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Original poster

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

758 replies

Jaggerdagger · 11/03/2022 07:09

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.

OP posts:
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5
confettisprinkles · 11/03/2022 08:24

Going from normal maternity leave with a then 5 month old one week, attending baby groups etc, to being completely alone just me and baby the next. It was surreal and extremely isolating, DH was working miles away and was too scared to come home incase he brought the virus back to DD so we didn't see him for about 4 months.

etopp · 11/03/2022 08:24

That so many people were willing to "do as they were told" (and police other people) without evaluating the "rules" for themselves even for a fraction of a second.

Buzzinwithbez · 11/03/2022 08:26

@Dancingsmile

In a park with my grandson, they were back open. Someone's toddler fell flat on his face in front of me. The second he hit the floor, all I could hear across the park was the mother screaming,'Don't touch him, step back' over and over as she ran across. It really upset me; it made me feel like I was dirty and disgusting.
An elderly couple picked my daughter up when she fell off her bike. I did worry for them that they'd go home and worry they'd caught covid.
BookkeeperBobby · 11/03/2022 08:26

non-essential not non-residential

justasking111 · 11/03/2022 08:27

The empty roads . Driving through the high street normally bustling. Goats having appeared in town grazing on roundabouts and in folks gardens

Buzzinwithbez · 11/03/2022 08:28

People on here telling single mothers they should not take their children into supermarkets but should leave them in the car.

sqirrelfriends · 11/03/2022 08:28

On local Facebook page, local nutter was complaining bitterly about people driving to our woodland to walk their dogs. He was taking pictures and noting down makes and models so we knew they didn't belong Hmm

Same man, taking a picture of someone drinking from a flask of (possibly) tea. It's picnicking and not allowed (everyone knows drinking tea spreads covid, especially in a completely deserted area).

The worst thing was the replies, so many people up in arms about such silliness. I went out twice one day and was petrified my picture would appear on Facebook.

Wnkingawalrus · 11/03/2022 08:28

@Lunaballoon

Nervousness around social distancing. I was out walking in the early days of the pandemic and had to move into the centre of the pavement to skirt round a tree. A guy on the other side of the pavement stuck his arm out as a warning not to get anywhere near him, glaring at me like I was Typhoid Mary!
I had a similar experience literally just last week. It was like being transported back to April 2020. A woman pulled her mask closer onto her face and made a massive thing of jumping to the side about 5 meters in front of me as we approached each other on a perfectly normal footpath.

The only conclusion I could come to was that she had covid.

Zero19 · 11/03/2022 08:30

The week of the first lockdown I went into Asda to get a drink before work and the tills were Rammed like Christmas Eve ! I then thought erm maybe we need to get shopping so we went to Tesco that night after work and it was the more surreal experience I’ve ever had . Both myself and my partner said we will never forget it . It was eary and people were walking round like the living dead . The shelves were bare and we were pushing an empty trolley round for what seemed like hours putting in the odd random thing that was left on the shelves . I remember having a laugh with a shelf stacker and she said she’s never seen anything like it .
Then the queues every day outside Tesco . They were all down the car park and back up the high street and as we live next door we kept popping down and would join if the queue was short or go home and try again later . I remember laughing with my partner when he left one day to go to Tesco about what random stuff he was going to bring back today lol you couldn’t meal plan because you didn’t know what would be left on the shelves til you got there !

I work in a retail store who is owned by a supermarket and we were kept open for click and collect and you’ve never seen anything like it in your life . I wish we had done videos of the mayhem of our stockroom . We had couriers going out with orders coz our drivers couldn’t do enough ! Garden stuff was flying out and people were just buying literally anything and everything they could get their hands on . Our orders atm are like 20- 40 on average this year , back then it was going Upto 500 per slot so anything upto 1500 orders a day !!! On top of queues at the door and sending cages and cages of stock to our stores inside supermarkets . Which then kept coming back as their stockrooms were not big enough to hold such massive orders !

Yet we could be in a stockroom with no windows for 6-8 hours a day but I couldn’t go see my Mum !!

user1471538283 · 11/03/2022 08:30

Getting to the grocery store really early and queuing around the car park to get in.

My horrible ex neighbors having parties. One side agreeing that parties were madness then having them regularly a couple of weeks later

The astounding selfishness of people.

LaurieFairyCake · 11/03/2022 08:31

Leaving work when they shut the schools and going home to hear Boris announce that he would be paying me to stay at home (that Sunak would tell me how much the next day)

I then walked (no taxis, no one on the roads) to Victoria Station to get home to be greeted by an empty station (like Shaun of the Dead!) in the middle of the day

An empty Victoria Station 🚉 Shock

I get home to find a shell shocked DH who said he was told to shut the school and that he had to take a letter from the school with him AT ALL times so he would be allowed to deliver laptops to kids (who didn't have tech) in case he was stopped by police

Babdoc · 11/03/2022 08:31

DD sending photos of herself walking down a totally deserted Royal Mile in Edinburgh at peak tourist season.
Hearing a tannoy announcement in Tesco that the police would be called to any violence against staff.
Sitting in an isolation cubicle, on oxygen, in March 2020, not knowing if I would survive Covid. And then not being allowed a visit from my DDs after I was discharged home.

thekaratekid · 11/03/2022 08:32

Travelling into work on the train in March 2020 the week before lockdown. Completely empty carriages and station. My work was slow to react to the WFH guidance and I swear we were amongst the last still commuting in. Me and some colleagues went for a walk around central london....deserted and creepy.

