Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Covid

Mumsnet doesn't verify the qualifications of users. If you have medical concerns, please consult a healthcare professional.

Original poster

This time last year

123 replies

dudsville · 22/02/2021 22:13

This time last year I was still in denial. I simply couldn't understand what was coming. I thought people were overreacting with talk of the possibility of a "lock down". I honestly thought my colleagues were being ott with the handwashing and antibacterial stuff. I thought there was no way I wouldn't get to make the trip we had planned at the end of March.

By the beginning of March, I was still in denial but things were starting to close down, traffic eased, streets were quieter. Mid March I got sent home from work because of a Corona scare re someone I had spent the weekend with. I didn't know what to do. Had to get food so I picked up potatoes, a chicken, a bottle of wine and cigarettes (I gave up smoking when I ran out!). I got home and freaked out. Then the 1st lockdown started a week later. We'd been quarentining so had to learn how to get food. I read dystopian novels and watched the films. Lost the plot a little, remained baffled and confused for months. Several friends have lost parents to covid. When my mum contracted it we sat quietly for a couple of weeks, waiting, she sailed through it!

I haven't been back to work since buying that chicken. I'm scheduled to return soon. Today's news is such a relief. Hard to imagine now how clueless I was about it all just a year ago.

I just wanted to write that out.

OP posts:
HeronLanyon · 23/02/2021 06:06

Largely oblivious even though posters were up at several workplaces about anyone who had travelled from China and then the rather more worrying ‘if you have recently travelled from these Italian areas posters’.
This weekend last year I went to the Tutankhamen exhibition in Chelsea. Perhaps the most crowded experience I have been in for years. Absolutely jam packed. Didn’t think about Covid at all. Hit home for me around March 6/7. By March 15/16 had been tearful as dp said ‘I think it’s going to be three months’ when I was talking about plans for 2 or 3 weeks.
Still hasn’t really hit me what we’ve all been through.

2anddone · 23/02/2021 06:16

This time last year I was frantically getting things ready for dd dance competition in Disneyland Paris and hoping we would get there! Didn't think anything would come of coronavirus and it would be like a normal flu just with a big overreaction!
We went to the dance competition on our last day (9th March) while standing in line for dumbo we heard a maintenance man at dlp had tested positive. We came home that evening dlp had shut 4 days later and we went into lockdown 2 weeks after that.
Completely surreal over this last year now getting used to being around people again as have become too bubbled and it's too peopley out there!

Armi · 23/02/2021 06:35

About this time last year I was angry with DH for getting home really late from work on a night when I was going out to meet friends for dinner. He had called in at the supermarket to buy what I considered to be utterly ridiculous quantities of food to put in the freezer. A month later, we were living off the food in the freezer as the supermarkets had become sparsely stocked and somewhere to avoid and I haven’t seen those friends I went out with since.

I honestly thought it would all die down.

Covidcorvid · 23/02/2021 06:41

I was worried this time last year. I had prepped before the panic buying started. When others first started stocking up a friend who works in Waitrose commented how busy it had been at work and declared it was the weather was bad. I said surely it’s due to covid and she looked at me like I was mad! I was so glad I had chance to top up my brexit stash!

The week before lockdown I refused to go into work. Set all my students online work instead. The week before that I’d taught them some practical sessions and kept making them gel their hands.....they thought I was mad as well!

BonnieDundee · 23/02/2021 06:47

I thought it would all come to nothing. I.was looking at booking a cheap holiday.cos.the prices had all come down and enjoying how uncrowded the town centres and coffee shops were. When it finally hit home, I was completely shocked

MrsWombat · 23/02/2021 06:55

I remember being cautious about hand washing over half term and the virus being the topic of conversation on visits with people. A week or so after half term my eldest came down with a short lived 24 hour fever. Back to school the next day because we hadn’t been anywhere near China or Italy. Slightly concerned at a story on the BBC website of a Chinese girl who’d had similar then a week later woke up in hospital. The youngest came down with a bad cough and fever a week or so later, and by then the rules were we had to self isolate so missed the last days of school. That spring was really weird. The daily exercises. The not knowing.

