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.

Everyone who obeyed this unquestioningly and was awful to other people should be very ashamed of themselves

In contrast to others, I do agree with you here. As I understand it, you're not suggesting that people should have wantonly flouted the rules - but that they should have shown humanity and common sense within them.

Did it really help the national fight against covid to bully an old man needing a few minutes' rest on his own on a bench, with all of his shopping? Normally, we give special consideration to the elderly and disabled whose lives are tougher than those of the young and healthy - but in this instance, covid was exploited as carte blanche to deliberately discriminate against and bully a vulnerable person, for no real purpose whatsoever.

Much earlier on in this thread, somebody referred to the police as being 'the bad guys' and somebody else really objected to this. Whilst the vast majority of police were genuinely trying to maintain order and safety, follow the rules and stop wanton idiots, there were undoubtedly some (as there are as well in non-covid times) who were really loving the power and grasping any opportunity to pointlessly upset and threaten people doing nothing dangerous at all.

There were loads of non-police trying to do exactly the same, but they (to their own deep disgust) didn't have the authority to force people to comply with their own - often far-fetched and ridiculous - interpretations of the rules, if they answered back.

Walking from Camden into a very empty central London. We managed to find just enough open takeaway places to get lunch and a snack. It was so quiet and you could hear birds everywhere.

Hardly ever wearing socks for about 6 months as April-end September 2020 was so warm.

Seeing someone in a full hazmat suit in Waitrose 🤯
Flying from Gatwick to Edinburgh, the airport was empty. Armed police checking where every single person was flying to.
Meeting friends in an supermarket car park and having lunch in one of our cars. It's crazy to think that was illegal

My parents making the last visit to me in my (then) nursing home, saying goodbye & not knowing when I would see them in the flesh again. It took over a year.

Oh & that first Saturday before lockdown the panic on staffs faces when they were given one face mask per seven hour shift, gloves to be changed before leaving each residents room & each being given a personal face shield. Staff lost it, reality came fast that day.

Oh & residents to be kept in their rooms. That failed within weeks on my dementia floor

I mean, one thing that struck me as weird was realising that, insofar as I'd ever thought about there being pandemic (as people had long said one was coming), I kind of assumed there'd be lots of terror of expecting you or your loved ones to die, but it had never occurred to me that everything would have to shut down.

Queing and planning on different times to get to the supermarket, realising how odd it was with deserted roads, seeing half of the town's locking down shops, wearing masks, the way some people would rather assume the gov't is lying because they say x one moment and then y another, and some people don't seem to factor that knowledge and understanding of the viruses, would become better over time, but instead they just assume its power and control.

@RedRec

Taking wipes on walks in the countryside to wipe down fences, stiles or anything other people might have touched. We lost our minds.

Did you really do that? What other steps did you take to avoid Covid? I feel for you.

Having to queue up outside the local sainsburys in the scorching heat for over 30 mins and no one making eye contact! And walking back with bags of shopping just me & daughter and her dolls pram breaking because of some the shopping bags in the middle of the car park. Shopping everywhere and daughter crying. I have PTSD thinking about those days.

When the schools announced they were closing it made me feel uneasy!

@nearlyspringyay

How did you manage to get into NZ?

I have permanent residency and live here.

I told my ex husband to leave the day lockdown was announced. I had a panic attack after the announcement at the thought of being with him 24/7. We divorced.

I was living in a different country when they announced a total lockdown - me and some friends were sitting outside at my friends apartment complex and the announcement was made that we were going into full lockdown in two days. She lived opposite a major supermarket there and within ten minutes you could hear the traffic building up and then police were out to calm the traffic. My husband came to pick me up and what was normally a ten minute journey took him over an hour. There was a period in May 2020 where for three weeks we could only leave the house for 2hrs between 4:30 and 6:30pm. Some areas were literally cordoned off with barbed wire to stop people getting out. It was awful.

The cheese in coffee thing has entered Mumsnet mythology but what was said was that if posters were worried about lack of calcium because they couldn't get hold of milk, then if they had cheese it was a good source of calcium.
That turned into "so you're suggesting I put cheese in my coffee are you?" and a myth was born.

The things I most remember from Mumsnet are the number of people attacking others for following the rules and the people who faced with scientific fact, still continued to deny Covid.

And then the first world problems of "should Jimmy do his Joe Wicks before we bake cookies or after".

The nurse crying after night shift as no food - on radio

Also man saying his wife had gone (ie dementia accelerated) hastened by isolation in care homes, made me cry

The vaccine stresses, the 8% over 65 stat stressed me a lot (luckily not correct in the end)

After weeks of being locked up studying at home for non existent exams, someone calling the police on my teen DS and his two friends playing basketball in the sun.

@ParadiseLaundry

Seeing the police parked outside of the local park checking to see who was going in and checking if they lived in a house together. It just seemed utterly and disproportionately ridiculous at the time and now but most people seemed supportive of it. DS asked why the police were there and what they were doing and it occurred to me that we always tell children that the police are the good guys, who catch bad guys and take them away but here they were stopping families from meeting other families to walk and talk and play together and that they were the bad guys.

I've seen a few people refer to what I said here.

