Now the COVID pandemic is gone, What are your worst, or best, memories?

[Alondra]

I was talking to my eldest son today and we somehow ended up talking about the worst moments we lived trough Covid. For me, the worst was living in Australia with DH and our two youngest, while he was in Madrid. I was beside myself with worry knowing we couldn't do anything. Zoom helped.....but only for a short while. I've never had as many sleepless nights as I had then.

For my eldest, being in a complete lockdown in a 60 square metre apartment without us or knowing what the future would be, was his worst. He did mention as a positive that he now knows most of his neighbours and is close friends with several, something it wouldn't have happened before lockdowns. :)

From the distance now, what are the things you won't forget, good or bad?

@AlisonDonut

Those are also some of my best memories. I have a large garden and several vegetable small plots growing veg just for home consumption - tomatoes, cucumbers, spring onions, eggplants, green beans etc. I used to pass the excess to the neighbours and they did the same. A very elderly neighbour living alone, baked homemade bread, biscuits and all sort of goodies, and passed them along with the flour we bought for her. She died last year, not Covid related, and is very much missed.

Best- the hilarious memes. Especially one about buying toilet rolls from sone randomer on a street corner.
Worst- working tirelessly throughout the pandemic even though it didn’t help my mental health nor that if my family. Then not being given a pay rise even though I was acting up a grade.
I was only thinking about this yesterday. If it ever happens again I won’t do it, I’d rather go on sick leave.

I was walking along the seafront and saw a poor woman sat on a bench sobbing. I stopped and asked if there was anything I could do for her and she said she would be ok in a minute. I've always regretted that I didn't ask her if we could exchange phone numbers so I could check on how she was. I never saw her again and often wondered about her . . . .

I also had a nasty incident on the way to work. I was wearing NHS uniform, navy blue so not dissimilar to Tesco's staff. I was walking near to a Tesco Express and a homeless man who had been housed in a nearby hotel had just gone into the shop but had been unable to buy the alcohol he wanted as it was before 8.00 a.m. He saw me, thought I worked for Tesco, and decided to take out his anger on me. I've never run so fast in my life (I was 62 at the time!) . . . there was no-one around at all to help me even though this happened on a main road. The next weekend the man was arrested for attacking someone with a stanley knife so I had a lucky escape . . . .

The nicest things that happened were the 'care packages' that a couple of people left for me . . . I would come home from a long day at work and find that one of the ladies from my knitting group had done some baking and left some gorgeous cakes and/or scones in a carrier bag tied to my door handle 😋

The hardest thing for me was the unknown, feeling like life as we knew it had ended and not knowing if it would ever go back to normal, that loss of life planning and holidays etc to look forward to just as a time we had got our finances in order to do those things. The fear of how it would impact the kids in the long term.

Positives were good memories from the first lockdown in particular, long summer days just my nuclear family, WFH. No good memories from the winter lockdown.

I was very sheltered from the medical/health aspects of the pandemic. My family (including parents, no grandparents) are relatively young, don't work in the NHS etc, was quite grounding to watch Breathtaking the other day.

The only thing I found difficult was the impact it had on both of my DS's, who missed out on certain things. DS1 was the "Covid GCSE year" so left school having no real exam experience, missed his Prom, driving lessons impacted, college was weird. I know in the grand scheme of it, that's nothing, but at the time it felt very sad

The worst thing was being apart from my partner as we were not yet living together and couldn't form a bubble together due to other family needs. Made our communication and relationship really strong through.

The best thing was not having to attend work and school, home learning and working from home suited me and DC down to the ground. It was eye-opening as to another way of doing things.

As awful as this sounds l, I really enjoyed it. I was calm and felt like I had enough time for living. My mental health was the best it’s ever been, my garden was spotless, looked incredible and I had time to enjoy it and It was a beautiful summer. The whole thing made me realise that the way we live in this country is not good for us.

We lucky that we didn’t lose anyone close to us, no one got ill. I didn’t even get Covid at all until last year.

The worst thing for me was the struggle with going back to normality.

