Page 19 | What one moment will always stay with you from this?

Ostryga · 2021-08-08T02:04:48+00:00

Mine was realising panic shopping was everywhere, and that I needed to buy an entire food shop for Dd and I before lockdown. I cried when I found a shop with chicken and milk. The fear I felt of the virus at that time, and also not being able to make sure we had food is something I hope to never repeat.

Lineofduty2021 · 09/08/2021 23:23

Listening to Boris saying “you must stay at home” and watching the death toll rise while I was sat at home with my 2 day old baby and his older sibling. My heart sinks everytime I see that live breaking news clip played back.

ColdandFrosty1 · 09/08/2021 23:25

The absolute panic of not being able to find any calpol when the first lockdown was announced. My 2 year old was really unwell with a high temperature and had about 2 doses left, when hrs poorly he's really poorly. There was none online for delivery either. I can't drive and live semi ruraly and had already tried 3 supermarkets and the local chemists. My Aunty and myself were phoning each other back and forth for hours updating each other on if we'd found some (she has a 5 yo DGD). Eventually managed to find some in Waitrose only took 2 bottles and left the rest on the shelf so noone else was without!

RoastedHazelnutLatte · 09/08/2021 23:31

@Lineofduty2021

Listening to Boris saying “you must stay at home” and watching the death toll rise while I was sat at home with my 2 day old baby and his older sibling. My heart sinks everytime I see that live breaking news clip played back.

Yeah. That first lockdown PM announcement left me feeling pretty shaky and upset. It was just so unlike anything I'd seen up to then.

ColdandFrosty1 · 09/08/2021 23:35

Scratch that, it was sneaking a residents family into our care home through a fire exit so they could spend the last hours of their mums life with her. He grandkids saying goodbye on video call and us having to shut all other residents doors so they wouldn't be upset someone had visitors when they couldn't.

A ladies son coming to visit her just as we were slapping the notice on the door that no visiting will be allowed for the foreseeable future.

The atmosphere change over night and just watching so many elderly and poorly people become so low and lonely as those visits were mainly what they looked forward to each week.

All of those but mainly just watching a family have to sneak in through a fire exit and them all making sure they didn't make any noise whatsoever so they didn't upset anyone else. Just to say goodbye to their mum.

AndTheReasonIsYou · 09/08/2021 23:53

Meeting my parents in a car park on Christmas Eve to exchange gifts. They live 100 miles from me and we broke the rules to meet halfway. I came alone without the kids. It was the first time I had seen them in months but my mum couldn’t bear the thought of the kids not having any gifts from them on Christmas Day.

I looked around the car park and noticed it was full of families doing the exact same thing.

I cried the whole way home.

NoddyMcdoddy · 10/08/2021 00:32

@YarnOver

That picture of the elderly gentleman in an empty shopping aisle holding his shopping list.

It was in most the papers.. it made me cry.

This is my lasting memory too. I still tear up thinking about how scared and lonely the most vulnerable in society must have felt as vultures emptied shelves around them.

Looking back on the last 18 months and reading others stories I realise I and my family are extremely fortunate that no one has died or been taken ill with COVID but I remind myself that we are not over it yet and not to be blasé about it.

sandgrown · 10/08/2021 00:47

My partner and I were on the point of separating. He was classed as vulnerable . Realising we could be stuck in the house together for a few weeks as I thought at the beginning though I did offer to fetch anything he needed. Thankfully I was classed as a key worker and able to work . Putting up with the tantrums my ex had if teenage DS was even 5 minutes late back from his hour exercise or he didn’t see him wash his hands for 20 seconds . Being vulnerable didn’t stop him travelling 30 miles to see his sister and stopping at her house ! Such a hypocrite.

ShitShop · 10/08/2021 01:09

These are all so evocative even so soon after it all happened. In a few years this thread will be like a time capsule.

Thank you all for sharing and to those who have lost loved ones and suffered themselves.

My enduring memory will be my first visit to the test centre. A bit of wasteland that used to be a makeshift car park, all fenced in, with military style pop up tent/awning things, bright spotlights on stands and people in full PPE standing around with signs saying “stay in your car” “do not open your window” “no photography” etc and having to read their signs and nod in acknowledgement. It was surreal.

The most recent test we had, the man stood next to my window and held up a card with his phone number on it and I had to call it to talk to him. Someone else then handed me the test kits on the end of a litter picker. It’s a very odd feeling to be treated as such a danger when you feel a bit under the weather. I can see why some people have struggled mentally throughout all of this as the paranoia and anxiety are heightened so much.

I will remember the nice bits too, daily walks with the kids in the sunshine, the kindness of strangers offering to help with shopping etc. and the funny memes - I love that the British sense of humour can make light of the darkest situations sometimes. If you don’t laugh you’ll cry.

It’s amazing how quickly things have started to feel a bit normal again in some ways. But I know this may just be a lull so don’t want to relax just yet.

MercyBooth · 10/08/2021 01:55

@AndTheReasonIsYou Similar thing here on 16th October last year when Essex County Council shifted us up a tier starting at midnight the next day. Dad phoned me saying "do you want to come round this evening and we will have fish and chips" Went over for the evening and came back in a taxi pulling up outside my flat at ten to midnight. Two other cars pulling into same car park. We all got out and just looked at each other knowingly.

