Early 2020 my FIL had a heart attack. He lives in Europe and we travelled early February to see him him. We sat in Stansted airport early in the morning. The airport was more quiet than usual. There were a handful of people in masks, DH and I thought they were overreacting.
It’s my birthday today and it’s a year since I saw my family. But I travelled to see them last year, we had a meal on Valentine’s Day with my mum and her side of the family. The waitress mentioned she was due to go to Thailand and was worried. We all said she’d be fine. She agreed to travel but would take some masks just to be safe.
Our wedding anniversary is the end of February and we went for meal but the atmosphere had changed. People were eating out but wanting to keep distance. Places weren’t as busy as expected. Serving staff stood further away then normal. I’ll just remember the atmosphere and how different it was to two weeks ago, there was unease in the air.
DH’s birthday was just before lockdown and I was so convinced lockdown would be announced before it was (and on his birthday), I left work the day before his birthday and was told to work from home for the foreseeable. I stopped at the M&S petrol station on the way home to grab a pizza for DH’s birthday dinner, knowing we wouldn’t be able to do anything else.
In September 2020 telling my mum that we wouldn’t be able to travel to see her at Christmas. We made other excuses which she tried to argue against. We knew saying that restrictions would be in place, and worse, by Christmas was far fetched at that time. But we knew there would be a change of policy and it wouldn’t be possible. We made our peace with it then but my mum was really upset that we made the decision to stay home.
Positives - going to the coast. It’s about 1 hour from us and a favourite spot of ours. We set off early knowing they were restricting the amount of car parking. We walked our usual route, seeing people but at a distance as was normal on that walk. It didn’t feel like we trying to maintain extra distance. It just felt normal because the path is pretty empty anyway. We had fish and chips. I gave the dog a bit of fish and a chip or two. We went home and slept so well. It was just that slice of a usual, but not everyday occurrence, it restored everything for a short time. And on the same note, coming back from a site visit to work from home, stopping at the petrol station and grabbing two nice sandwiches and a chocolate bar. And not giving a fuck whether it was essential. Just that small piece of normal.