Which specific moment from this will stay with you forever?

[RosieLemonade]

Positive or negative.

Another thing I remember from the middle of March was that a colleague does some work as a registrar, as well as her day job. She read out a mail that was asking if she wanted to be considered for extra work registering the deceased. It hadn't all kicked off then - seemed so ghoulish.

@SupermarketStress

Happily childfree thankyou 😃😃😃

This is a really moving and powerful thread, and your comments are beyond spiteful. Please don't derail it.

Are people still feeding it?

Walking down the road on the night the first lockdown was announced to take the dog out for his last walk and, in a normally fairly busy area of suburban Liverpool the only vehicles I saw were 2 police cars and an ambulance. Can still remember how eerily quiet everything was. We had already discussed whether we could take him down the road as we had both been out of the house that day and I was fully expecting to be pulled over and questioned. Also remember picking up my dd on her last day of school - yr 13 - she and her friend who I also collected were trying so hard to stay strong but their eyes were red and my dd cried afterwards as she told me that the teachers were all crying as they sang ‘We Will Survive’ and ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone ’ in their last assembly. They might have missed all of the big moments of their last few weeks together but I am so grateful to the headteacher and teachers who ensured that at least they have that lovely memory of togetherness

The news from Spain, couple of weeks before we started to lockdown, of care homes abandoned by staff. Dead and alive residents, just left. That will haunt me forever.

@LimitIsUp

Are people still feeding it?

Ugh you're right, I did it. I'm off for a sleep now, will feel much more resilient in the morning!

This

I had a meltdown in Tesco in March. It was my first trip to a large supermarket a week or two in to lockdown and had recieved a diagnosis of coeliac disease that morning. Queued for and hour to get in, got a bit freaked out at how strange it all was and then couldn't work out how to know what I could eat without picking things up which I knew I shouldn't do and hold people up in the one way system. When I got to the freefrom section and saw everything useful was gone I just lost it.

I was very angry with the Christmas rule change. Not why they had to do it, it was the right decision, but why they had made early promises to them revoke them at short notice.

The Friday before the lockdown announcement we were discussing it in the office and I said I was not worried about getting it myself, but terrified that the company (leisure) wouldn't survive it and I would end up unemployed. Awful few days between the lockdown and furlough announcements where DH and I were terrified we would lose the house that we had only moved in to 6 weeks before because both our places of work were closed.

Having to go into hospital on my own when I had complications in early labour a week into the first lockdown while my husband waited in the car until he was allowed in. There was a woman in the bed next to me who had been told she would have to stay in hospital until her twins were born in several weeks time and she wouldn't be allowed any visitors and she was just lying there sobbing.

Leaving the hospital on my own and struggling to carry baby and hospital bag while sore from giving birth.

A health visitor calling me about two weeks later after I had had an awful night with the baby to tell me that I wouldn't have a health visitor. She asked if I was still breastfeeding and when I said I was (with difficulty) she laughed and said everyone else she had spoken to had given up because they hadn't had any support. I remember feeling completely alone after that and thinking how it was like some cruel joke that the government had made it illegal for me to see my family and also taken ever shred of other support away from me and my baby at the same time.

Negatives.
Having to hold DS whilst he screamed no so that DH could swab him. Very nearly broke me.
Getting on a train and tram having shielded for 6 months and going past the Nightingale hospital at the G-mex. seeing the size of it and particularly the morgues shook me.

Positives
Hearing DH and DS play in the sun each day whilst working from home.
How strong DH and I have been during this whole thing. We have always been strong but even more so now.
The enormous relief when I got my jab.
Getting away camping in the summer in that glorious sunshine.

There have been positives too.

I’m grateful for DD1 working across the dining room table from me and realising how much she was struggling. After a very heated discussion with the SENCO , that she couldn’t be struggling as in top set for every subject, to discovering that she has a slow visual processing disorder and her reading age is 5 years less than her chronological age. Without lockdown she would probably never have been diagnosed.

