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?

Worst:
The spite and nastiness from people. In our village people were grassed up for not banging a fucking pot, daring to go for two walks a day or go over their "time allowed" walk, "outsiders" coming in to use the local shop or car park. Photos posted on social media. Horrible. Left Facebook around that time and never went back.

My DD was doing her gcses and missed months of school, the prom, actual exams. She really struggled mentally.

I worked throughout so no peace and quiet or relaxing in the sun for me. The roads were quiet though I suppose.

Didn't see my parents or sister and her kids for months.

I’m still living with mine.

2 severe vaccine injuries. Then caught covid on top of them and currently in month 9 of long covid. Still housebound and have no brain.

So 2 1/2 years or severe disability.

Careful, you’ll get jumped on and called a conspiracy theorist.

But yes, all this too.

I was just talking about what went on in my family.

I was chastised by a midwife at the hospital when I laughed as she told me I had to strip off the second I walked in my front door, quarantine my shoes and maternity notes in a bag for three days, wash everything I’d worn at the hospital immediately, shower and wash my hair or I would definitely get covid and be very ill. No. That’s mental. my hair and cardigan were not going to kill me. She said she was going to refer me to the mental health team as I wasn’t taking my health seriously. A doctor then stepped in and told her that would be ridiculous.

I didn’t mention my absolute fear, not of covid, but of the world. How it affected people. How people were letting their rights be eroded. I used to read on here in horror about people wanting roads closed, areas cordoned off, to be told they couldn’t go to the shop for a fucking coke. how they let their lives be ruled by fear.

I had a private midwife who visited my home all the way through. She had my neighbours shouting at her that she couldn’t come in my house, she had the police called on her countless times visiting other women to give medical care.

We used to go and pick up my elderly dad to stay with us. he lived in a cul du sac of over 60s apartments. His neighbors would be up against their windows, banging like caged monkeys shouting we shouldn’t take him when we were putting him in the car. It was horrific to see.

People turned on each other in such horrible ways. Spying on neighbours. I fucking hated most people anyway, but covid cemented that for me.

Worst. Pitching up by my MILs care home window for a week as she slowly died of Covid. Obviously we had to have our 9 & 10 yos with us too.

The care home shouldn't have, but did, let BIL in so she didn't die alone. He had minimal PPE.
They let him in and not DH because if BIL caught COVID and died he didn't have a family to support. (He did catch it, and was very ill for 2 weeks at home alone, and then, thank god, recovered.)

The staff were traumatised, they'd had elderly patients discharged to the care home from hospital with COVID to die, and that meant that lots of their residents caught it. I think they lost about 10 in a fortnight.

We took were traumatised. I remember crying with the staff outside and us all stood in a distanced circle.

That was May 2020. Whilst those in government were partying we were having a socially distanced funeral and no wake. Bastards.

Best memories were how wonderful the weather was that spring, and trying to make both homeschooling fun for my bereaved DC and key worker school fun for the tinies (TA).

Well said. It’s the banality of evil and how quickly people can turn with the mob.

It’s like when you see awful atrocities in the world, neighbours and colleagues turning on each other and murdering each other in the name of religion or something else.

And you wonder how that could happen. It can happen very easily. We didn’t join in with the pot banging on a Thursday. You should have seen the reaction of others on our street. You can see how it doesn’t take much for our fragile brains to turn.

It’s horrific.

It was all so ritualistic. Same with the dancing nurses in the empty hospitals.

i changed to briefly working in a team of 3,
the rest of my team were elsewhere due to social distancing.

one of my colleagues is a scaremonger. going on about how someone she knew being arrested for going to their holiday house, being stopped by the police while driving. etc., i drove my dh to a hospital appointment and as usual parked up and walked my dog but we were too scared to take the adult dc;s with us. I did see a policeman and was a bit anxious but held my head up and carried on my walk.
we were all such conformists!