( I am aware that that may be a hard read for the many people who suffered loss through Covid, and I am truly sorry for that and for all they went through)

Worst was the sheer number of self employed and freelancers excluded from the support grants which led to business collapse, the loosing their savings, some losing their homes and a couple losing their lives to suicide. Sunak initially saying no one would be left behind and then later saying “we can’t help everyone”

@Whycantiwinmillionsandsquillions

Don't remind me about toilet rolls, we went bonkers over them.

I'm still wondering why, when most countries have their own factories producing them, we went so completely nuts.

Worst, trying to order hand sanitiser for our workforce in a food factory only to be told by the salesman (who was nice and safe working from home) that we weren’t key workers and as our staff didn’t touch the product so wouldn’t be transferring covid into customers homes, it didn’t matter that they couldn’t sanitise thier hands. Don’t think I’ve ever been so angry in my life.

Worst. My husband being shouted at by an ambulance driver that he killed his mother as we had been to Italy before it all kicked off.

Best. long spring days in our new house sitting in the garden reading and crafting and decorating listening to audio books if Jane Austin.

I really feel for all the people who were badly affected.

My life didn’t change much at all. I’ve always liked to just stay at home, we’ve never been able to afford to eat our regularly or anything like that, don’t go on holidays, don’t have an extended family. So it was just like an extended school holiday.

Dh already worked from home full time.

My then 17 year old hated college. He as so happy just to finish his course at home, he got it all knocked off within a few weeks and was happy he didn’t have to go in. He actually smashed it and did much better than if he’d been going in. most of this friends at the time just spoke on video games anyway, even the ones in the same street so that was fine. He’s a 21 year old police officer now, he doesn’t feel like covid changed anything for him.

My then 6 year old didn’t really care, she just liked being at home. We alway did extra school work at home anyway so it was no big deal. She was over the moon just to be hanging out at home all day.

I was pregnant with my 3rd, loads of complications and it was just nice that the hospital was a ghost town. Bad news/stress/tests all far easier as there were loads of staff and I didn’t have to wait, didn’t have stressful, noisey waiting Rooms full of loud children and family members. Post natal ward was bliss, no men in there snoring all night. Although, I was chucked out 14 hours after having a c section which wasn’t ideal.

All the talk of covid babies being different some how - we were at playgroups when she was 9 months old (born Aug 2020), just like my others were. Her life was no different to that of her siblings and nor is her development.

I know it was hell for other pregnant women and I do have empathy. I had horrible news, a really stressful pregnancy, in hospital a lot, but I would have been alone anyway as dh had to be at home with the other two. He wouldn’t have been at my c section if it wasn’t covid lockdowns, I wanted him to be with our 6 year olds.

it was just a bit of a non event for my family. The only thing that would have been different if it wasn’t for covid was that dd and ds would have gone to school and they weren’t fussed either way.

No good memories. My poor dd was so sad and lonely. Impossible to be happy while witnessing that.

Worst, the fear, fear of dying or society collapsing with a govt. that was clearly out of its depth, people treating the lock downs as a holiday while those who had to work had a terrible time, the stupid pointless Thursday night clapping. Neighbours counting how many times I left the house.

Nothing good.

I felt the same. We did lose a close family member but otherwise I loved the lockdowns. Unlike some other posters I felt my dc benefitted.

I enjoyed the weekends where we would go on a family walk somewhere locally but new to us. The weather was lovely and it was nice just peacefully walking together as a family.

We made Friday nights take away night when the take aways reopened. I liked looking forward to a take away but eating healthier the rest of the week.

I enjoyed the slower pace of life.

I hated the home schooling. My neurotypical child did well. She whizzed through her Primary school work in less than an hour each day. My year 7 neurodiverse child floundered. Trying to get her to complete school work caused arguments and damaged our relationship. I didn't realise how difficult her ASD was making the confusion the blur between home and school. Her Secondary school education has never got back on track.

DH is a key worker. Worrying about him every day, knowing Covid was sweeping through where he worked (we all caught it from him and were very ill). Seeing how stressful it was for him trying to keep his staff safe and to keep things running, was very difficult.

