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.

Massive fight at work-I’d gone to check the toilets and came back to two tables (think fast food place and during eat out to help out) and one had looked at the other funny or something which slid into both tables screaming at each other and then one stood up to batter the other

I remember just running downstairs to get two managers (with a bad knee which meant I had to crawl downstairs in a lot of pain) and them looking at me with ‘what do you want us to do about it?’ looks

I managed to break it up,until one muttered something which the other side heard

Long story short,we had to pull them apart and call the police who got one side to leave and the the other side 15 minutes later with threats of arrest ringing in everyone’s ears

I then spent the next hour trying to calm other customers down-kids where screaming and people where pissed off that their kids had heard swearing and witnessed the fighting

I really don’t get paid enough for this-I cried in the toilets

AbsoluteTruths

But on the positive side, a few weeks ago was out walking with ds and struggled to get the hook on my coat fastened. Was really cold and windy and an older lady stopped and offered to help. She did up the hook and then cupped my face in her hands. That was such a beautiful moment, a stranger just displaying no fear of another stranger. Made my week

Well that just made me cry.

The resilience of my teen DDs in dealing with the situation.

Just when their lives should have been opening up and their independence growing, it was reduced to a computer screen in their bedrooms.

Having said that, I will be eternally grateful to all those who worked so hard to keep up their drama shows and Guide meetings online. I know their mental health has suffered but they got through it.

godmum iirc it came from Germany re efficacy of AZ vaccine over 65. So sounded really bad

It turned out not to be the case though so after that I decided not to stress over headlines unless looked into further

Another one... staying in a hotel overlooking Sefton Park in Liverpool whilst my tiny daughter was in NICU, a warm, sunny day during the first lockdown, and a loud noise breaking the complete silence except the singing birds, chilled my bones. It was the police in the park with a megaphone, ordering people to go home or face arrest. I looked out of the window into the park and saw an elderly man sitting on a bench, alone, and a few people out jogging whilst observing social distancing.

It upset me a lot.

Ashridge (National Trust) closing all the loos apart from the disabled loo and putting up a sign saying the loo is only for emergency use. Totally over the top and quite funny.

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

Yes most one way systems were pointless at best. Also closing alternative toilet cubicles so twice as many people were touching the remaining toilets. Our library closed all but one checkout machine, so every single person had to touch the same one and there was crowding while people waited for their turn.

Picking a car up at Heathrow and driving through the center of London to get to barking took 25 minutes
It was surreal not a soul about it felt like the world had ended

Getting up at 2am to do an online shopping order at the beginning of March. I’d been watching what was happening in Australia & Europe with the queues & the fighting and couldn’t see how thar wouldn’t happen here. That was a few weeks before lockdown and I couldn’t get a slot for 2 weeks. DH laughed at me but he wasn’t laughing when the shopping was delivered 2 days after lockdown!

Being finally able to visit my mum & both of us dressing head to toe in disposal plastic ponchos & masks so we could hug

Going for a run after lockdown and the total silence of the deserted streets. It was like being in a film.

Getting a job helping with the vaccination programme & the sheer scale of it - thousands of ppl being vaccinated in a day across so many sites

Our local national trust putting up signs saying the loos were only to be used if absolutely necessary. Like anyone goes into a public lav for anything that is not a necessity!

My main memory was of the A1 (normally gridlocked) completely devoid of cars in the first month of lockdown in 2020. You could have played cricket in the street.

Queuing for 90 minutes in the supermarket car park at opening time on Easter Thursday to secure provisions for a roast dinner.

My DM lives alone and used to seeing me and the DC a few times a week, so the early part of the first lockdown was really hard for her.

I remember DS skipping round the house singing that he was "as happy as a hamster" that he got to hug his grandma again, after the government brought in the single person bubbles. In hindsight I'm amazed I let my poor mum going that long without cuddles, when we were all healthy and symptom free.

I remember the madness of supermarkets before lockdown. Huge queues of people suddenly discovering tinned meats and fruit. But mostly just people being scared about what was coming.
Scared they’d die, scared their loved ones will die. Scared they’d have no food.

