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.

Saying to my mum's palliative nurse that I wished I could hug her after she'd certified mum's death and her then giving me the biggest hug. It was such a moment of humanity when she recognised my need for that contact despite all the rules in place and, at the same time, so bizarre it felt like a huge deal.

Driving on the motorway during the first lockdown. It is normally pretty busy even at six and I realised there was not a single car on the road in either direction. I panicked for a moment thinking I’d missed a motorway closed sign!

In Aldi an elderly woman was buying a bunch of flowers and another woman started moaning loudly so everyone could hear. " Flowers!!?? I'm in here for bread and milk and she's in here buying flowers!" The older woman clearly had a trolley full of essential items and must have just fancied getting herself some flowers, bless her.

During the first lockdown a colleague in the nursery where I worked told me she had been stopped by the police while driving to work and they questioned her on where she was going. She showed them the letter from our company stating that we were key workers.

Everyone on their daily walk zig zagging across the road in panic to avoid someone coming towards them. And a man holding his walking pole towards me to make sure we were 6 feet apart.

Queuing to get into our little Tesco for around 40 mins at worst, queue going all round the car park. Luckily the weather was good! And a strict one way system - heaven forbid you should forget something as you'd be screwed!

We made brownies for a neighbour, left them on her doorstep. She loved them. Her sister gave us abuse!

@harriethoyle

Saying to my mum's palliative nurse that I wished I could hug her after she'd certified mum's death and her then giving me the biggest hug. It was such a moment of humanity when she recognised my need for that contact despite all the rules in place and, at the same time, so bizarre it felt like a huge deal.

During the first lockdown, telling a close friend that I was miscarrying. We were on a socially distanced walk through the park, it was during the “don’t look at/breath on/go near” phase of the pandemic, and she just stopped and gave me the biggest hug. I’m crying now remembering it.

The absolute silence broken only by the occasional sound of sirens
The camaraderie within our town
An elderly lady joining the long snake of a queue at the supermarket(about 30 people or more) . Each and every person in that queue told her to go infront of them. I cried
Then the person behind me said 'that would only happen at Waitrose'

Bashing a saucepan with a wooden spoon on my country road. Seeing some neighbours up the road doing the same.

Just seems so insane now.

My back garden open onto the village playground…I remember a council worker taping off all the playground equipment then zip-tying my back gate shut 😳

My elderly parents had to isolate throughout, and I used to do all their shopping and welfare visits, dropping the shopping and medication in their porch and talking through the front windrows. I had to record a ‘happy birthday’ message from them through the closed window to show my eldest for his 18th birthday.

Local beauty spots being empty

I went to Tesco one evening and couldn't get any meat or veg. Literally none fresh or frozen. I was 24 weeks pregnant and sat in the car and had a cry because I was genuinely scared about how I was going to find food to eat to keep my baby and I alive. Super worrying pregnancy following infertility and loss as well, so I think I was entitled to be quite self centred at that point.

When my friend died. Fuck covid, horrible, life-ruining virus (and there are currently more people in hospital with it than this time last year).

The conspiracy theories on Facebook, including one that said the one-way systems were a plot to "stop us buying unnecessary things"

When things started to open up a bit more i took my dc to the beach. I hadn't realised how confined my baby's world had been until no saw his face looking at the big open space, he was just under a year and pretty confident on his feet but his mind was blown by the space. He didn't know what to do so just kind of clung to my leg and stared at the horizon.

That was the moment it hit me just how affected he had been by it all (and he's still not big on people skills 🤦‍♀️)

I found it really weird when they announced the soaps were stopping filming. I know in the grand scale of things it's really minor and I don't even really watch them but it was yet another normal thing that we took for granted stopping .

Finding out that so many people are complete tossers and/gullible conspiracy theorists. Collecting endless airmiles to travel back and forwards to loved ones funerals and not being able to spend them on a holiday.

Rules limiting exercise, and people bleaching or isolating their shopping!!

Oh and when my parents, sister and her family, nephew and his family all caught covid, so I was shopping for four households and felt I had to keep on announcing it all round Morrisons as I received evil looks for my huge trolley-full.

Also very bizarre was people sort of making up new rules or over interpreting the rules to make it more restrictive eg when you could travel to exercise, people randomly telling me off for driving five miles to a nice walking route

Ona lighter note I had terrible panic attacks the horrible week just before lockdown when they had announced schools closing and panic buying was at its worst and it all seemed really apolcalyptic and on the first day schools were closed it was a beautiful spring day and I felt suddenly a lot calmer and we went for a jog and all the neighbours were stood in their front gardens chatting and one local old guy who's a bit of a character shouted 'I'm bored already' and it made everyone really laugh.

Clapping for carees always seemed so odd to me, how the fuck was clapping on the doorstep going to help?

Just blindingly accepting that I couldn't see my parents or mother in law. They all went downhill.

Having to set my mum up to watch two of her brothers funerals virtually (different country, couldn't travel).

Being ripped to shreds and called pathetic on here by poster after poster because I dared to comment that I enjoyed my day off at home during lock down.

It was brutal.

@nearlyspringyay

Clapping for carees always seemed so odd to me, how the fuck was clapping on the doorstep going to help?

Just blindingly accepting that I couldn't see my parents or mother in law. They all went downhill.

Having to set my mum up to watch two of her brothers funerals virtually (different country, couldn't travel).

Clapping for Carers I think was more about boosting morale and coming together- I work for the nhs but didn't see it as specifically for the nhs more just a sense of unity and optimism. I thought the first ones were very moving

i am sure the nhs workers appreciated it at the time, the clapping,
it was worth while initially
seeing a photo of an young itu nurse who i know with a bruised face from the mask, saying Stay Home