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?

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?

Well some of us volunteered to help the NHS in various ways. Some of us were working for the NHS in the first place.

Not everyone was clapping like an idiotic, virtue-signalling sea in the first place.

Why don't you stop projecting your choices on to everybody else and just process your own conduct?

Not really. I look back and feel sad about how anxious I was (I had a newborn and was convinced that if we caught covid then DS would die, or I would die and he'd be left without a mother) and that I didn't have any support managing those feelings. I was someone who obsessively washed my shopping, went without as I didn't want to risk going to the shop/pharmacy and didn't socialise even during the summer when it was 'allowed'. I didn't clap on the doorstep or draw anything in my windows because I was far too anxious to even consider it. I don't cringe about it; I was scared. Lots of other people were scared. They did what made them feel better. If that was fostering a sense of community by banging pans on their doorstep then so be it.

I feel angry about how the situation was handled and how politicians (and people with money/status) carried on as normal while chastising the rest of us. Actually I'm still livid 4 years later.

People went on Facebook where you live to call out those who didn’t clap?!
Not on my street as there's only a couple of houses spread out but one colleague called out his neighbours every week on fb. He was quite nasty about it. Mind you he is an idiot anyway.

It was used as a way for everyone to judge their neighbours if they didn’t go out and clap… whether they chose not to or were at bloody work!
I’m sure it was meant to be nice and joyous and happy, but as usual human beings got their hands on it and ruined it. The local facebook pages full of comments calling out each house number who didn’t clap. It was disgusting.

Ridiculous weren't they.

I remember having to take my father to hospital for surgery. I drove across North Wales ( illegal), into England (legal) and then back into South Wales where my journey became illegal again! I then continued to break the rules by staying to help my parents for a few days before repeating the whole trip in reverse.

Well I'm going against the grain here, but I loved the clapping!!

It was great to see the neighbours all joining in. For me it wasn't really about thanking the NHS (I think a lot of them found it insulting) but it was nice to remember that people were still there, even if we couldn't see each other.

It was a bit of fun that cheered me up - and the fact that it raised everyone's awareness of what a spectacular job the NHS workers were doing, then so much the better.

Don't be ridiculous, you know that's not what she means.

Besides, I didn't do the clapping and only did the rainbows for DD, but if they helped reduce anxiety and improve community spirit at a truly shit time, then yes they were worth doing and made a difference to those people at that time.

Pregnant women and new mothers were treated abominably during the restrictions period. Thrown under the bus.

It wouldn't have been so bad if the government had put their money where their mouth was and adequately paid NHS workers for the all their hard work and sacrifices (including their own lives in some cases) during the pandemic.

I think we clapped once, we kept our DCs routines so it was bedtime for us, we were busy. I certainly didn’t clap and donate to some middle class old dude walking around his garden.

We stick things in windows all year round, Easter stickers, St Patrick’s Day, Halloween, Christmas we live in a very patriotic town so lots of Union jacks fr celebrations.. Rainbows were just something else. Though we never actually put rainbows in windows I did let my DCs cover the pavement and walls at the front and side of our house with chalk, but I let then regularly do that anyway, it’s just usually within our boundaries not outside them.

I didn’t think I was going to be arrested for sitting on a bench.

Never judged anyone for their shopping, certainly not Easter eggs, bought plenty myself.

Lockdown saved me. I was very unwell at the time, had a breakdown and physically unwell. Being able to not get out of bed for months because no school, work or anything else was good for me. I know it wasn’t for everyone.

People actually caring about spreading germs, is a positive in my eyes.

it was made clear, to me anyway, that lockdown was never about stopping covid, but reducing the impact on our health service. Had measures not been put in place then it would absolutely have been far worse.

Rich, privileged, entitled pricks abusing the system, one rule for them, another for the rest, absolutely no surprise. I’d have been surprised if they hadn’t have abused the rules.

Woulda, coulda, should have things been done differently in some areas absolutely, keeping loved ones from dying relatives, vulnerable children made even more vulnerable, resources being prioritised in the wrong places… but hindsight is a wonderful thing.