Dd was year 6 primary. I remember her last day, me sobbing knowing she probably wouldn’t be going back and secondary was going to be a lot harder.
Trying to make sure she knew to say goodbye to friends, get phone numbers (lots of different secondary’s) and say thank you to the teachers and the school she was leaving. She didn’t get those phone numbers as they just didn’t get what was happening.

Going to Asda one morning just before lockdown, needing some loo roll and being scared as I approached that aisle wondering what fiasco I would find. Either no loo rolls at all or people fighting over them

Looking back at all the mentioned nonsense made me realise how bloody unnecessary lots of it were. Queuing to get into a supermarket for example, when it was a free for all once inside.
The police kicking people out of parks , when there was very few other people about. Some of these people lived in flats with no gardens.
And the shaming that other people seemed to take delight in, posting pics on Facebook of people ‘breaking rules’. People taking photos of people on beaches for example.
Society became very unpleasant for a period.
Also the selfishness of some of those pricks who stockpiled toilet roll and general other fuck wittery that people did.

Saw my mum throughout
That was my line in the sand

Yes most one way systems were pointless at best. Also closing alternative toilet cubicles so twice as many people were touching the remaining toilets. Our library closed all but one checkout machine, so every single person had to touch the same one and there was crowding while people waited for their turn

So true.

Crying to the checkout lady in home bargains after I really badly scalded myself in the first week of lockdown. Had been told by 111 to go straight to hospital but I had noone to look after dcs.

I’ve not read the whole thread so maybe it’s been mentioned - and I know this was initially about the most stupid things of lockdown, but when I think about Sarah Everard, it just makes me so angry. It feels like that only happened because of lockdown - sure, maybe he could have abducted, raped and murdered a woman using other reasons or opportunities, but it was such an awful time anyway. Such a weird time. And for her to be killed because he took advantage of the susceptibility we all had during that time of “following” or “breaking” the rules - it’s truly and utterly the most fucked up thing that happened entirely because of lockdown. It makes me so angry to think about.

@MarshaBradyo

godmum iirc it came from Germany re efficacy of AZ vaccine over 65. So sounded really bad

It turned out not to be the case though so after that I decided not to stress over headlines unless looked into further

Right from the beginning, I stuck to vaccine information that I could find valid clinical research for. By the time all the AZ is dangerous stuff was being spewed, I had had my first dose of AZ so all i could do was say fuckit. I thought then (and I still think) that much of the information that came out of Europe at that time was intended to comfort europeans that the UK was doing something very silly by using "untested" vaccines and that it was safer not to be vaccinated. None of this is intended to indicate that I am smarter than the average MN-er but my background is clinical and I have spent my working life saying "show me the evidence"

After a month of not leaving the house at all as I was so scared, we went for a walk to the local park and I could see two people in the distance on the same side of the road as us and I panicked and crossed the road and basically walked into a hedge to make sure I was as far away from them as physically possible.
As soon as we got home, our clothes were put in a hot wash and we all showered.

@TheDoveFromAboveCooCoo I live under Heathrow’s flight path and made a recording of bird song in April 2020, no other sounds, no constant plane noise, no road noise, no voices, that is one of the better memories of that time.

GorgeousLadyofWrestling

I’ve not read the whole thread so maybe it’s been mentioned - and I know this was initially about the most stupid things of lockdown, but when I think about Sarah Everard, it just makes me so angry. It feels like that only happened because of lockdown - sure, maybe he could have abducted, raped and murdered a woman using other reasons or opportunities, but it was such an awful time anyway. Such a weird time. And for her to be killed because he took advantage of the susceptibility we all had during that time of “following” or “breaking” the rules - it’s truly and utterly the most fucked up thing that happened entirely because of lockdown. It makes me so angry to think about.

True. Her mother’s statement is heart breaking.

Driving to see my dad as he was dying in a hospice and there being so few vehicles on the motorway and the MetroCentre car park completely empty.

Rules my arse. They fucking weren't.

It was a real eye opener that few of the police had read the new law or been briefed properly on it.
It took weeks for the college of policing to clear matters up. Much longer than necessary for someone to step forward and sort out the debacle. I'd read and understood it, but what was the point if I could end up being threatened for doing something totally innocuous and allowed anyway. Those felt like very dark days..

Oh and for the first few days, we were led to believe there were laws in place. There weren't.