Not seeing my elderly mum for a long time. Phone calls are OK but not the same as a visit.

Worst - going to work as a nurse. The Dc not going to school until as a key worker, I started sending them.

Best- friends and family pub quiz online. Taking the Dc to the local river to play every day.

The worst was the second lockdown, trying to do the home school thing with a reception age child with ASD. It worked better once we told school he wouldn’t be on any of the zoom calls and just to send the worksheets to me, but it was exhausting, and he missed out on the social side of school. Also, my mum retired just as the first lockdown started and we had made lots of plans to spend loads of time together before DS started school that September, which were all scuppered. We were very lucky not to have had worse, but it does make me really sad that DS missed out on that. And the fear at the start felt overwhelming for a while, until I got it into perspective. And as someone else said, the uncertainty and lack of control - not knowing when things might return to how they were, or if they ever would.

The best was the beautiful weather in the first lockdown and the quiet roads for bike rides. And the feeling of freedom when things did lift a little and we could go out a little more. Lots of places started doing takeaways so we actually got to ‘eat out’ more often as restaurants with a little child with SEND weren’t always the most accessible for us. The sense of community in our village, and spending time together as a family.

We were very fortunate in our pandemic experience as a family.

Personal favourite; people walking around shops with masks under their chins

Worst- the children missing out on their education and social lives. Much harder for them than for me.

Best- the only purely positive thing I can think of is that it was handy to wear a mask after getting my upper lip threaded at Blink. The rest of it was all tempered by sadness- I loved having my kids at home more but that wasn’t the right thing for them.

The stupidity of people to allow their freedom to be taken away for a virus less lethal than the flu when it was clear those taken your freedom were not one bit scared of the virus they were trying to terrify you about.

Diseasr X will be next. Will you comply? You won’t have a choice. Rishi has signed us up to the WHO Pandemic Treaty. They are not talking about if but when.

Best: the weather, being outside a lot with the kids, both my children bring in small groups at nursery/school (we are keyworkers and they are both disabled with EHCPs so were able to attend)

Worst: the government partying knobheads. Absolute chaos and lack of guidance from govt at work (secondary school) - actually enjoyed teaching online and did it for all my lessons after first 3 weeks.

Worst: the lockdown Jan-March 2021. My 6-year-old didn’t see another child in person from 17 Dec to 8th March. Weather was awful. It seemed never-ending. The mess of it… I remember the first March school run and discussing the vaccine and Trump having gone with another mum, and us both bursting into tears.

Better: first lockdown. I recognise the privilege we had and acknowledge the suffering many experienced. For us, it really was idyllic in many ways. Child in Reception so although disruptive in many ways, she was young enough to still want to spend all her time with me. Limited schooling, lots of time in the garden. We weeded, planted flowers, painted fences. We baked the obligatory banana bread, did PE with Joe. It was so quiet in the garden. No traffic sounds, the air was sweeter. I lost two stone and have kept it off. My husband also started working from home four years ago and has never gone back to the office. He has a long term chronic condition and was struggling to get flexible working. I don’t think he would be in work now without the changes brought about by lockdown. In many ways, it saved us.

Sitting there as a scientist being objective that the risk was to our grandparents who we had 100% isolated at home, yet our son was missing his friends and not getting a proper education. That frustrated us both, it could have been managed with so much less pain and so much less cost for the majority of people if they had targeted those actually at risk.

We watched friends have weddings cancelled, holidays gone, jobs lost, we all missed our 30th and honestly for what? Our risk was tiny and we knew it. We worked through it so didn't get the time at home with DS others got.

I can remember within a few days of lockdown talking to friends over zoom and saying well our grandparents aren't getting out until we find a vaccine and them thinking it would all be over in a few weeks as the government said.

They then blocked challenge trials whilst releasing lock down for everyone, it was horrifying to be in restaurants and see an old couple walk in. What had we just risked our kids mental health and economic future for.

Hopefully we have learned our lessons and if it does happen again we wont throw our kids lives (economic and social) away to save the vulnerable.

It isn't over for some of us.

Some still have to shield because people are out and about with Covid.