The whole clapping thing seemed a bit cringy.
I decided we should do it the first night and eventually got the kids out of their bedrooms.
We didn’t go outside, no idea why, I decided to open the big window in the living room and it fell out🤯, so we spent the first clap for carers picking up glass. My only neighbour for miles emailed complaining we didn’t go out to clap!

We still haven’t fixed that window!

Otherwise we didn’t go out much as we already had lots of food and when we needed more we did click and collect from Lidl. So we didn’t see the queuing and lines on the floor in supermarkets.
My twins missed doing their GCSEs, one was overjoyed the other really p….. off.

We missed graduations and my older one missed being at Uni but all in all I would do it again to protect those that care for us in the nhs and people I don’t know who could die or have long term illnesses.

In a way I found the isolation from the stresses of the life rewarding, whilst it lasted.

I certainly didn’t do any clapping or banging of saucepans. Mostly because I thought it was quite insulting in the absence of decent pay, decent ppi and decent work conditions, but also because we’re British and we shouldn’t be doing that sort of thing. It’s embarrassing. I didn’t care what anyone else bought, where they went or who they saw, so long as they didn’t come near me or mine.

And with the benefit of hindsight it’s very easy to think everyone was over reacting and being insane. But staying away from everyone meant that DH, DM and I never caught it, despite DH and I working throughout, and we didn’t have to cope with COVID and our underlying medical conditions. Not all of our friends and family were so lucky and some either didn’t survive or are still dealing with the physical effects of Long Covid. I don’t regret taking it as seriously as I did.

How? I was pregnant and it was fine, the restrictions for pregnancy were the same as my restrictions for moderate asthma.

So you enjoyed it even though you knew that many of the people you were supposed to be honouring with it actually found it insulting?

Everyone on our road used to go out and do the clap as an excuse to talk to the neighbours lol

I don't understand the people mocking others' anxiety.

I washed my shopping and left my post out for days. I didn't leave my house at all.

I don't think staying at home was crazy, it's what we had to do.

I never clapped or anything like that but it was all done in good faith.
If we hadn't have stayed at home I'd dread to think what the NHS would have been like.

This. I didn't do any of that because it was just as ridiculous at the time as it looks to you now

Know what I mean?

Honestly, no I don't. I am still absolutely raging over the No10 parties and my own family went through an appalling experience that was made incredibly traumatic due to the fact that it happened in lockdown.

I still, however, think lockdown was the correct thing to do. I also think we probably came out of it too early.

Yes, lockdown was absolutely shit for everyone involved and yes, it means a lot of people, including me, missed out on a lot of things and had a very difficult time. One thing in particular is something I don't think my family will ever truly get over. But I don't think it was pointless and I still think that overall, it was the right thing for the good of the population as a whole.

I didn't clap and I thought the whole Captain Tom thing was insane and embarrassing from day one, for the record.

You washed your shopping and quarantined your post? Seriously?

Women going to scans and finding out about pregnancy loss and abnormalities alone, women having to give birth alone terrified, poor antenatal care, lack of postnatal support.

DH delivered a large load of groceries to a friend whose DH was shielding in the first lockdown (friend was sick herself so couldn’t go out to the supermarket that week). DH then went and stood on the curb while friend stood at their door - approx 10 metres away - and chatted for about 10 mins.

Apparently there was no one out walking in their usually quiet street so he wasn’t encroaching on anyone’s 2m space. Their next door neighbour reported them and the police turned up the next day to investigate (they left after hearing the incident and rolling their eyes I’m told).

If I was their neighbour now I hope I’d feel like a prize tit and ashamed of myself for such petty behaviour. But how easy it was for the government to encourage people to dob others in to the police, and how gullible some were to do so.

But only for the days when the police had nothing better to do..

I liked the rainbows, it was a nice activity for young children to draw and colour the rainbows and then spot other ones in windows when out for walks. I think it helped my little ones to feel less isolated knowing that lots of other children were in the same boat.

Strange times indeed though, we all just had to muddle through one way or another didn't we?!