What one moment will always stay with you from this?

[Ostryga]

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.

@PinkSparklyPussyCat

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.

Well it let us do what would usually be a week's worth of catching up (having to traipse all around the country visiting different relatives, or having to spend hours preparing the house for when they came to us) in an entire afternoon. Not to mention all the money saved.

That's the stuff some of us enjoy @NannyAndJohn. Hugging our dad, admiring PIL's new bathroom, watching the DNs build stone/sandcastles with DS, giving mum a gift that makes her eyes light up, getting pissed with the aunts, going out for a long walk with family and dogs, having everyone enjoying the food you've made... Zoom is ok for a quick catch-up, but it isn't actual warm, tasting, breathing, touching, hugging LIFE.

Zoom definitely isn't the same as real life family time. Nowhere near.

But, I do know alot of people that really enjoyed the stripped back Christmas.

I loved last Christmas, but because or was the first time I have had my kids all Christmas. Exh went away, so we had the whole 2 weeks. So it's hard for me to say wether it was better or not. Because mine was just different. But I didn't spend Christmas day evening, missing my kids.

“ Well it let us do what would usually be a week's worth of catching up (having to traipse all around the country visiting different relatives, or having to spend hours preparing the house for when they came to us) in an entire afternoon. Not to mention all the money saved.”

Why did you need a pandemic (and all the associated deaths) to get what you wanted?

Well it let us do what would usually be a week's worth of catching up (having to traipse all around the country visiting different relatives, or having to spend hours preparing the house for when they came to us) in an entire afternoon. Not to mention all the money saved.

If I was related to you I'd be bloody glad you weren't visiting if you're as miserable in real life as you are on here!

The sight of moorhen chicks for the first time.

@ShitShop '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.'

I remember going to our test centre which was in an airport car park. Reminded me of films where they have to test people. Think it was my pregnancy hormones but got so upset when i saw all the tents and everyone in PPE. Had a cry on my way home as i was so scared for me and my baby. They also watched me and checked from the outside of my car to make sure i had disconnected my dash cams.

They also watched me and checked from the outside of my car to make sure i had disconnected my dash cams.. Crikey!! How odd. Was talking about it with my DD yesterday and she asked why you couldn’t take photos. I wasn’t really sure of the answer. I mean, I get why you wouldn’t want photos of the other people getting tested as that’s private, but it felt very strange, as if they had something to hide. I know you wouldn’t normally take photos in a hospital etc but they don’t have signs around the place telling you not to do they?!

In a few years this thread will be like a time capsule.

I made a photo book starting from 12 March which was DD's last day of school up to 3 May when DH & I got our first vaccine dose. I want to tell my grandchildren about it!

I have a nice rose tinted view of home schooling & lock down last year, the nice weather, paddling pool any time because I was furloughed, walks etc, I genuinely think I've blocked out the bad bits (as silly as crying because I couldn't reach DD fractions).

We are so so lucky that we haven't lost anyone to covid but I didn't see my granny before she died but my mum was with her & I could go to her funeral so luckier than a lot of posters.

@ShitShop loads of no

@AndTheReasonIsYou

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.

Same for us. I drive past our Christmas rendezvous point quite frequently and I get a lump in my throat each time.

@ShitShop I'll try again! Loads of no photography signs at vaccination centres too, I wonder if it's a security thing 🤷🏻‍♀️ always similar signs in airports too queuing to get your passport checked

My moment that will always stay with me is, My two daughters visiting our garden to bring combined Mother’s Day and birthday gifts in the early days of first lockdown. I’m CEV so they maintained the distance. They held up their messages, the messages from their 4 young children. Happy birthday mum, happy birthday grannie - we love you. I could weep now remembering it.