The fabulous weather last spring making things feel less hopeless

How amazing DD1 (13 a week after lockdown started) has been with her sister, especially helping DD2 (now 10) with her schoolwork; and also with one of DD2’s friends who is an6 only child and told her mum she sees DD1 as a big sister.

Thankful for technology. If this had happened when I was at school, there could have been no online school. Also thankful we have laptops and iPads to access online learning,

Sad:

Being glad that my mum was already dead and didn’t have to live through this.

Working my butt off but only being paid 80% of my salary to match those on furlough, but listening to friends on furlough enjoying the amazing weather and have time to help homeschool their kids.

Getting my shielding letter, I wasn't in the group automatically asked to shield but my GP putting me on the list. I cried and was terrified about what that meant for me. Getting the horrible shielding food boxes when I couldn't get a supermarket delivery or click and collect box. Crying because I couldn't get my normal food (I'm autistic so eat very specific foods, one of them is pasta). The terror I feel on the odd occasion I went out (my cat was PTS in April and that had meant a few vets visits including being in the room with the vet at the end).

A close family friend dying of non Covid related illness in April and his kids having to choose which one of them got to see him for 15 minutes, the line of people on the streets paying their respects to him since funerals were limited to five mourners.

Getting coronavirus in March 2020 and my chest starting to burn before the dryness from overwashing my hands had even gone away. (They still hadn't locked down at this point).

So many moments over this time.

The last meeting with partners where we decided we would need to close the office while our it guys desperately tried to set up remote working and buy laptops. And making the announcement to the office seeing worry and fear in the faces of our team.

Taking our girls out of school one by one getting home and wondering how we were going to cope with all 5 at home unable to leave the house.

Buying all of thd things I've avoided for the girls to pre empt their boredom slides, climbing frames, games, and every type of art supply.

Hearing PMs first speech and realising the gravitas of thr situation for the first time. And then consciously tuning in daily.

Discovering all of the amazing things set up for lockdown, drawing with Rob, big fish little fish all of the live streaming.

Realising we couldn't get a home delivery anymore and that the shops were bare, we aren't big weekly shoppers so had barely any food and the happiness when we managed to find a shop with more than pog noodles left.

So many moments.

Having to wait for a recording to be sent to me of my father's funeral as it couldn't be live streamed. Finally getting to see it a couple of months later. Receiving emailed photos of his ashes being scattered without any of the family there.

As of this evening: lying in a hospital bed without my husband, waiting to hear if I’m miscarrying the pregnancy we spent over 18 months of ivf (some of which was postponed obviously) trying for 😢

@Learningtofeminist

As of this evening: lying in a hospital bed without my husband, waiting to hear if I’m miscarrying the pregnancy we spent over 18 months of ivf (some of which was postponed obviously) trying for 😢

82 year old FIL surviving a heart attack, triple heart bypass, 5 weeks in hospital with not a single visitor at the peak of this shitstorm and not catching Covid.
And then being one of the lucky few to get both Pfizer jabs before most have had one. He's a walking medical miracle.

Thanks @bettbattenburg. So sorry about your father

@Learningtofeminist

Thanks *@bettbattenburg*. So sorry about your father

Thank you. I hope you have a positive outcome, thinking of you.

Posted too soon ...
NHS I salute you for not giving up on this elderly gentleman and for giving him his life back. We hear so many stories of elderly people being left to die and I just wanted to say that is not always the case

In February 2020, on my way into work which was normally absolutely chockablock with traffic, I noticed day by day the traffic was getting eerily quieter each morning.

I rang up DH and say "gosh, it's so quiet on the roads, I wonder if it's that weird virus they're talking about ...."

My best moment has being knowing my mum has had her vaccine and is safely at home resting.

She's been an absolutely star through the past year, never a word of complaint, just so stoic and dealing with having to stay at home for months on end with me and my sister ringing her to make sure she's OK and sending her puzzle books in the post so she doesn't get bored!

Empty supermarket shelves will stay with me forever and of course the daily death count on the news.