Which specific moment from this will stay with you forever?

[RosieLemonade]

Positive or negative.

Walking into ITU and seeing someone trachied and vented for the first time. Everyone in full PPE. It was horrible.

And the first time I visited my parents when they needed help towards the end of lockdown 1, my dad hugged me so tight and said he'd been scared he would never see me again.

The very long and warm summer spent in the paddling pool with the kids, no school, no socialising. Just us and endless sun. Felt like summers from when I was a kid. Was lovely.

I was about 26 weeks pregnant at the beginning of the first lockdown and remember having to rush into work at 7am to collect my work things after they announced that women in the 3rd trimester should wfh and shield as much as possible.

Giving birth during lockdown was certainly memorable, though it was at the end of June when things were beginning to feel a little more relaxed. Still had to spend a lot of time in hospital without DH there and no visits from my family to see the baby which was really hard.

On a positive, I had the vaccine yesterday and will remember that forever. I couldn’t stop smiling when I walked out.

@WatchWatch

The very long and warm summer spent in the paddling pool with the kids, no school, no socialising. Just us and endless sun. Felt like summers from when I was a kid. Was lovely.

Yes that how I felt.

The first time we clapped for the key workers - listening to the whole village holler and clap had me in pieces. It felt like we were all saying "I'm still here! We're all still here together!"

One of the first times we went into town for a walk and the streets were absolutely empty and seeing all the rainbows in the windows was so sad. It just made me think of all of the children who had no idea what was going on but were trying their best.

Less tearful memories are of all the time we had together as a family to enjoy beautiful sunny weather in the garden. Weeks and weeks of just having to stop rushing around really made me happy (thoroughly bored of it now though!!)

I've found this thread very cathartic, thank you for starting it

@onelostsoulswimminginafishbowl

Some of this is heart breaking to read and makes me incredibly grateful to be in NZ. We are in such a bubble here and apart from the borders being shut to tourists, live a completely normal life. I'm so sorry for people that are struggling and suffering and have lost people.

I recently read a Guardian article by a New Zealander who was here for the first lockdown, but managed to get back home before the second. She said it felt surreal seeing life carrying on as normal, and she just wanted to grab people and ask if they knew how lucky they were.

It feels very weird to think that life is carrying on as normal in NZ. Like a whole island of people who have all won the lottery.

The last two days:
It was the anniversary of a bereavement.
A relative with dementia seriously assaulted another relative.
Another relative died.
I found out my DD has to go for an appointment to have some mysterious lumps investigated. They have been a problem for a while but are now worse and the GP wants more tests to be done to see what they are.
Another relative is in a care home and they now have the SA variant in the staff and my relative hasn't had both vaccine doses.

Being told on the phone that only one of us six siblings could go to visit our mother as she lay dying, confused from a massive stroke, in the nursing home.

It was so surreal, I couldn't take it in at first - I somehow thought they were saying one at a time.

Then the knowledge that my brother was driving through the evening to his 'appointment' at 11.30 pm.

Some incredibly moving memories here.

The PMs first ‘stay at home’ address.

My lockdown walks (mostly in the middle of a deserted road) with my new baby and 3 year old.

A feeling of relief that busy life was cancelled for a while (after a few difficult months for my family and with a new baby born late Feb).

Watching my daughter finish her last violin lesson through the window of the music room as I waited for her at pick up on the day the schools closed in March. She was the only one at the lesson that day as other parents had already taken their kids out and watching her play her violin in that empty room then come running out to me broke my heart, there was a restlessness to the atmosphere that really unsettled me and since then her beloved school has been mostly closed to her. I can think back to that day almost a year on and feel now exactly what I felt then.

My daughter walking unaided around the living room for the first time, because with us all being at home all the time we’ve been able to do more physio with her and needed to keep her active. Lockdown has been excellent for her mobility skills.

