What we're the most bizarre/memorable moments of the pandemic for you?

[Jaggerdagger]

Just wondering what they are for you?

I'll start. One of mine was seeing a children's playground cordoned off with tape, including all the park benches.

I also remember not being allowed in places (B and Q and my local urgent care centre I'm looking at you) as a single parent with children (and leaving them with someone being illegal at the time). I think I was supposed to tie them up outside.

We did a mad dash to in laws on Christmas Day 2020 to spend an entire 5 hours with them (10 hour round journey).

The motorway was deserted and all the motorway signs said things like 'zone 3 area do not leave' etc. felt so dystopian.

Only being allowed one hour of going out/exercise now seems batshit, but the vast majority of people (me included) abided by it.

I also remember driving to drop my dd off at her dads, on a Sunday afternoon, it was normally a really busy route and about 10 miles, but it was completely deserted, I didn't see another car, even the toll bridge was unmanned and free

@alloalloallo

A police officer threatening to arrest me as he deemed my reason for being out non-essential - I was on my way to sort my horses out very early one morning when he pulled me over. He let me go in the end after I showed him the information on the Gov website, but made a big show of writing down my car reg and threatened to fine me if he saw me again.

Local police shoo-ing walkers/dog walkers off our massive, wide open beach so they all had to walk on the narrow pavements instead.

My dog was a pita to toilet train as a puppy and every time she did her business outside she’d get a big cheer, a round of applause and a huge fuss. Then, every clap for carers night she’d be out in the garden lapping up all the applause that she genuinely believed was for her. She absolutely loved every minute of it.

Oh i love the puppy story! My older DS has autism and we had only just explained to him what it meant as he was unable to understand before that. One of the clap for carers day coincided with World Autism Day and he got the 2 mixed up in his head. About six months in he asked me 'Why is it World Autism day every week?'.

A man took it upon himself to stand at a local junction and post photos on FB of all the cars he didn’t believe were out for essential reasons - how can you tell?

The utter arrogance of some people. Did he restrict himself to the mythical one hour a day in doing this (although that was still clearly breaking the regulations, as standing there noseyparkering was neither exercise nor fetching essential supplies) - or did he believe himself to be some kind of little tin key worker?

He should could have found himself in serious legal hot water for that - stalking or harassment law or similar.

I'm in Thailand so our lockdowns were different (started earlier and stricter in some ways but looser in others... overall we have definitely had it easy compared with the UK).

When one of our neighbours tested positive, he was taken away in an ambulance by people wearing hazmat suits. Then a machine came into our compound and more hazmat-men walked around spraying chemicals all over the grounds, including over the gates into everyone's patios. It felt like something from a film, not in a good way. There were (unfounded) concerns that if we had more cases, the government would lock us all in our compound. This actually happened with apartment blocks of Burmese factory workers, it was horrific.

Not declaring that we had cases of covid in our household (which we were required to do) because it was unclear at the time if you might be forced to go to a field hospital for isolation, and also unclear if they would take a child without a parent. There was no way I was risking being separated from my children and some/any of us being sent to a field hospital! This is one of the reasons we know the figures here have always been inaccurate; no foreigner would have risked declaring positive status in the first year or so of covid unless they were seriously ill.

Another mad memory is realising that my youngest, born during covid, has never seen anyone outside our compound without a mask... she started insisting on wearing one herself soon after she turned 1. They are required here from age 2. She gets excited when she sees any of us picking up a mask as she knows it means we're going out. Mask was one of her first words

It's so sad reading so many of these posts.

Someone on here saying, that to be safe, she had decided to put all the bags of shopping delivery, straight into her garage, and spray the whole lot with disinfectant, then leave it for 24 hours, then she would bring it all in the kitchen,, then wash down all tins of things, and packets etc, then wipe all fruit and veg,. and cat food boxes, and kitchen cleaners etc., and then soak her hands in sanitiser for a while after all this.. Her Husband wasn't going to follow her lead though !!

Having gone for a walk in some woods with my Dad, DS (6) climbing up a tree and my Dad going to help him get down, and DS asking "are you allowed to help me?" and my Dad then having a whole discussion about whether he should or shouldn't. We'd had lunch at his house FFS...

When it snowed and all the kids on our street went outside and had a snowball fight, and the adults all stood around chatting and it felt absolutely wonderful. The sound of my son laughing was musical. Apparently the police were out dispersing any groups of children playing in the snow in other parts of the town...

So many examples of craziness and abusive behaviour.

Now we can look back and take stock, and hopefully never be so badly manipulated again.

My fil was taken to hospital and my poor mil couldn’t see him for 3 weeks
She would bring clean clothes and treats for him,leave them in reception and pray he’d get his stuff-50 of the time it went ‘missing’
I cried my eyes out when she rang and said to me ‘I just want my husband back’
She nursed him until he died at home a few weeks later

I'm as hard faced as they come but this thread is so moving

Being stopped twice by the police.

