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.

April 2020 - sitting in the hot garden playing with DS and hearing ambulance after ambulance rush by. It turned out later another hospital was full, so they were bringing patients over. My grandmother taught me to say "wish them well" when we heard an ambulance and DS learned it that day.

December 2020 - the announcement of lockdown the day before we were due to swap family Christmas presents, and the horror of realising I wouldn't see my family for months. Those presents sat in piles in the back room until March and made me cry many times just for missing my mum. Lucky only one was perishable and had to be replaced.

The thing that will stay with me forever and ever was my DH getting a WhatsApp message in a group he's in. International group that shares memes and videos. It was a doctor in a province near Wuhan and there were clips of people with blue lips having what appeared to be fits on stretchers in corridors, bodies in the corridors, the sound of people desperately fighting for breath, coughing, dying...... and they turned the camera on themselves and begged people to listen, said she was putting herself in danger to warn people, but that there was a virus, it had been there for a few months and they couldn't contain it, the government didn't want it known so it was spreading everywhere, thousands of people were dying DAILY.... this was in the week between Christmas and new year. She was crying, saying she couldn't help anyone, they didn't have enough oxygen, they didn't know how to help or what drugs to use and so many were dying.

I don't know what happened to her, but whistleblowers aren't usually patted on the back in China. The video wouldn't play a day later, but it's what encouraged me and my family to stock up on all essentials in January for an impending national emergency. A lot of people in the group thought it was a clip for a film, but I felt absolutely chilled to my core by it, and then I started watching the John's Hopkins University tracker for novel virus cases and could see them trickling their way across Europe.

We didn't know my brother was going to die from his brain tumour so quickly but I hardly saw him for the last year of his life. If it wasn't for covid we would have had a family holiday and Christmas before he died.

There was a poster who asked her 3 year old boy if he wanted to go to the toy shop. He didn't realize that there was any other shop other than food shops as his whole life virtually has been lived through lock down.

Two things stand out. One - trying to get Paracetamol for DD who had tonsillitis and having to trawl shop after shop. Two - trying to get any help for DH when he got covid early on and was ill enough that he couldn't breathe properly sitting up for the best part of a week. He wasn't ill enough for hospital and it was a nightmare trying to get hold of the GP, all while looking after two small children and not being allowed out the house.

But locally.... I think seeing how keen people were to grass up or publicly call out their neighbours for hugging someone or for getting TWO shopping deliveries in one week!!

Our neighbours were constantly within arms length of a passionate embrace with their unmasked builders that were there day in, day out, different teams etc for months, but my DD hugged my mum outside when she'd recently had surgery and was struggling to cope with everything and we got a shitty message and PHOTO on our community Facebook group asking if the people at number 23 remember what social distance means.
Lots of people called them out on their shittiness at taking photos of our DD hugging her gran, especially since DD was in a wheelchair and leg cast and obviously the hug meant a great deal to her, but there were enough agreeing and saying DD (the child sobbing in the wheelchair with the massive leg cast) should be fined in order to learn a lesson!

Two things - a socially distanced meeting in the park in June 2020, standing under a tree in the rain with travel mugs of gin and tonic with my 4 best friends, 2 metres apart from each other, and it feeling like the best thing in the world.

And walking to Costa (a lovely walk through woods) with my kids back in January when people were getting fined for sitting on benches. I told the kids we'd get a drink but had to drink it on the move as "picnics" were currently illegal. We came out of Costa and there was a helicopter above us and my son asked if it was the picnic police 😂 we spent the walk home laughing about not stopping to take a sip of drink as might count as a picnic, what the minimum speed was we had to walk so as not to be accused of stopping etc. We laughed so much. I've even got a blurry selfie with us and our coffees as we didn't dare stop walking to take the photo lol
It was such light relief in a frustrating and bizarre time and the kids still talk about the picnic police 😂

Starting a new job (long anticipated as I had 3 months notice) in the first week of lockdown. Our internet was shockingly bad and I realised I was going to have virtually no induction and I wasn't eligible for furlough. At the same time DD who had been travelling was stuck in India where there was a lot of bad feeling towards foreigners and she couldn't always get food. I hardly slept for months. Asked my MP for help to get her repatriated and they were fantastic.

I had a baby 1 week in to lockdown. Some of my memories include...

Not being able to get Nappies for the new baby before they arrived.

Not being able to get meat or most regular foods so I couldn't prepare any meals in advance.

Being discharged after my c section with ibuprofen and paracetamol because it wasn't possible to get it in the shops.

Having mastitis after a couple of weeks, and not being able to find paracetamol anywhere. Had to use some that contained Caffeine so me and the baby spent a night wide awake and then just going without paracetamol after that. I'm not used to Caffeine and worried at first I was getting psychosis because I felt "more tall" after taking them.

The paracetamol was the worst bit. I was quite angry thinking people all over our neighbourhood had way more than they needed in their cupboards and I felt like I really was suffering.

Seeing my family when the baby was 2 months old was a nice memory although some sadness we couldn't see them before.

The horribly sad sight of playgrounds closed off with red tape. Makes me cross with hindsight as turns out there was really no public health reason why they should have been shut over that beautiful spring of 2020. But I get it was all a bit shots in the dark then.