Our moronic neighbour panic buying laying hens and hastily constructing a coop in the garden. The chickens were rehomed after about 9 months.

Meeting PIL at motorway service station at a halfway point to sit outside and meet up (not our idea). PIL insisted on following the rules and refused to even consider us coming down for the day to sit in their garden. They still went on holidays abroad though Hmm

The panic buying. Me and DH were in the co-op and there was a singular remaining loaf of bread. I said to DH we were getting low and could buy it, but felt bad in case someone else really needed it. A bloke had been listening to our conversation...as he walked past us he stopped, turned around and just took the loaf from under our noses. He took it just because he could.

sqirrelfriends · 11/03/2022 08:32

The toilet roll thing was batshit. I didn't partake as we had plenty but one of my colleagues had one of her packs (still within the limit the store set) nicked AFTER she had bought them as she "wasn't allowed to stockpile". They only had packs of 4 left so she got 2 as her daughter wasn't able to buy any.

Celoo · 11/03/2022 08:33

Reading a post from a lady on a local community Facebook page going absolutely bat shit because she was at a cash point and another woman out doing her daily exercise ran past her too closely - She expected to cross to the opposite side of the road then back again. She was literally saying this woman will have blood on her hands from all the people she'll be infecting with her thoughtless running. This thread went on for dozens of comments lambasting the the unidentified jogging killer.

In fact, there were so many facebook posts from overly hysterical people making demands on other people

Onlywomengivebirth · 11/03/2022 08:33

Watching dad’s funeral in the middle of the night, on the other side of the world, and seeing only 10 people in physical attendance.

Whatelsecouldibecalled · 11/03/2022 08:34

Holding my newborn baby up at the window for my mum to see him. Fucking heartbreaking

NeverDropYourMooncup · 11/03/2022 08:34

Struggling to breathe, not being able to get help from anybody because they were just too busy.

Realising that had I died, to some people here it wouldn't have counted as a bad thing, it wouldn't have been premature, it would have been just a normal death because I had a preexisting condition.

linelgreen · 11/03/2022 08:35

No planes in the sky so no vapour trails.
Cooking family Sunday lunch each week instead of eating out and actually enjoying doing it!!
Teaching next doors kids to swim in our swim spa when their lessons were cancelled.
Doing all our food shopping online no top up visits to Tesco as could not stand the queues.

FoxyFoxyLoxy · 11/03/2022 08:37

Popping into my local Co-Op for a few groceries and coming face to face with a woman in a full-on hazmat suit.

That and the threads on here with people being very shrieky and nasty about people "flouting" the roolz and "flocking" to places.

AuntieMorag · 11/03/2022 08:37

As an NHS admin worker, being moved to be a health care assistant on covid wards as a whole was bizarre. Watching people die daily. Colleagues completely out of their depth because everyone on the ward had been redeployed from community / non patient facing roles. The high of patients going home, alive. The begging companies to donate underwear and toothpaste as patients were turning up with nothing. (I will always remember the two most helpful.. Freemans and Home Bargains were both amazing).

TrooBloo · 11/03/2022 08:37

Crying with the teacher on the last day of school, her saying it was such a waste, as she understood what it would mean for their education.

My DC never setting foot in that school again.

My mum visiting in the garden and is standing really far apart. Anti baccing the chair she sat in once she’d left.

Getting upset that someone walked too close to me on the street on our daily walks. I was very anxious about it all in the early days. I refused to visit a shop, I found it very scary.

I also quite enjoyed lockdown, having the children home, we had a lovely summer really. It was easy to be in our own bubble avoiding the news. But when winter hit it was really hard. I remember crying for days when Christmas got cancelled.

Parker231 · 11/03/2022 08:39

When lockdown was announced (which I 100% agreed with) but knowing that it could be a long time until we saw my and DH’s parents (they live in Belgium and Canada) and realising what it would mean for DH - a doctor.

elliesmummy19 · 11/03/2022 08:40

In the first few days of the first lockdown I was absolutely terrified to even take my daughter for a short walk around the block. Slowly built up the courage to walk into town to the supermarket (about a 20 minute walk) when we needed shopping. It was dead and very surreal.

Happydaysaheadofme · 11/03/2022 08:40

I was 20 weeks pregnant at the start of lockdown.

Strange things I remember:

  • sanitising every item of shopping that entered the house
  • going out for more than one alloyed walk in a day and wondering if my neighbours would notice
  • having contractions in a mask
  • a covid swab being stuck up my nose about 20 mins after giving birth
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