When we look back, we will think of a nation that came together. Add to the memory list of heartwarming moments.

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Reading that Oak Academy are opening a free children's library heartened me this morning. Then I thought about Joe Wicks and all the other online businesses that became free due to Covid.
All the free online events at museums and places of interest.
The original Clap for Carers.
The businesses that adapted to serve their community.
The local heroes who deliver food parcels.
The rainbows in Windows.

When the canals of Venice were clear and you could see fish! That was weirdly incredible!
Captain Tom.
Neighbours and friends helping each other with food shops etc.
The Queen's message.
Spring/Summer walks with my teenage son.
Looking up into the sky and a plane overhead being noteworthy.
Our village children decorating pebbles and leaving them round the village for others to find.

The massive response to the call for volunteers at the start of the pandemic.

The amazing stories of teachers spending their own time and money on food for children in need, or helping to buy computers for kids who are unable to access online learning.

And a very personal one that has no doubt been repeated over and over around the country - the incredible kindness that has been shown to my elderly aunt by her neighbours following the death of her husband. There are truly some very lovely people.

More family meals at the table

The home sewers making scrubs.

This is such a lovely thread.

This is only personal to me and won’t seem like a big deal to some people but to me it meant everything ...

My son is ASD. His diet is very limited and mainly lives off one type of food (won’t reveal as will be outing). During original lockdown it had sold out everywhere. I just mentioned it over the fence in passing to my neighbour. Next day she had found the product, bought as many as she could and left it on my step. I was so grateful.

VE day getting to know our neighbours, many of whom had lived there for years and we had never spoken to.

Local Facebook groups where people can ask for help with food deliveries/prescription collections/dog walking and a total stranger will offer to help.

Getting involved with a local community project, donating several items that people seemed to really want and making house to house deliveries.

The restaurants who, having already bought all their New Year’s Eve food and then we went into tier 3 on 30/12, made and donated hundreds of meals.

Rainbows in the windows.

Our local restaurants/takeaways and other businesses feeding the hungry and sending food for our local hospitals.

Our local hospital asking for knitted hearts for Covid patients, and being so overwhelmed with them after a week, they were using them on other wards and sending them to other hospitals.

Notes from neighbours I've never met properly, offering any help at all.

A local pub that cooked meals every day for our ICU department, and delivered them to the hospital. My DD loved their curry!

Watching a young woman take a pack of loo rolls out of her trolley and popping it into an elderly couple's trolley (after they were leaving Tescos, and the couple hadn't managed to get any), and refusing to take a penny.

My DD going into our local greengrocers to buy fruit and veg, and the owner giving her a huge box full, and insisting that she didn't pay.

The good bits, solidarity, spring up of mutual aid groups really meaning a lot, reflections of never going back to old ways, praising NHS, ecological benefits, people caring about others, all stopped around April.

One for me as a teacher was making phone calls home to my tutor group. They took so much longer than expected as I chatted to parents and pupils, it was lovely to actually have time to talk to both.

Afternoon tea in the garden for birthdays as the weather was lovely

Local pubs/bars providing meals for the elderly and lonely

Ordinary individuals have been rather special. A lovely woman on a local FB group to me, started, late one Sunday night, just a chat group for anyone feeling a bit lost. There are now about 5,000 members and they feed the elderly, organize lifts, chip shops got involved and took food to people, toys and games were collected.

It's a shame the many people like this, just kind individuals aren't running the country!

I feel I've got to know my work colleagues better since WFH, we are a lot more chatty and supportive of one another whereas previously we were in and out of our office base with very quick 'hellos'.

The same for chatting to neighbours when we were out on our doorsteps last Spring.

I agree there were a lot of heart warming moments and people pulling together in the first lockdown , but this seems to have almost reversed now.

A reminder of the good things would be helpful I think .

It has continued in some areas - my village has a little army of volunteers (I'm one and I love it!) We do anything from collect prescriptions to getting top up items from the supermarket. Even simple things like pulling the bins back have made some elderly/shielding people very scared, so it's nice to help.
I know I'm extremely lucky to have space, security and country walks on my doorstep, but this last year has made me really realise how fortunate we are and how much I do love being at home.