Which specific moment from this will stay with you forever?

[RosieLemonade]

Positive or negative.

Oh apart from you can have a bubble if you are single or providing care etc, I am not single and my parents are only 50 so it is illegal for me to go and see them

Walking through the park just before lockdown and looking at the people, wondering which of them wouldn’t make it through this pandemic.

Trying out mask wearing just before it became compulsory here and a shop assistant asking me what it was like.

Running back to back Zoom trainings for our employees in the early days of lockdown so they could continue to work.

Moving into new house after sofa surfing for six months after selling mine. That same day started to feel unwell and going to bed really early, boxes still unpacked and only my bed made up.
By the next day I just knew I was becoming terribly unwell and got a Covid test which confirmed I was positive 24 hours later
For the next ten days I just lay in my bed surrounded by boxes and furniture everywhere. As I now live alone and had just moved I had no-one to ask to get me shopping and just survived on cups of tea mostly. A memory that won't leave me

Bad: Boris Johnson saying he was still shaking people by the hand, and basically joking about it all.

Good: some very funny phone calls with my elderly mum when I wasn't able to see her.

A few days before the March lockdown started, having to go for a mammogram as I’d found a lump, and the radiographer having to get up close and personal to manoeuvre me onto the machine. Everyone in the department were kind and professional even though they must’ve been scared at the thought of what was coming. No PPE back then.

@KyraGoose I had completely forgotten, until I saw your post, being so stressed about the baby food/nappy/wipes restrictions too - we have twins so we get through everything twice as fast as it is.

Sat in the garden in that blazing hot sunshine we had in April in despair listening to my children play, waiting for the phone call to hear whether my father in law was dead or alive.

Three days later sat in the same place in the same blazing sun receiving that phone call to hear he had died of suspected Covid in his care home, alone and with no family, no doctors or nurses or end of life drugs, just several intermittement care workers with insufficient PPE, trying to look after 20 other residents also dying of suspected Covid - he died at the exact same time as Matt Hancock announced that relatives could visit those dying in care homes.

Comforting my widowed mother in law from a distance on the door step.

The funeral restrictions. Not being able to see the body or have him dressed. My brother sitting with my children in the garden for an hour while we attended the funeral. My husband driving us all to the funeral, mother in law masked up on the backseat as we weren't allowed a funeral car. Sitting spread out in the garden with a flask of tea each as a wake.

Traumatic.

I think I've blocked most of the horror of the last year out but two memories stick with me.

One was my manager telling me to take as much of my stuff home from work as I could as it was doubtful we'd be back in the office for a year, which was a proper WTAF moment.

And the second is my DH's organisation announcing mass redundancies on the day DS had his year 6 leavers assembly in the school playground.

I managed to hold it together until i got in my car and just sat there sobbing.

Luckily DH wasn't made redundant and DS had a great last day at school under the circumstances but it was just an awful day and one I won't forget for a while.

Sitting in the car park checking my emails to find out if my father had died. Not telling anybody for another week until my eldest had finished their dissertation for university and pretending everything was fine. Not being able to listen to music because it made me cry.
Driving to a job interview just after he died. I don't know how I composed myself long enough to have the interview.
Not knowing how to move on from my father's death. I don't know how to do it, sitting at my laptop watching his funeral two months after the event was not what I needed to say goodbye. Seeing photos of his body in his coffin because we couldn't go to the chapel of rest to say goodbye.
Not having been able to speak to any of his friends at his funeral to listen to their memories of him. Not being able to say the eulogy at his funeral. Sitting writing his eulogy knowing a stranger would read it out. The recording of the funeral being cut short so I didn't hear it being read out. Looking at the recording of his funeral on my hard disk and thinking I don't know what to do with it. Do I keep it? Do I delete it? Do I watch it again? Feeling like I should get a grip and not be so pathetic about it. Others cope really well. Why don't I?

Watching the news on the Italian ITU units, I was terrified.

When the plane came back from Wuhan and when the door opened, I assumed the staff would be wearing full PPE and the Gov would take this seriously, but no, they shook hands with the people on the plane!

Boris saying we do not need to implement any measures against this virus, we should just take it on the chin

Unforgivable.

I just knew this was going to go to shit.