SnuggyBuggy · 23/02/2021 06:57

I remember getting a potty as I thought there would be a relatively short lockdown and it would be a good opportunity to train without FOMO. Other than that I remember seeing lots of friends, eating out a lot and going places as I thought this could be it for a few months so let's make the most of it.

Never thought we'd still be in this shitshow a year later.

Waxonwaxoff0 · 23/02/2021 07:00

I was blasé about it. I thought it would be another swine flu situation. I was still going out to the pub in March.

cptartapp · 23/02/2021 07:13

We were in Tenerife, ironically in the resort where Covid kicked off and holidaymakers were isolated in their hotel.

ReggaetonLente · 23/02/2021 07:16

I remember a mum friend openly laughing at me when i suggested getting some extra craft stuff in, as we might all be staying at home a bit more.

I have family in Hong Kong and i knew what was happening there from January. I remember putting on a playgroup WhatsApp group that my cousin and her son hadn't been allowed to leave their flat for 2 weeks as they'd been in contact with a case, and everyone was really shocked!

PinkTonic · 23/02/2021 07:22

I was watching the numbers going up on the John Hopkins tracker thing and getting ready. I bought masks and alcohol based hand sanitizer when they were still a normal price. About this time I defrosted and restocked my freezer and did a massive food shop so that I could avoid going to supermarkets for six weeks when the shit hit the fan. The last day I went to the office was March 4. Most people still weren’t taking it seriously at that point.

kitschplease · 23/02/2021 07:26

I remember thinking my colleague was being fussy for wiping the handles and light switches, and remember lots of posters going up at work about washing hands. Now we're nearly at our one year anniversary of working from home!

NuttySlacker · 23/02/2021 07:39

This time last year i came across some old dust masks from when we'd boarded the loft. Mum and I put them in and took a photo as a joke for friends. Pretending we were 'covid ready'.

Ha!

Some joke. Since then we've been wearing masks all bloody year Grin

katienana · 23/02/2021 07:41

I was recovering from an op so I was reading a lot of news on my phone from January onwards and ended up joining the Preppers board. I was glad I did because I was well stocked up on all the things that ran out when panic buying kicked off. Still I thought it would be a few weeks of craziness and that would be it!

HighlandCowbag · 23/02/2021 07:50

I went into the city centre for an interview at university, we were the last batch of students to be interviewed face to face, everyone who came after us was done online.

It was quieter than what I had thought it would be, had to get on a train and wasn't really worried and called at Tesco on my way home for something quick for tea and was like wtf that the cleaning and loo roll aisles were empty. Remember joking to my friend on the school run the next day, saying I always have hand soap and cleaning stuff in, how minging everyone must be to need to panic buy it.

Also remember seeing chinese students at uni wearing face masks and finding that very strange.

Dee1975 · 23/02/2021 07:53

I remember telling a director that we really need to get IT sorted so we can get everyone working from home as we will be in lockdown soon - to be told ‘don’t be so stupid’ ....!!!
(Needless to say I won the argument and yep, we were then put into lockdown!)

Doomsdayiscoming · 23/02/2021 08:00

I started wearing a mask at work from late February. Everyone thought I was a goon. I’d just got back from Vietnam in mid Jan, where mask wearing is just normal due to pollution, hygiene etc.

Can’t remember at what point masks become mandatory at work, maybe lockdown? I then took voluntary furlough for 3 weeks and used my holiday so that I had April off completely - as a sort of protest but also I was concerned for my asthmatic DP and also as I felt more non-essential businesses that couldn’t WFH should close in a sharp, strict lockdown.

Roll on to July/August and we decided to move back to my parents and end our lease to save money over the winter. Moved in first week of October. Moving out April 1st.

Pondering what to do next Autumn.

GoneCrazy · 23/02/2021 08:03

I can’t believe how busy our lives were - ironically I had brought my kids to see my office on this day - it’s half term. Last year this time We’ve been on holiday in Oxford, been to museums, been to the Cotswolds, looks like eaten out lots, my eldest had her dance show in March - that was the first time it seems people were worried the numbers were not as high. Mid March my DH snd I went to see the Book of Mormon! Packed theatre! We did worry about covid there we just thought gosh there are 100s of people here. We had my CV mother babysitting - she also spent the rest of the holiday at museums and restaurants with us.

