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!

We went clubbing at Egg at Kings Cross on the Saturday night. Hugged and kissed all our friends, licked a few strangers. Danced everything out of our systems. Not the brightest idea in hindsight, but so glad we did, a last hurrah and proper goodbye for a while to those we love. Then on the Sunday evening DP and I started prepping and packing for me to move into his place for the duration of lockdown - and here we are a year later.

I had an unusual situation in that I was in hospital with sepsis had been in for over a month and was in for a few more weeks. So went in just as we were hearing about Covid, left and we were in lockdown !

It was already not normal - the last parkrun before it shut down was 14 March, and that's the last weekend thing before lockdown that I remember.

Schools had closed, just before the weekend, hadn't they? Or have I misremembered.

I went into town to buy 18 bedding plants and 18 pots for my Cubs to plant up and decorate for Mother’s Day. We ended up having to distribute the materials and do the session online.

Played in two orchestral concerts. Had PIL to stay for the weekend. Nothing for a year now.

Yes. Went to my last point to point for a year. Travelled quite a way to attend. Really miss these type of events in the open air. Pretty safe to start them up again I think!

My work had closed earlier in the week, so we were already mentally in the “stay home” period. By some weird stroke of luck, I had my hair cut the weekend before, and we had a Sainsbury’s order delivered too (always shop online as we don’t have a car, it just so happened we had a delivery booked) so we felt well prepared for the next few weeks. We just weren’t at all prepared for how long it was going to last!

I took my Dd out for a "coffee and cake" just the two of us, and we picked up some jigsaws at a charity shop. I remember it feeling weird, and like we knew lockdown was probably coming, but obviously no idea what the next year would actually bring!

It was my FIL’s funeral on 17 March, which was the day over 70’s were told to shield, so many of his friends didn’t attend, which was a shame. We catered for over 50 coming back to his house, whereby only about 25 came back. That’s the last time we saw some of our family. We were eating sandwiches all week.

I ran 21 miles on Monday 22nd March. Knew it would be the last one for a long time esp as I have to drive to get anywhere decent. Stayed out all day, felt really sad at the end and hugged a tree

Washed and ironed - I had just got back from three weeks in Mexico. Had I known what I know now, I'd have left it for another week!

As a GP I’d already been panicky for a good 6 weeks or so before lockdown was announced at what was happening in Italy and what I could tell was happening locally with COVID clearly absolutely rife in the area at the time and becoming more so as time went on (but couldn’t prove it because nobody could get tested unless they had been to Wuhan at that stage and the government was being all Lalala nothing to see here, our figures are so low, about it). I was pretty sure I’d already had COVID towards the end of Feb when I’d been on leave fortunately anyway, couldn’t get tested of course despite demanding to speak to the most senior people and explaining I was a GP and didn’t want to put the roughly 80 patients plus staff that I interact with daily at risk. My boss then made me come back to work immediately my leave was up less than a week after first becoming ill despite my concerns about potentially spreading it to patients and other staff (we did then indeed have a little outbreak of COVID in the surgery and one member of staff almost died from it). So by the time lockdown was announced I hadn’t been going anywhere except to work for a good 6 weeks anyway on my own self-imposed lockdown. My family and many of my friends were already doing the same. I have to say I did go for one last swim the night before lockdown while I still could.

Went bowling and out for pizza for ds' 12th birthday. Remember feeling slightly nervous and very aware of who was around us and how close they got. Bowling was only every other lane even then, and the pizza place was practically empty.

Spent it working
Just like this weekend

Went for my last run - there was no one about, no cars and I decided it wasn’t going to be safe to go again. Pub was heaving as I ran past. We’d already decided not to see our mums since we are both teachers and had been working with a huge cloud of dread over us for quite a time before. It was frightening. We had plenty of food in as our brexit cupboard switched to plague duties instead.

My daughter woke up the day after the last day of school with chicken pox and I had a cough so we were stuck in before the lockdown started .

By this time last year, I’d already deregistered my child from school weeks earlier, and OH had already been working from home since February at the request of his office who are quite a bit more intelligent than the British government.

I don’t understand people who were still waiting for BJ to tell them what to do in March 2020, while the Italian PM was on our news begging us not to follow Italy’s example.

I really hate the Government’s rewriting of history that claims ‘we had no way to know how bad this was going to be’.

We knew.

I was in Butlins with my mum and toddler from the Monday 16th-Friday We really enjoyed the week because it all seemed so normal when we knew things would quickly be changing later in the week. I remember sitting in our room ordering crafts and activities from hobbycraft when we learned schools would be shuts and ds1 would be home. When we got back on the Friday, I had to go to 3 different shops to find nappies as people were panic buying and dh had no luck finding any.

I was 13 weeks pregnant and went round to my family after scan to share the news. Spent the rest of the time feeling very, very sick.

It wasn't normal a year ago. I had a night in a hotel with a friend planned on 21st last year. The start of the week leading up to it we were all "yeah we're definitely still going" but by the Wednesday we realised it wasn't going to be much fun. We decided to cancel. However my daughter said she would go with me instead for a little break, so we went. No pubs or restaurants were open but we got a Chinese takeaway, did loads of shopping and watched TV. Brilliant night! Then on the Sunday most shops were closed due to coronavirus so we felt like we'd had a fantastic last hurrah!

We went out to the hills to fly a kite. We'd cancelled our wedding 3 days before

Went to see a comedian in Blackpool. Place was almost empty. The following Monday work told us all to get home and stay there.

We drove to collect my DC's belongings from university as they were home for study week and we knew they probably wouldn't go back for their final few weeks. We were sure it'd be over by Xmas.

I was supposed to be sitting my driving test. It got cancelled the night before. Exactly a year on and I was supposed to be sitting it yesterday. Apparently it will now be in July.
Went to work, deep cleaned the place and went on furlough for 4 months.

It was the day before my daughter’s 9th birthday. So yes tomorrow will be her 2nd birthday in lockdown. It just meant the weekend was spent what she wanted to do and that was pj day. We have an almost 1 year old dog so will be going for a long walk tomorrow