Paramedics having to wrestle into their PPE on the doorstep after my mum stopped breathing and collapsed (dad and sister performed CPR on her until they took over)

Mum died.

I'm in no way suggesting the few minutes it took to get the PPE on would have made a difference. They worked on her for an hour. She was already gone

I remember laughing is disbelief as DH told me back in March 2020 that he wanted to put a solar shower in our back garden so we could wash before entering the house after our hospital shifts. Unfortunately it was really well used!

I remember dh saying about this time last year “it’s going to get very boring for a long time”. We were like “yeh, yeh, whatever”. Bearing I mind he stopped me from calling DD Isis 9.5 years ago, I should have believed him.

Something that stands out for me reading these, and others have said it, is how desensitised we've become to the death numbers. I remember being horrified as they crept up daily. I clearly remember being tearful when it hit 100 and saying to DH that it was all just terrifying, is was so serious, etc.

Now we hear daily of 1000 a day and while it is no less horrifying I take in the information with an 'oh'. But when you stop and think about it thats 1000 people. People like you and me and people who have loved ones who will miss them. It's beyond comprehension really.

To everyone that's lost someone or had trauma. I think it's going to take an awfully long time to heal.

Positives Spending more time with my children and no expectations of attending anything!
Negatives the entitlement of so many people who refuse to follow any rules or guidelines just because they don't want to

Thank you for all your stories. I think it shows that it has been and continues to be a lot more difficult than just "Staying Home" for most of us.

Standing outside the unit where I work, paying my respects, every time a funeral car passed, carrying a member of staff who had succumbed to Covid.

Thank you for all your stories. I think it shows that it has been and continues to be a lot more difficult than just "Staying Home" for most of us

I totally agree, even if you haven’t actually had covid yourself or know anyone who has had it , this whole situation has changed so many lives.

Oh and another surreal thing was having to set up a spreadsheet because I was the only member of our family that could get shopping slots over March/April 2020 (because I have always had them booked 3 in advance so about five ish weeks worth). My aunt and mum are both vulnerable but not shielded and I wanted to keep them home and my MIL was recovering for an operation.

So I shopped for them all. My family of four, my mum, my aunt and uncle and MIL and FIL. And my delivery was around £700 every ten days or so and it was a right juggle because of maximum limits on items. I used to do a spreadsheet of what everyone had, who owed me what, then they bank transfer me the cash and I'd pay it off of my credit card. Then I'd sort the shopping for four households in my kitchen, and deliver it all to doorsteps!

Glad to not have to do that now, though I still do it for my mum. Everyone else can now get their own slots, thankfully.

Completely weird.

@OpheliasCrayonme too. Most poignant and relevant Covid thread and should be in Classics.

@mnhq nominate for Classics please

I remember last year, standing in my garden at night watching the space station and other satellites go past, I felt so tiny and made me think how weird our world is and how insignificant we are, yet this massive covid thing was happening to us . I can’t explain it very well but it made me feel very emotional.

Early on, late March last year, when there were some shortages in supermarkets, I saw a bag of rice for sale on Amazon for £45. The same 5kg bag we normally get from Tesco or the Chinese supermarket for about £8.

I was astounded by that seller’s greed. No doubt someone will extol the virtues of capitalism, but it felt very wrong, particularly at that time.

My DD has just asked for the same birthday cake as last year. Her party should have been the 21st of March last year. Her cake was a tiny little thing as we were all worried about food shortages. All the time, she was reassured she'd have her party and cake later in the summer.

Now she's not even expecting a party this year. School onher birthday will be a big treat if she gets to go.

Around the time they announced lockdown I was sat outside on the step smoking one evening and saw two buses go past, both completely empty when a couple of weeks before they would be full, and seeing the streets so empty, a very sobering moment.

Shopping in tesco and the shelves stripped bare due to people stockpiling, then seeing a man in full hazmat suit pushing a trolley.

When they announced lockdown I remember mum calling me at 10:30 that night saying you need to come home NOW, that sense of urgency in her voice is something I won't forget.

All the misinformation that was going round at the start, that if you got covid that was it, the videos on whatsapp about 'doctors' saying to continually sip water so it'll flush the virus down and be killed by stomach acid and how you should shower and wash your clothes as soon as you come in from outside.