A year since the last weekend of normality - can you remember what you did?

[TheVampiresWife]

Well, relative normality anyway. The last before lockdown, the last night the pubs were open. Can you remember what you were doing? For me, nothing more exciting than desperately trying to buy basic food but all the shelves were empty. My local pubs were absolutely packed and I admit I was tempted to join them for one last hurrah but thought better of it. We also opened our kitchen bar on the Saturday night and made a 'quarantunes' playlist - there was a surreal sense of novelty about everything.

It's also a year since we were told that BJ was confident we'd send this thing packing in twelve weeks. I think (however naive it seems now, and how disbelieving I am of the government usually) I sort of held into that thought to keep me sane - goodness knows how I'd have felt if I'd known we'd still be in lockdown a year later. Probably for the best that I didn't!

I went over to a friend's house for drinks, I knew it would be the last time I'd see people for a while! It was mother's day as well and I went to see my mum. The Monday after that I was furloughed.

I had a baby.. & we saw my parents for Sunday Lunch on Mother’s Day on the Sunday with our newborn. Then they didn’t meet her again until August 😢😢

We went to buy a green house to keep us busy and a bike for 3yr old DS to learn to ride in the few weeks he'd be away from nursery and some bits to make a mud kitchen with. The greenhouse was a relative success, we grew lots of thing, mostly DS raided them before they were ripe so we didn't get much from them and he still can't ride his bike. The mud kitchen is still going strong.

It wasn't normality. I didn't know if I would have a job on Monday as schools had shut and furlough hadn't been announced. I went to fetch my son from Uni earlier than I would normally have done. I didn't see my mum on mother's day either because I had been working in a school and we didn't think it was safe.

And 3 days earlier I had spent £80 in a garden centre that would normally have been spread over the whole season.

We were about to go into 14 days isolation as my son had a cough and temperature (I think this rule came in the next day, Sunday), so my partner who had stayed over couldn’t go home, he still hasn’t left!

Even before the announcement on Thursday I thought schools would close, my partner was already working from home and my employers had started to move staff to working at home.

We were 'self isolating' by now since DH and DD both had coughs (and DH had just returned from France after a mad border dash!)

It should have been DDs birthday party. Elder DD told her she could share hers in the summer. We have our fingers crossed for a shared party this summer!

And I counted my stash of loo rolls and decided I had plenty.

I sat in a friend's garden, having taken my own chair and coffee and not touching anything there except with my feet.

I did exactly the same with the same friend yesterday, although it was drizzling yesterday rather than sunny a year ago.Yes, we broke the law, but she is waiting for cancer surgery and is otherwise alone. I was prepared for a 'visiting the vulnerable' conversation with the police.

Yes! We've lived on it for a year.

It was my birthday, we booked a hotel room in a nearby city and the in laws had ds

We checked in, got given a free upgrade to a suite then had a couple of drinks in the bar.

Drinks and lunch in a tiny Italian then erm... more drinks!

We found a little bar with a dance floor and cheesy 90s music that we've never stumbled across before despite going to the city loads of times

We danced, had fun and smooched on the dance floor (I was 42, we've been together bloody years!!)

Grabbed a kebab, had a shag in the hotel room, ate the kebab and slept like babies.

Down for a gorgeous buffet breakfast with gallons of coffee and juice to ease the hangovers.

Bloody loved it - we had a feeing it'd be the last for a long while so made the absolute most of it

I spent the weekend at my parents for Mother's Day. On the 23rd, I dropped off a gift to a shielding friend, and had an appointment with my GP for a medication review. Hours later, lockdown was enforced.

I also went shopping - I wouldn't call that weekend 'normal' - it certainly didn't feel like it at the time.

We were isolating as the whole house had what might have been a mild case of Coronavirus. I’ll never know if it was or not.

We decided the pubs were too busy to take the kids in as we might do some weekend day times.

Went to garden centre for craft bits.

Chilled out, thought it's not going to be for long we can do "home" for a bit, get some big jobs done.

Yeah bit underprepared.

We had made the decision to start our 'lockdown' as DP had been asked to work from home for the foreseeable the week before. We had all our 'supplies' so hunkered down... we still are!

I went to the pizza van in the pub beer garden on the Friday evening and was sat in the beer garden waiting for the pizza when they told all pubs to shut.

Went home with my pizza and didn’t do much for the rest of the weekend. Apart from cycling as I thought cycling would maybe get banned if we went into full lockdown. Think it wasn’t until Monday was it that the actual lock down was announced? I was supposed to go to work on Monday but refused to as didn’t feel safe so worked from home.

Kids birthday parties both days.

Actually, this last year hasn't been ALL bad.

I went home from work with a temperature and fever and spent the next 4 weeks with covid. Remember thinking how unlucky we were as everyone seemed to be having a last hurrah and getting gardens and homes sorted.

Me and DS went out for a meal.

We took our then 5 and 3yr old out to a Japanese restaurant and it was deserted and weird. Little did we know that we wouldn’t be eating an another restaurant for getting on for six months.

My son, who had been skiing in Italy with school, had a fever and flu type symptoms...
He got Covid later in the year, but in March, we were worried he'd picked it up in Italy.

I got diagnosed with cancer on the Friday so spent the weekend in shock and feeling very very scared of cancer and covid.
One year on feeling so proud of myself for surviving the strangest hardest year and feeling so much stronger than this time last year.

My kitchen was being installed and the plumber and electrician were due to install the oven, hob, sink, washing machine, dishwasher, etc the w/c 23/3. I was frantically painting our new house as our new carpet was being delivered on Saturday and we were due to move in on Sunday once the carpets were down. DH thought I was mad as I was saying we had to move ASAP as there was going to be a lockdown and I didn’t want to get stuck on our old house whilst 7 months pregnant!

We had gone into lock down early when the first announcement about vulnerability was made.

I d had an early pregnancy scan and was calling our families to tell them a bit early as I was coming to realise I wasn't going to be able to tell them in person.

I had no idea that we d be a year in and my DS would barely have met anyone, I had a horrendous time in hospital in labour and postnatally so I decided we shouldn't be selfish and increase the risk of other women going through what I did, so grateful to have recovered and not have PTSD.