We used to have all four children once a week. That stopped for a year. Absolutely awful. We met in parks, saw them over garden walls. I feared the one year old wouldn’t properly know me. He’s 2 1/2 now and that fear has gone. Our 6 year old announced just before his birthday “I was four when the germs arrived. Mom 6 next birthday”
What tough times we’ve all experienced, if we are lucky, love and health has helped us through (and the vaccine)

[quote BritishSummertime]@ShitShop I'll try again! Loads of no photography signs at vaccination centres too, I wonder if it's a security thing 🤷🏻‍♀️ always similar signs in airports too queuing to get your passport checked [/quote]
I always presumed it was anywhere with Security Service resources; test or vaccination sites with army might have some and you can get them at customs.
(Our local non-army test site had no "no photography" signs, or we missed them if it did.)

@BritishSummertime

In a few years this thread will be like a time capsule.

I made a photo book starting from 12 March which was DD's last day of school up to 3 May when DH & I got our first vaccine dose. I want to tell my grandchildren about it!

I have a nice rose tinted view of home schooling & lock down last year, the nice weather, paddling pool any time because I was furloughed, walks etc, I genuinely think I've blocked out the bad bits (as silly as crying because I couldn't reach DD fractions).

We are so so lucky that we haven't lost anyone to covid but I didn't see my granny before she died but my mum was with her & I could go to her funeral so luckier than a lot of posters.

I made a lockdown scrapbook too but I ended it in June 2020 so clearly I was a bit optimistic! Still, it felt weird to carry it on from that point as I had plenty of photos of my children playing with their friends as normal and whatnot so I couldn’t call it remotely lockdown anymore. Maybe I should make an early 2021 lockdown scrapbook too but I feel like the photos in my phone (all the snow days!) are probably less representative of what we actually did. I remember my DH coming back from work in Jan or Feb and telling me that on his walk from the train station he just passed house after house after house where he could see families just listlessly staring at the television. That made me feel a bit better because honestly that was my Jan-March 2021 too. I felt like I did a good job parenting in the first lockdown and, whilst I have never been a lockdown enthusiast, it was altogether a positive time for my oldest. Winter 2021 however …

@ColdandFrosty1

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.

Bloody hell! This makes me teary to read. Good on you for letting that happen.

March 2020. Chris Whitty saying 80% of us could get it, and they expected 20% would be admitted and 1% would die.

Collecting my dc from school on the last day before lockdown. The weather was really stormy and there was a really eerie atmosphere. I looked at my dc, who were none the wiser, and just wanted to get us all home and safe.

Sends shivers down my spine whenever I think about it.

Being halfway through a text to my Dad when Trump was shiteing on about bleach. Just a 'have you seen what this fucker is saying now blah blah' type of thing. Remembering just before the end and sending that he was dead.

Before lockdown kicked in but there was panic and stuff sold out trying to work out the etiquette for opening a door at a wake 'Thank you so much for coming, please use the hand sanitizer provided before coming in' and having a serious conversation about having someone watch make sure it wasn't stolen (massive bottle and none in shops).

Mine was when I was sat at work and looking at the figures and I said to my colleague 'wow they have just announced the figures, 100 cases now' and wondering what was coming

The bloke who got chastised for going to hug his mother at his fathers funeral.

@Stuffin

The nastiness that came to the surface pretty quickly from people who wanted 'everyone to stay the fuck home' and everyone was selfish and all the other shit they still throw about.

Made me realise how messed up a lot of people are and only needed a tiny green light to push their agenda.

Yes. So many people in the world are outwardly ok, but under the surface awful. It doesn't take much nowadays for that to come out.

I made a photo book starting from 12 March which was DD's last day of school up to 3 May when DH & I got our first vaccine dose. I want to tell my grandchildren about it!

Those are good dates to go by. I decided tonight that I'd do a photo book too, even with some of the comedy memes and so on in there, but couldn't decide where to start and stop. Second jab for partner seems to be a good date. We've had 'normal' within it, but that's part of the record.

Our hospital received one of the first COVID patients in England (in the most ridiculous way which didn’t surprise me) and wondering what was going to happen.

Before it fully kicked off, we were having teaching about how it’s nothing to worry about etc. But they showed us an x-ray of a patients lungs from China which terrified me, especially as we had no treatments at the time.

@ShitShop they said once i had disconnected them that i was something to do with the NHS not wanting things being filmed. Which i thought afterwards was odd as there wasn't really anything to hide.