How is your life different to the beginning of the year?

[Nellodee]

From my perspective, other than taking precautions around my elderly parents, there are now few differences between my life now and before this all kicked off. I have a larger gap between myself and my students, my rooms are colder, my students are whingier, and I have to move about a lot more between lessons. My kids have stopped their after school clubs. I have stopped visiting one extremely vulnerable friend.

How different is your day to day life from say, February?

Very little difference.
Bedroom is out of bounds during the day as it doubles as DH's home office.
I have company at lunchtime as DH is home.
DCs are heading off to college/moving to halls as expected.
I am still largely housebound as I was pre-March.

Quite different in that I rarely leave the house any more. DH and I work from home and still try to limit shopping etc. We have been out to eat a few times, but I find myself just not wanting to do anything (I suspect I may have some form of depression)

Wfh since March.
Haven’t seen my family as they live abroad since 2019.
Haven’t seen my British friends for months neither.

My social life is boring.

My travel addiction is starting to affect me (we only just came yesterday from a holiday to Scotland)?

I've missed two planned trips to my motherland. I'm separated from my husband and won't have seen him for 7 months if I manage to get out for Christmas - our borders currently remain closed. My job is more stressful. My life is more miserable. My mental health, which has always been strong, wavers. I'm not happy.

The only positive is that I've lost weight. But I could've done that without any of the above.

My DH is home ALL the time!!!

I am pregnant, and I am also wfh because of being pregnant. I have never wfh before. I dont go to baby groups anymore with DD as they are mostly still closed. Other than that everything is the same for me. I see friends, go to the park, do the food shop, DH is in work, DD goes to nursery, and my family live abroad so I didnt see them regularly anyway. My life is basically back to normal.

I decided to retire as I was working part time as I liked going to the office, I hated wfh. DH is wfh and we don’t really like it much but he can’t retire until end of year. I don’t shop much now in shops and get almost everything online as I don’t find shopping very nice with masks and sanitiser. We are going away more in our caravan now though which is not a bad thing, we used it much less when we holidayed abroad before Covid

It's not now school is open. Apart from mask wearing and not being able to go on holiday.

I don't have elderly parents, I'm not vulnerable and nor is DS. I can't WFH so I'm going to work as normal. I'm going out and socialising.

Still working from home.
Social life not hack to normal

I work from home now, have since March and will until at least January- i don't prefer it to being in the office.

Dh had 6 months working from home (teacher) but is now back.

Ds(2) has just started back at nursery so we are having a little behaviour blip whilst he gets used to the new (old) routine and dh being around less.

I havent taken ds to groups or soft play since march (though am starting on next week) a f he had his first temperature / cold for 6 months last week!

Shopping is more tricky as I don't like to take ds in shops if I can help it.

We won't be going on our annual Xmas break to Europe.

I've seen much less of friends.

Not a lot different. I wear a mask for the food shop and all other shopping is on line and will stay that way until face masks aren’t required. I’m saving a fortune !

Well just before lock down I was in the Caribbean as we prepared to shoot a new TV show.
All my kids were at uni.
And my DH had just flown out to join me.

Now we are all at home plus two foster kids who came to us during lock down (their home situation exacerbated by lock down).

So yeah, it’s all change here.

I had to leave my toxic workplace which was exacerbated by corinavirus. I'm now pregnant which I'm pretty sure was because I had time for lots of sex because I wasn't working (we were deliberately ttc).

Huge. Me and h still working from home, only part time school for the eldest. No gigs, theatre, community events to look forward to. Still cannot meet up with larger groups of friends.

We have managed a holiday and seen my parents for the first time in eight months but it is a long way from normal!

Totally different !

Not eaten out since March. Normally twice a weekish.

Not been to any theatre cinema exhibition etc.

WFH a lot. Not seen colleagues in the flesh.

Didn’t have a summer holiday. Not sure at all when will next get away.

Spent lockdown away from my own house due to dp and I usually living apart. That was mega different !

Not seen siblings very much at all. Nor friends.

Not been on any form of public transport - used to get buses a lot.

Haven’t been into any non essential(ish) shop. No shoes/clothing/kitchen/diy purchases.

Haven’t used cash of any sort since March.

Have had some fun, distanced meet ups outside m, regular zoom chats, travel by car and good long outside walks, cooking differently etc.

All different.

No work. Poorer. Husband night also be let go. But closer to kids. Spent lots of time together as a family. Just zero job security right now.

I'm not working
Dh is constantly stressed
I feel like I'm walking a tightrope with ds and school (he is medically vulnerable and previously shielded)
I miss my mum who died in June

Feels a lot more normal now school is back. Their swimming lessons have returned as well. Hopefully my voluntary job starting again next week.

I haven't seen my parents since March. My DM usually comes to stay every six weeks or so.

Very different, I've got an 8 week old baby

Still keeping away from restaurants and enclosed spaces for the most part, apart from a quick dash into a shop when needed.

It's worse in most ways

Physical and mental health have deteriorated
My DD and have less activities to do
Having to try to predict the weather and book in advance means we do less
See friends and family less

It's not new normal it's shit normal

DH and I are both still wfh so that's the main difference. The kids are back at school and most of their after school activities are back to normal, but not the clubs run by the school.

No one has been in my house since March. I haven't touched anyone since March. So quite a difference.

I used to go out regularly with one friend (at least once a week). She was the friend who was always up for adventure and anything going. She has been at home since March, caring for her shielding parents and I have only met up with her in her garden in the last month.

I am now meeting up with other friends outdoors regularly including meals out, and we have identified places where we will be happy to go indoors when we have to, but one big difference is all driving to these places separately. That still feels odd and so bad for the planet.

Dh has gone to work as normal but I am retired. We still go out to eat at least once a week and go to the gym.
I miss spontaneity....remembering to book a slot at EH sites etc is a pain. We've been to a few exhibitions in London and Liverpool but miss theatre and gigs.
It could be worse, but it's pretty shit.
4 holidays cancelled.

Different in every way.

If I ignore
delayed timings,
worries about inflexible cancellation policies,
Qs to enter, one-way systems,
lack of staff or excess staff in new places,
masking up and difficulty that can mean understanding speech,
acrylic dividers and taped off seating and self-checkout tills,
not able to try on clothes in shops,
and disruption to DC's lives,
having to book ahead,
Coronavirus! warning signs,
then

going to a restaurant, using public toilets, waiting for the train, riding train, holiday cottage rental, watching tour de France, listening to speech radio and going to most shops are all fairly 'normal'.

Everything else is still quite disrupted for other reasons.