Also in half term visited my elderly grandmother! It was a busy half term. Granny has had her two Pfizer jabs now

whoami24601 · 23/02/2021 08:09

March 6th last year I went on a weekend long hen do and remember chatting about how it was all a fuss over nothing! The wedding never happened... The bride had a holiday to Italy booked and was adamant she would be going. Things got serious so fast!

MadisonAvenue · 23/02/2021 10:49

This time last year we were due to pay the balance on our holiday to LA in May. I remember, while out walking the dog one night, saying to my husband that it might just be worth losing the (smallish) deposit rather than paying out a large amount because I didn’t think the holiday would go ahead and even if it did I wasn’t feeling comfortable about going. He told me to pay it and that he was certain that we’d be on the plane in May, and not to worry because it was only flu and a big fuss about nothing. I remember feeling really frustrated because he just didn’t seem to get it and dismissed my concerns.
I paid the balance and it took Virgin until October to refund it.

Another memory of this time is my son having an interview in March for his first teaching job, he was doing his PGCE at the time, and this was the week before lockdown. I was in Tesco on the Friday evening and he called me on the way home from his placement to see where I was and said he’d got the job and he’d meet me on the car park. I gave him a huge hug, and I joked saying that we probably shouldn’t have done that. We then had a walk around the park next door to the store and called my sister to tell her the good news, as we ended the call we laughed about it probably being September before we saw each other again. It’s now 12 months since we last got together.

Deelish75 · 23/02/2021 14:30

Mid Jan of last year I remember listening on the radio to a British man who was living in lockdown Wuhan and it seemed surreal what he was going through.

When the first cases were reported here I wasn’t too worried as they had links to China and the Far East. I believed it was going to be like swine flu. It didn’t really hit me this may be more serious until after the Feb half term and saw news reports coming in from Northern Italy and then skiers being told to quarantine.
Then the first cases of community transmission in early March - that was when I started to stock up a bit more in food and made sure I had delivery slots booked as far in advance as I could.
I went swimming the first week in March it was noticeably quieter - I remember doing the backwards and forwards dance with the receptionist as I paid. We laughed about it but it was a nervous laugh. I didn’t go back after that.
My eldest was in Yr6 and I had to have a frank conversation with him about how serious this was, we were probably going to be in it for at least a year and he may not finish primary school - he did but it wasn’t the same and he missed out on all the usual end of primary celebrations/rites of passage.

MargaretThursday · 23/02/2021 14:49

We'd just booked to see Six at the Theatre in July. I've just rebooked (now August) for the 2nd time. I'm hoping the third booking is lucky.

Beginning of March ds had a cough and a temperature. Temperature, not unusual for him with any illness cough less usual. I then had a cough and a temperature (very unusual). I remember joking that either we had Covid in which case it was far more rife than anyone was admitting, or we had a normal bug that was no point worrying about.
A week later we would have isolated for a fortnight.

Aroundtheworldin80moves · 23/02/2021 14:50

We had a mini break over half term. I was still calm then. The DH went to France for work. I had wondered if it would be cancelled... But they were completely non-plussed by it all.

It was March when it really started going crazy. I remember writing out DDs birthday party invitations, all the time thinking the party wouldn't happen (it didn't, should have been the 21st March). I bought extra craft kits as birthday presents for her.

Her birthday lunch, on the 15th, was just me, DDs, my parents and brother. DH had let me know that the work trip had been cancelled and they were arranging transport back to the UK. I hugged my Mum so tight that day. Hoping it might be Easter. But if not, May half term.

DH and his colleagues had to do a high speed dash for Calais. They made it onto one of the last boats apparently!
I've seen my parents once in the past year.

Now it's nearly DDs birthday again. No party this year either.

eclipsechips · 23/02/2021 14:57

This time last year we were eating Tapas in a lovely wee restaurant in Spain planning trips for April and October.

Sevensilverrings · 23/02/2021 15:43

This time (a week later, to be precise) my preteen son was in a touring NT performance in front of thousands every night for a week. I was nervous sitting in the audience. A week later we locked down.
He hasn’t been to a drama class since, but that experience has sustained his love of drama through the year and he can’t wait to get back. I’m so glad he had this before the world closed down for him.