Picking my daughter up from school and she got in the car and told me in a scared voice that only a few others had been in to school that day and could she please stay home now? That was the Tuesday. Schools closed on the Friday I didn't want her to be the only one in so I kept her off after that, but I went cold when she told me. That was when I realised how bad it was.

Going to Tesco and there was a line of people stretched round the car park and then loads of empty shelves when I got in.

The most scared I was though was when BJ got covid and taken to hospital. I know he's a bumbling buffoon and I think very little of him but he is the PM. I was terrified of what would happen if he died. If our PM could get it and die then what happened if ALL our leaders got it and everything imploded? I woke up feeling sick and scared every morning for a few weeks.

Positive - sitting in the garden on sunny Easter Sunday with my partner and toddler. Realising that if I hadn’t left my awful previous relationship, my life would have been utterly miserable at that point and I probably wouldn’t have survived a lockdown. Being so thankful for my current life.

Negatives - the days after school closures were announced. Saying goodbye to utterly shell shocked year 11s who lost so much and shutting the gates not knowing when we’d properly open them again.

Attending hospital alone after having a miscarriage. A group of scared women sitting miles apart with no support waiting to be called in for bad news. Awful.

I hope - going to see my Mum. It'll most likely be a year between visits now. I'm so worried she'll die before I get to see her.

I think I had my head in the sand until quite late on, with work being busy and having young children.
Then there was one week in March that I looked at the news on my phone and saw that a plane had been turned around in the sky, and the scenes from Italy.
One of my friends had text to say her husband, a lorry driver, had a load of coffins to deliver in the back of his lorry which wasn’t the norm for him.
I was terrified!
The same day the boss sent out an email to say for ‘safety reasons’ we all had to work from the office packed like sardines, which has 6 desks for 12 staff which seemed like a recipe for disaster. Being a dramatic sort I thought the end was nigh so I packed up my laptop and went home to work.
I don’t think it was long before Boris made his announcement.

As a HCP going to a multi disciplinary meeting around the second week in February and being told in no uncertain terms that what was coming was beyond anything that we would have anticipated.
Then having to go home and put on a brave face for DH and kids. I stood in the shower and cried. It felt utterly surreal.

And the best? After a rocky initial lockdown, DH and I are so strong and I have amazingly resilient kids.

Shopping in M&S on the day the schools closed - the was a year 10 girl sat on the chair by the door crying.
She had all her uniform signed by everyone and they’d treated it as their last day.

I remember trying to console her but never said anything useful. Wish I’d been more helpful to her.

Also the first announcement that Boris Johnson done!!

I felt sick

Our 2 teen DC and I telling my DH how loved we all love him on FaceTime, 5 mins before he was put into an induced coma and ventilated in ITU.

Also going into London for the to various museums - we do live here so not too far to travel - when the first lockdown was lifted and it was like a ghost town. No one in the museums or in Hamleys etc, just us. I've a photo of my children in Covent Garden at midday and not another person in sight.

This should go in classics, it's a real social document.

I had a sudden realization that popping to my mums for a cup of coffee was illegal. This was quite far in but it hit me one day, visiting my mother for coffee is against the law, it took my breath away.

• I went to the pub with a colleague from work the day before Boris shut the pubs. It was basically deserted. We had had a very stressful day trying to figure out how to do our jobs in the pandemic and we drank five pints each and laughed A LOT. If you had told me that night that this would still be going on now, I would have told you you were mental.

• Going for a test at 8pm on a Sunday night in December was extremely dystopian. Getting a text to say it was positive and I had to stay inside, by law, was even more dystopian.

• Empty supermarket shelves. For us that was more of an inconvenience than any thing else but for others I can see that it would have been terrifying. I still haven't forgiven the panic buying cunts.

Watching the early government news briefings. I thought of all the other families gathering in front of the TV. I imagined that my grandparents would have done the same during the war, gathering around the radio to hear the latest news.

@Flumpypie

When you said that your mates husband had coffins being delivered in his lorry
Must've been terribly frightening

Awful awful times