Once in the first lockdown as I was taking a family member to hospital for their radiotherapy for a terminal cancer. I also had DS with me in the car (no childcare was open) and having to produce the appointment letter to prove we weren’t out on a jolly and being told that next time I had better leave the child at home, which just made an awful time even worse.
Second time I was pulled over during the second lockdown I was heading towards a test centre - it was on a dead end road with nothing else down it - and again having to prove that I had an appointment. The police car was at the entrance to the road and I remember thinking they’d have been better placed out on the motorway catching the people who were taking advantage of the empty-ish roads to break the speed limit.

Driving to the office on the Thursday after our building emptied of 150 people the day before. One car in the car park. Total silence in the whole building.

The unseasonally gorgeous weather in the March onwards, which in many ways would have been tempting to make the most of. The earliest lockdown weekend, we all emptied the shed all over the grass and gave it a real overhaul - useful, but displacement activity really.

A busy main road I often cross, that can make me miss a bus or 2 on the other pavement in normal conditions - could zigzag over and back without many vehicles for a while.

For one incredible day (really incredible now), the petrol price dropping below 3 figures to require just 2 number 'cards' in position on the pricing sign. I saw this being changed and if my phone hadn't had no battery, I would have taken a photo.

Walking around both in sunshine and country-style darkness in a series of fields not far away. In the sunshine, I saw a skylark for the first time. In the darkness, a person absolutely invisible against the trunk of a tree, except for a glowing cigarette end and smoke smell (I almost walked into them - I suspect they were there for rather underground services).

When the Christmas lockdown announcement was being made, throwing all gifts etc into the boot and switching off before it finished as soon as the words were out on the airwaves, driving instantly to see my ILs (same county but a bit of a drive).

Walking around the local fields instep with everyone else 2 meters apart at least calling hellos waving to people like a dystopia novel it was incredibly grim but we needed to get out the house

Quarantining books in school. We did pull out all the stops to make sure children still had books to read, but putting hazard tape and don’t touch signs all over all the bookcases in school was soul destroying.

DS had school camp the week before first lockdown. Teachers sent us photos of these kids having the time of their life in the hills, beaming with happiness, while the world shut down all around. The teachers had told them schools would be shut next week. I collected him from school after camp and as we walked home I explained that all his wee activities were stopping. He kept thinking of another and asking:
DS - What about drama?
Me - Drama's stopped.
DS - What about Boys' Brigade?
Me - Boys' Brigade's stopped.
DS - What about Jiujitsu?
Me - Jiujitsu's stopped. Son, it's all stopped, everything's stopped. Nothing's on.

I felt like Holly when Lister comes out of deep freeze.

I was stunned by the activities that got themselves onto Zoom within a week or two and actually worked quite well mind you.

Mine was bursting into tears in also because someone got too close!

Did online shopping from them in and wiped down all my shopping with antibac.
I was an absolute loon

Like a pp, I am not a sensitive soul at all, but I have been in tears reading these. Some are just so cruel and I feel for the people who wrote them.

The most memorable for me are the wildlife seen on my daily walks, especially watching four moorhen chicks and seven goslings from about a week old to becoming adults.

I remember my mate losing a filling, ringing the dentist for advice and being told to order a kit on internet to stick it back in herself. For some reason this was the thing that made me think "this ish is wild. Imagine the dentist just telling you to do your own dental work"

Leaving work at about 9pm early in the first lockdown and the city centre being completely deserted. That was eerie and felt slightly apocalyptic.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

A man took it upon himself to stand at a local junction and post photos on FB of all the cars he didn’t believe were out for essential reasons - how can you tell?

The utter arrogance of some people. Did he restrict himself to the mythical one hour a day in doing this (although that was still clearly breaking the regulations, as standing there noseyparkering was neither exercise nor fetching essential supplies) - or did he believe himself to be some kind of little tin key worker?

He should could have found himself in serious legal hot water for that - stalking or harassment law or similar.

I think he genuinely thought he was providing some sort of service. He’s post 2 or 3 times a day with a load of photos of peoples cars.

The scary bit for me though, was that if anyone dared to criticise him, ask what he was doing out of his house, or point out that he had absolutely no way of knowing what any of these people were doing and he shouldn’t really be posting this stuff all over Facebook, you’d get shot down, called a Covidiot (god that phrase makes me want to punch people), told you were part of the problem and you’d have deaths on your hands.

It was quite mad.

I unfollowed/left all our local community groups in the end as they were just awash with jt

The hysteria in the week before the first national lockdown, so I guess this time two years ago. I always went to Tesco at 7am on a Tuesday and it was rammed one morning, I think that’s when I knew something serious was going on.

I worked in a school at the time and all of the “will they won’t they” around school closures and sending Y6s off with their leavers hoodies in case we didn’t see them again.

Driving into a national park (where I live), and down a long track to a tiny carpark which marks the start of a lesser known walk, and finding a police car there turning people away.

Wearing an empty backpack every time we left the house at the height of the first lockdown, to enable me and DH to go for multiple walks a day so that, if questioned, we could pretend we were heading to the shops for essentials.

Joggers and cyclists being told by obese people, via hysterical social media posts, to stay at home, 'keep safe' and 'do your bit for the NHS'.