It personally wasn't awful for me although I was very worried about my dh getting it as he has quite severe asthma. We just got on with it, we had four teen young adult kids who coped too and have had no lasting effects, one spent his 18th in lockdown, one missed almost a year of not being at Uni. We were fortunate not to lose anyone, I can't imagine how hard it was for people who were unable to visit loved ones who died of it. I worked all through it in a cancer services related role and had clients crying down the phone because their relatives couldn't have major cancer surgery because there were no ITU beds and that was hard to deal with but nothing on the scale of what some frontline NHS staff went through. I had previously worked as a nurse for 30 years and was so thankful I was no longer nursing during the pandemic as I would not have coped. Still in awe of those frontline staff and care home staff and how they coped with such a nightmare. Agree with others that the snitching on neighbors was awful, although I didn't personally come across any of that, all our neighbours were caring and supportive of each other. I remember being told off on MN that ' you are part of the problem' because I'd dared to go to two shops to get the things I needed instead of one. !

worse: Shipping dc out to live with family as I was nursing. At the time we were told that it was the only way to protect our dc. I hated it but the fear was real.

best: I can’t think 🤔

No issues here as we doesn't fall for the lies.

I don’t really have any bad personal memories of it. My mum died in the first lockdown (not from Covid) and we weren’t allowed a funeral, but she’d have loved that.

I manage a large-ish team and we were all going into the office every day prior to Covid. We are now all based from home and go in only for training or meetings. It’s been life changing - for the better.

As a family, we have fond memories of sunny evenings in the garden (the weather was fab) and a very peaceful atmosphere with quiet roads in our busy village.

really sorry to hear this. Hope you see a chink of light at the end of the tunnel soon.

If I could sort of compartmentalise what was going on, I loved it. I loved just this extended amount of time with my kids and that the weekends were so chilled. I promised that once everything returned to normal, I'd still keep our weekends quiet but like most people they sort of just slowly went back to normal.

I hated how much people told on each other. I now understand how easily people became informants in post-ww2 Germany. People just love to tell on people!!

I really missed being able to see and cuddle Gdd2, who was born in the January. Ditto the 2 older Gdcs, and of course dds.

Other than that, TBH I wasn’t too bothered. Early in the first lockdown when supermarket shelves were often empty, and it was a PITA having to queue at Asda anyway, I quite enjoyed seeing what meals I could contrive from what was lurking in the fridge and cupboard - inc. very out of date dry foods that were fine.

Plus, retired and badly needing something to do, I found the charity I have really enjoyed knitting children’s therapy items for, ever since.

Worst: my XP / DS's dad dying of cancer which may have been treatable if it had been caught earlier, or treatment started earlier. He was diagnosed in Feb 21 and didn't start treatment til the August because of covid backlog and general delays. He died in May 22. The last time I saw him I had to wear a mask and he didn't even get to see our faces properly for the final time.

Best: like someone upthread, giving away free produce from my allotment to people by leaving it labelled outside and replenishing often. The most lovely feeling, although that was towards the end of the pandemic, we didn't have the allotment at the start and were locked down in a tiny house on a busy road with no real garden. But I remember the quiet and how peaceful it was. I hated lockdown and it nearly broke me, I don't think I have recovered from the total isolation, but I did like the lack of cars on the roads.

The first lockdown - the weather. Glorious sunshine, we were in the garden with the kids every day.

The worst for me was seeing the decline in my DD's mental health. She missed her friends and family so much. Her learning was disrupted massively. I truly think she is a different child today than what she would have been if Covid hadn't happened.
Not seeing my grandparents who are truly my best friends. Door stop present drop off on Christmas Eve, my nan crying through her porch door is one thing that will never leave me.

The worst: I got made redundant and there weren't even any jobs to apply for as absolutely nothing was open. Really hard as a single mum to keep smiling and pretending everything was ok.

Going to the supermarket and just seeing row upon row of empty shelves.

Seeing people buying more than they needed. Trolleys packed with loaves of bread and toilet rolls when others had none - so greedy and selfish!

Losing a family member (not Covid) and not being able to go to the funeral.

The best: DD was in Y6 so went into school but due to covid was put in a very small group of 6. She absolutely thrived. As a quiet introverted child who'd been overlooked all the way through primary school she finally felt heard and learned so much.

After a very stressful 9 months I found a job and it's turned out to be the best job I've ever had. I was interviewed online and worked from home for months but was welcomed and valued from day one.

