her to do her work without supervision. She was home with older siblings so safe but with nobody there to push her learning.

I was very grateful we weren’t in a flat so could at least get out in the garden.

Thank you.

Yes, the masks did cause a particular problem for those with hearing difficulties.

During lockdown, I stumbled across an online religious service where they had someone signing. This was a volunteer and he's still doing this on a voluntary basis.

Most of the provision that I'm aware of seems to be provided by volunteers.

There was an after-service discussion one time and the volunteer commented that - in his opinion - fewer people are now learning BSL because of a reliance on technology and that this is causing a cultural shift. I've no idea whether there are any figures available for this.

Before I retired, I did work in secondary schools with pupils with hearing difficulties - one pupil had a cochlear implant. The schools are relying more and more on tech, but it's not always reliable. (I retired from my permanent post before lockdown.)

I recall that the pupil with the cochlear implant did have back-up from a teacher who worked with the local hearing-impaired service, but she wasn't always available. She would help by signing during class discussions.

I recall that the pupil's regular English teacher took BSL classes when he realised that there were often problems with the cochlear tech breaking down, but he did this in his own time with no support from the LA.

There were many unsigned broadcasts during the Covid era. As I remember, individual BSL users had to take legal action to try to enforce provision.

Yep, very much depends on the disability. My disabled (ND) child experienced a decline in access to services during lockdown, for example, what with not being allowed schooling. For others, their circumstances improved. Then of course there are disabled people whose experiences were affected by wider factors just as non-disabled people were such as domestic violence, furlough not being enough to pay their bills, lack of access to dying loved ones etc. It's a very diverse picture.

On signing specifically, I remember a press conference in late 2021, when Omicron was kicking in, where there was no BSL interpreter at all. Absolutely disgusting.

It does depend on the disability and it was deafness I was referring to (in addition to other co-morbidities). I was talking in terms of access to particular services, not across the board, and certainly not with reference to things like healthcare.

I agree that being deaf (or otherwise disabled) in terms of trying to access services like healthcare would have been challenging for many people. I know from deaf friends and clients of the difficulties they faced trying to communicate in public spaces when so many people were masked up and would not remove their masks to communicate with a deaf person (they may have had good reason not to!). But it still created that additional barrier at a worrying time.

I'm sorry about what happened with your husband and how you were treated. 💐

Whilst it was good when they did - eventually and only under duress - introduce BSL interpretation, the subtitles remained shit and therefore the subtitle users were still disadvantaged.

I often think about my neighbours, she was 88 when lock-down begin, her DH 90, they were out daily doing the shopping, gardening, once lock down begin, they both went down hill rapidly before dying. Very sad.