MercyBooth · 10/08/2021 02:03

Tiers were lockdown in all but name...........especially tier 4.
It being made out that Christmas dinner with 3 other people was the same as an acid house rave

LEMtheoriginal · 10/08/2021 02:38

People's kindness. Friends and colleagues dropping shopping and cooked food on our doorstep over Christmas when we had covid.

Seeing my mum on her birthday, having been smuggled into the carehome. She was clearly sad that i hadnt been to see her , she didn't understand the whole covid thing. That was the last time i saw her.

Hm2020 · 10/08/2021 02:46

Going through kings cross in a cab and there was nothing on the roads no busses no cars at week day lunch time think it was the first day of lockdown.

Being told my ds father had died of covid.

PopcornMuncher · 10/08/2021 07:50

@LEMtheoriginal

SunshineCake · 10/08/2021 17:39

@Dreamstate

That I was doing really well dealing eith my emotional/ boredom eating, was in great shape and really fit and covid ruined it. The lockdown and living on my own the boredom set in, and emotional eating came back. I put on weight I had worked so hard to lose and in worst shape of my life. I'm talking more than 4 stone here! And I'm struggling, really struggling to get back on track and I hate what I've done to myself, hate why I couldn't of been more mentally stronger and everyday I try to be better and fail, I feel like ill never get back to that person I was or that fitness level.

My weight has always been a struggle but I was finally felt I had a grip on it and bang lockdown just changed all of that

So sorry and sad to read this @Dreamstate. Please come and join me on the Lose It! August thread. A great bunch of supportive posters where we are all losing and gaining and losing and staying the same etc but we all support each other.

wordsareveryunnecessary · 10/08/2021 19:31

Enjoying empty places. That was amazing.

Ewanispurple · 10/08/2021 19:43

Walking into my elective C-Section alone, I was absolutely terrified

tiredmama2020 · 10/08/2021 20:14

@Ewanispurple

Walking into my elective C-Section alone, I was absolutely terrified

@Ewanispurple

I can only imagine! I was nervous enough going in myself for induction with my 1st DC - I’d have been terrified walking into theatre

PivotPivotPivottt · 10/08/2021 20:23

Breaking down in my garden last Summer and begging my parents to take my children away from me. My then 3 year old was driving me insane and I just bottled everything up until that day when they came round to talk to us in the garden. I was hysterical I couldn't catch my breath. They wouldn't take the kids because my mum works in the hospital and my stepdad has COPD but they took them out on a socially distanced walk for an hour or so and it done me the world of good. My mum still struggles thinking back to that day and how she couldn't help. She says if she could go back she would have took them to stay but I understand why she didn't. No one really knew much then and it was all a bit scary.

NannyAndJohn · 10/08/2021 23:04

Watching on in horror in Feb/early March 2020 when our Prime Minister acted as though everything was normal despite cases and deaths soaring.

Watching on in horror in Sept/Oct 2020 when our Prime Minister acted as though everything was normal despite cases and deaths soaring.

Still waking up every morning knowing that the worst may be yet to come.

But on a positive note:

Finally getting myself and the rest of my team on permanent WFH contracts after months of pestering HR.

Clapping for carers!

Zoom Christmas!

The peace and quiet during the first lockdown. Nature could finally breathe again.

shinynewapple21 · 10/08/2021 23:31

(1)The Monday that the lockdown was announced and DS' girlfriend packing her bag and returning to her parents' house for the lockdown period .

(2) My FIL died March 2020 (non-Covid) and his funeral was held about 10 days into the lockdown . I remember us driving to the crematorium and the roads were deserted and there were just the 3 of us there . We were lucky compared to my friend who lost her mum a couple of weeks later as she wasn't able to attend at all .

Dandy008 · 10/08/2021 23:50

Holding my 5 week old baby, sobbing as I was watching the scenes unfold in Italy.
Feeling so frightened of what was to come.

I’ll never ever ever, forget that fear I felt of catching Corona and being a separated from my baby.
The worry of my tiny newborn having no one to look after him if me and DH were taken to hospital.
Haunts me to this day and I’m still not fully over that fear 😓

I’m still very fearful of Covid and I often wonder if I have some kind of PTSD. 😞

PinkSparklyPussyCat · 11/08/2021 07:29

Only Nanny could count a Zoom Christmas as positive!

And as for clapping for carers, it started off in the right way but ended up as a bloody competition. DH and I never did it but the neighbours did and we were told we were missed on a Thursday night as if it was compulsory! We just used to say the neighbours had the clap.

TheKeatingFive · 11/08/2021 07:43

Only Nanny could count a Zoom Christmas as positive!

She enjoyed it so much she’s doing it again this year

Jourdain11 · 11/08/2021 08:21

Zoom Christmas saves suuuuuch a lot of money. And no need to travel to see friends and relatives when you have technology to do it for you!

Figgygal · 11/08/2021 08:31

The surreal reality of those first few weeks of lockdown
Being trapped at home with the fantastic weather and how that led to some beautiful local walks
Barely seeing my kids as worked crazy hours from home whilst dh wAs furloughed and firmly in charge of childcare.

A crazy time