It didn't bother me being at home and not seeing other people as I'm an introvert. Most days I didn't even bother going for 'the walk' we were allowed to do as I was happy pottering in my garden.

I loved picking DD up from school. The streets were quiet and we chatted and the weather was great.

I loved that DD didn't have to do any SATS. She'd been very anxious about them so it was a huge weight off her shoulders.

DD said that lockdown was the best time of her life. The small class, no SATS and quiet school were perfect for her. The prom and the residential trip were cancelled - she was delighted as she'd been dreading both. She has since been diagnosed with autism and had been overwhelmed at school for years so I'm glad that her last year of primary school was peaceful and she was happy.

If I'd had a job it would have been the best time of my life. I didn't feel anxious or scared of Covid. I didn't get swept up into doing any of the nonsense cleaning and spraying down of food coming into the house. I cooked from scratch more, did online keep fit classes and stopped drinking.

As a single mum with no support I'd never been able to go out much so I had the best social life I'd ever had as there were lots of online catch ups and groups to join. I almost felt glad that other people got to experience what it's like to be a single mum - how isolating it can be. My years of being a single parent prepared me very well for lockdown.

I'm very much a homebody, happy pottering around at home. I'm a mental health nurse. During parts of lockdown I was redeployed to do a depot clinic. Depots are medication in slow release injection form and are commonly prescribed to people with schizophrenia and administered every 2-4 weeks. Many of those with schizophrenia are often chaotic and for one reason or another aren't good with taking oral meds so are given depot medication instead. It's normally given in a depot clinic but our building was closed so we visited at home instead.

I really enjoyed that role and because I was still "out" maybe didn't feel as isolated as others. As I'm a homebody I didn't mind too much staying at home. However even I struggled a bit. While I'm happy at home, it's different when this is forced on you. Yes I like being at home, but know I can meet friends, go to the gym or the cinema or for a short break, holiday etc. I think what affected me was a) my choice was being removed and b) we had no idea how long it was going to last.

Funnily I wasn't scared of covid itself. Maybe because I'm a mental health rather than general nurse, I didn't see the day to day chaos it caused. I had no friends or family affected (well except a local shopkeeper who was very ill with it but he was an acquaintance rather than a friend). I had it once but not till the end of 22, when i wasn't too badly affected (lost my voice and slept a lot....that was it.) I remember being in a teams meeting with colleagues and they were all using anti-virus wipes on their shopping and quarantining their Amazon parcels in the garage.....I was like "don't come to my house then. The dog does a prewash cycle on the plates as they're going in the dishwasher. " They were horrified that I'm such a domestic slattern.

The confusion and sadness on my mums face that lockdown Christmas at the care home window and not being able to explain to her,not that she would have understood anyway,why I couldn't go in to sit with her or bring her home for the day will never leave me. I sobbed all the way home.

Why do you still have to shield? Covid is here to stay are you planning to do this forever?

I loved having so much time with my family. My children were old enough that we just really enjoyed each other's company. Lots of time outside, lots of walking.
I didn't enjoy the obsession with briefings and rules and the blame culture that developed. It still makes me furious to think how Johnson, Hancock and their cronies behaved.

I also distinctly remember thinking it was so weird that Madonna called covid the great equaliser when it was obvious to anyone with eyes that it was the opposite. It was so indiscriminate. Even within my group of friends, there were people who had a really good time of it (I was one of them) and there were people who were really fucked over. I had friends who were laid off, friends who lost their livelihoods, friends who are still ill now with after effects and friends who are still traumatised by working in nhs or care sector at the height of it. Meanwhile myself and others got extra time off work to spend with our loved ones; it just seemed so unfair.

Loved the roads going to work and grateful I have a big house and garden. Can't imagine what it was like for those who are a bit cramped.

Oh god, the “daily walk”. No thank you. I was happy pottering about in the house all day before covid, why would I suddenly want to walk around the depressing shithole I live in?

And the folklore that sprung up about it being an hour.
Like if you were out for a second longer, you’d spontaneously combust, or give someone the plague.

wasn’t it just some shit government minister who, when asked, looked confused and said “maybe an hour for a walk?” And then all of a sudden, it was an hour written in stone.

People are fucking nuts and so desperate for some sort of authority to rule over them.