To look back on the things we did in lockdown and cringe?

[Applescruffle]

Isn't it all just really cringeworthy when we look back?

The clapping on our doorsteps, all that false commradarie and "we're all in this together" and the drawings of rainbows in people's windows?
Condemning our neighbours for buying Easter Eggs because they weren't "essential" and wondering whether we would get arrested for sitting on a park bench?

At the time I, and probably loads of us, thought we were doing the right things but doesn't it all just look so false and hollow now when we look back and see that number 10 were having parties and Dominic Cummings was running around the country testing his eyesight? My kids missed out on so much while this was going on, my mental and physical health has still not recovered from the effects of lockdown, and for what?

Know what I mean?

Remember people washing the shopping and quarantining the post

Lots of people lost their mind and on here if you suggested anything that wasn't aligned with what people decided in their competitive lock down misery, you were hounded and called a murderer. This place went insane.

I still saw people, had some play dates for my daughter and still managed to get my hair cut and see friends. I was fine with my choices and luckily my neighbours didn't turn into spying grasses. I don't regret how I was during lockdown.

I think it was right to celebrate the NHS. One of my neighbours was an NHS worker who became very ill with covid and still isn't able to work after the physical impact of it. It was a small way to show our gratitude.

I wasn't on mumsnet during that time. By the sounds of it, I'm glad I wasn't, I probably wpuld have got sucked right in.

I was too busy discovering tiktok and that wierd dance everyone was doing with the shoulder tapping and the swaying hips 😂

This was me.

We were taken for a load of fools and that was evident at the time to anyone who dared to exercise a bit of critical thinking. So many arbitrary rules but people thought they were actually saving lives by not going for a walk on a group bigger than 6.

people will literally believe anything if you tell them it’s for their own good.

It was just so false and hollow. We were standing there clapping so our neighbours could see us but what was anyone actually doing to help the NHS in real terms?

@Magnastorm

"It's easy to look back with hindsight and question what happened, but at the time it was completely uncharted territory for all of us."

You say hindsight but those who pointed out the collective madness of the measures were widely derided as Covid deniers, granny killers or anti vaxx.

During lockdown I read "A journal of a plague year" written by Daniel Defoe back in 1722 about the plague in London in 1665. It was shocking to see how little people's attitudes and beliefs had changed in nearly 400 years.

I posted on here I went out twice a day for exercise - once to walk the dog and the second time without a dog to actually get some cardiovascular exercise and there was pages and pages of people telling me how wrong I was and how I was going to the cause the death of hundreds of people.

Even though I was saying how rural I was and was never within ten meters of anyone and didn't even have to touch a gate!

😂

According to some poster here, milk was not an essential item.

One poster asked if it would be okay to take her ASD child to the park with a football and she had her arse handed to her.

STAY THE FUCK AT HOME was the mantra.

I will never not be angry about what was done to us.

This is what people now like to forget, it was a unique, worldwide situation and no-one knows how other parties would have tackled it but they can make hay by criticising in the knowledge that they're safe from judgement.
A similar, though not as worldwide, situation happened during the crash of 2008, the then government was pilloried by others who had never had to deal with it.

Totally agree. I was never particularly worried about the health of immediate family apart from my mum in her 70s. When she caught CoViD 2021 she had a mild sore throat and only tested because a friend had it.

I didn’t get involved in any of the made up rules like washing groceries or only being allowed out for an hour. I was too busy in my job setting up CoViD research studies in the NHS. We were a bit busy funnily enough.

Listening to lots of programmes on R4 and reading reputable sources in line I couldn’t believe the unnecessary, crazy stuff people were doing that there was no evidence for.

My main concern was my children’s lost education and mental health. Children and young people paid a massive price to protect other people from a disease that was low risk to them.

I agree! I remember a post, where the OP had her own private field (or at least one she was allowed access to) near her house, where she lived rurally. She came on here to ask if she would be unreasonable to exercise her dogs more than once a day in this field. This was at the time where we were 'allowed' one walk a day. The majority of posters were raging at her, asking her what she didn't understand about the one outing a day rule. Remarkably few posters came on to point out that common sense would dictate that rule made more sense in an urban environment, and that nobody was going to suffer with her using a private field to exercise her dogs. I couldn't believe what I was reading.

I had a discussion like this with someone. I was told it didn’t matter that I was rural and didn’t touch anything or encounter anyone, it wasn’t fair for people who lived in cities who didn’t have that option 🤯

We carried on as normal as much as possible because we didn't fall for the stupid lies.

Don’t agree with the pan bashing and clapping, seems very hypocritical. It’s never happened before in most of our life times and no one knew anything about the virus. Closing down the schools and non essential services, seems like the right thing to have done to contain it. People were demanding it too.
I’m not a supporter of this government by a long stretch, but they wouldn’t have won no matter what they did.

I didn't do the clapping but I think it helped some people feel connected, particularly those living alone.

A lot of the rules seem bonkers now, but I don't think it was until people started testing positive and not feeling too ill that we got a clearer idea of how 'dangerous' it was.

I think the social distancing and isolation was the right call until they figured things out. The countries with the most robust lockdown measures had the lower death toll. We could have been better.

The clapping was laughable I did it for my kids but at the time given what nhs staff were going through it was a joke.

The rainbows etc was nice for kids but again not to be taken seriously

The spying and judgement on others was ridiculous

I'm not angry at people who called me out for exercising twice a day. I get that they were scared and swallowed everything the govt said. I mean I did to some extent, I followed all the other rules I guess. And I get it was hard when Boris was saying that leaving the house twice a day might cause lockdown to be prolonged and many more to die. People wanted it to stop spreading.

Another interesting read from lockdown was JK Rowling's Ickabog and how easy it is to for people to willingly give up their freedoms and rights and accept an authoritarian rule if you just scare them enough.

If I’d done those things I might cringe about them too. But I didn’t and few people I know did any of them (especially the condemning neighbours bit which is the only bit that’s more than a bit cringe).

There were plenty of things we did that I don’t cringe about. The Zoom parties to celebrate a birthday when we couldn’t get together, helping a friend out with loo roll when it was impossible to get, and the neighbourhood groups that did shopping for those who couldn’t.

I thought you meant personal things. I bought rollerskates thinking I'll relive my youth. Wore them once in the kitchen, fell over and banged my head. Been in the cupboard ever since!

No I didn't clap or put rainbow pics in windows but I did obey the rules. We had newborns and vulnerable people in our family I was scared to pass anything on to them. It was a new virus and a very unique situation I wanted to trust those that gave the directions. Looking back they were just as much in the dark as us.

Exactly you were sensible