Just to clarify, I meant the people out on walks possibly meeting their friends were the 'bad guys' the police were trying to catch, not that the police were the bad guys. Apologies, it was confusing and I didn't explain it well.

Although I feel that measure such as these and many other examples I have seen, were completely disproportionate and unreasonable. And I agree with @WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll that there were undoubtedly individuals who were enjoying the power, police officers and otherwise.

@QuebecBagnet

Police on day one of lockdown doing bag inspections outside local sainsburys and telling people off if their shopping was deemed non essential. People think I’m making this but it happened.

no I saw it on the news...the gov.t had to add to the guidance that if you were out to get essentials, you were allowed to buy non essentials too....in England that is.

Being followed by police ,on more than one occasion ,when driving my son to his night job in a supermarket . Meeting my friend in a supermarket car park for coffee and each sitting in our own car with the window open . When we were allowed 6 people at home we had one extra child . There was a knock on the door and we all froze as we thought it was the police. It was a friend from another town dropping off a birthday gift . We ushered her in quickly hoping no one saw her . It was like the days of the resistance!

@MarshaBradyo

The nurse crying after night shift as no food - on radio

Also man saying his wife had gone (ie dementia accelerated) hastened by isolation in care homes, made me cry

The vaccine stresses, the 8% over 65 stat stressed me a lot (luckily not correct in the end)

what 8% over 65 stat?

Realising how many people took delight in reporting ‘rule breakers.’
Driving into Wales at 1 minute past midnight to visit family for 24hrs on Christmas Day, ( because of the horrible snitches we did it by the book.)

Having to fly to Spain for an emergency in July 2020 and staying the night before in an airport hotel. It felt like I was the only guest there and I was worried about touching anything in the room in case it had not been disinfected properly. All these only to be sitting on a packed plane hours later, where people were still offered snacks to eat (with no masks, obviously). It was a time of constant contradictions

The sheer illogicality of it all. Like all the one way and queuing systems at supermarkets that meant you spent far longer in closer proximity with people than you would have done if you'd just nipped in and out as normal.

I'm an NHS worker and was given a pair of free tickets for the cup final at Wembley as a 'thank you' ( and also I think as part of data gathering on transmission at big events as we had to submit test results before and after). We had to provide evidence of a negative test to gain admission. Lots of rules sent in advance about social distancing etc & being refused entry without test result evidence..

However when we got there there was no social distancing at all in the queue, a huge drunken scrum of mostly men just charging through the barriers where the tests were supposed to be checked. Fighting, pushing, the works. It was actually quite frightening ( but probably fairly 'normal' big match behaviour.) No-one looked at our test results, that's for sure.

And then once inside, DH and I were not allowed to sit next to one another and security guards insisted we sit several seats apart in a section where the rows were alternately empty.

Really early on, when the supermarkets were starting to get busy and empty of loo roll and pasta, my dd and I were buying party bag bits. The till person joked with us that we were panic buying the wrong things as she scanned 15 candles, face masks and lip balms.

The same day I had an email from the paediatric team at DSs hospital suggesting everyone stocks up on insulin and supplies and check all equipment is working. As well as emergency protocols incase of illness and contact numbers for out of hours and A&E addresses. That was a definite 'what do they know that we don't' moment.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

Everyone who obeyed this unquestioningly and was awful to other people should be very ashamed of themselves

In contrast to others, I do agree with you here. As I understand it, you're not suggesting that people should have wantonly flouted the rules - but that they should have shown humanity and common sense within them.

Did it really help the national fight against covid to bully an old man needing a few minutes' rest on his own on a bench, with all of his shopping? Normally, we give special consideration to the elderly and disabled whose lives are tougher than those of the young and healthy - but in this instance, covid was exploited as carte blanche to deliberately discriminate against and bully a vulnerable person, for no real purpose whatsoever.

Much earlier on in this thread, somebody referred to the police as being 'the bad guys' and somebody else really objected to this. Whilst the vast majority of police were genuinely trying to maintain order and safety, follow the rules and stop wanton idiots, there were undoubtedly some (as there are as well in non-covid times) who were really loving the power and grasping any opportunity to pointlessly upset and threaten people doing nothing dangerous at all.

There were loads of non-police trying to do exactly the same, but they (to their own deep disgust) didn't have the authority to force people to comply with their own - often far-fetched and ridiculous - interpretations of the rules, if they answered back.

Yes, this is all true, however unpalatable. And it's not people simply obeying who are in the wrong, pretty much all of us did that to some degree. It's the aforementioned awfulness to others that was the problem.

End of March 2020, I had to drive to the birth centre with DD2 at 5 days old, to have her checkup. Nobody on the roads, signs up saying "stay home". I dropped off some "essential" yogurts and milk to my mum and dad on the way home at the end of their drive. It was also my birthday.

The next time I saw them was the day after VE day. It was against the rules, but it seemed to ridiculous that I was "allowed" to sit and talk to my neighbours in the front garden- who i didn't even like - but I couldn't do the same with my parents because they lived a 15 minute drive away. So we met them half way and went for a walk.

My child was in a bad accident (luckily all OK) the lady behind her stopped and gave her a much needed hug and told her it's all alright
I shall forever be grateful to her for that act of kindness in the bleakness we were all facing