Giving birth in a pandemic. The beauty of feeling people rally around me and my baby to make it as “normal” as possible, a sense of strength through crisis. I appreciate I was very lucky there.

I was a nursing student and finished my training during the first wave. My first day of being qualified I was on a covid mau. My memorable moment was the first end of life face time. The family wasn't allowed in the hospital to say goodbye. It was heartbreaking, how I held it together I don't know but I cried all the way home. Wasn't the last.
Of course the panic buying, the relief when we were officially locked down. My friend dying. Staff I work with catching covid and ending up on icu ventilated.
I'm on annual leave atm and next week I get redeployed back to the covid ward and I feel sick.
💐 to all those that lost a family member or friend
💐to all my fellow nhs workers
💐to all the other key workers - forgotten who kept the country running.

When the schools and nurseries first closed and I had to sit with dh and try to plan a rota as we were both front line key workers (emergency services) and neither of our employers would be flexible around hours. Literally crossing in the hallway for months and getting 3 hours sleep while home schooling and working over full time hours. Not being able to get a delivery slot or get into the shops as we didn't have the time to queue, but trying to feed the children and also father in law who was shielding. Choosing who was getting a load of bread or pint of milk that day. Being begged by a single mum in our street to pick her up some food as the local Tesco wouldn't let children in.

Just before non essential closed I remember looking for soap in our two closest supermarkets, finding the shelves empty, then suddenly remembering TK Maxx usually sold loads of soaps, so actually running there and feeling like I'd won the lottery when I saw it all.
I spent a fortune that day.

First week of first lockdown I remember going to the supermarket and buying board games. Felt like a real provider for my family as I picked up The Game if Life and junior scrabble. Also bought bread as I was worried I'd get into trouble if I didn't have a food item as well as the games.
There was an air of doom.

When social distancing had just started, I saw the postman emptying the post box as I was walking up there to post some letters so I ran up and handed them to him to avoid missing the post and he barked at me to step away from him.

Crying when they announced the schools were closed (I’m a nurse and childcare wasn’t clear) I was cooking pasta and remember doing it through tears on the phone to my mom.

Picking my oldest up from school, he had his work with him in a folder, his pe kit etc and I remember trying not to cry on the playground

I got a food delivery from Iceland that came to about £50 but when it actually came most of it was missing, I probably had £8 worth of stuff

Boris announcing the lockdown, I was absolutely petrified

And then the day the hospital started giving the vaccines was one of just such sheer HOPE I was so excited to be giving the vaccine and still am so proud that I was/am a vaccinator for this horrible virus!

@feelingdizzy

Telling my teenagers that their Dad had died from Covid .

Oh I can't even begin to imagine that, I am so sorry.

The first time I went for a walk two things happened almost at the same time: I passed my daughter's completely empty school and the someone approaching me on the same side of the street crossed over to avoid me. It was so strange, it felt apocalyptic.

Seeing my dad alive for the last time through a window at his care home as it was the only way I could visit him. Devastating and it will stay with me forever.

I worked nights in a supermarket for the duration of the first lockdown. Coming home at 7am the first morning I unlocked the door and my 4 year old son ran to hug me. I was so terrified of passing something on somehow that I told him to stop until I had had a shower. Seeing him cry into dhs shoulder because he thought I was telling him off was awful. I cried in the shower.

I don’t know if I can narrow it down to one.

Be it, switching DS to cows milk four weeks early as we couldnt get the right milk.

Being sent home for 3 weeks in march 2020 and not actually returning until May 2021.

Telling DD that everyone was on holiday and that’s why she couldn’t see them.

Boris speech putting us into the first lockdown. DH was at work and I was giving him a running commentary, thinking as non essential retail was shutting he would be off work, but thankfully that was not the case.

It was a very strange time and the world is still a little bit different now.
I think in 20 years time when my kids ask me what it was like during Covid, there will be many things to tell.
I’m glad they are young enough to not really know something has happened or is happening.

I’ve kept a small poster from February 2020 asking people travelling from 7 or 8 small Italian villages to be in the look out for symptoms. It’s got a map showing the specific villages. When I see that the whole last 18 months flashes before me.
I did burst into tears around 18 March when I realised what I had thought might be a few weeks lockdown was likely to be much much longer and affect the world not simply some few places/people. Two other times I cried - some of those awful days where the death rate was shocking and the day I got my first vaccination.

When I was stood in (I think) B&M bargains and watched as six or seven people pounced on the poor lad rolling out the trolley of toilet rolls to restock. It was carnage, and utterly embarrassing.

@XDownwiththissortofthingX no I wasn't referring to you. Lots of posters are making similar comments. Also saying things like they couldn't believe they made their parents wear masks to meet their baby etc. I don’t think people should be so hard on themselves, it was very scary at the time and there was a lot of conflicting advice. I'm sorry you have someone in your life still so anxious. Hopefully time will heal.

I was in the Caribbean March 2020 with work and although we knew what was happening, it was also a world away.
We finally decided to close the set and fly home the day before Boris announced lockdown and boy .. Heathrow when we landed was empty.

I've just remembered DS on a walk demanding to go in particular directions, with him saying "no [playgroup name], gone" outside 2 different buildings and then bursting into tears at "no playground, gone" when he saw it locked up. I had no idea when they would reopen, I could only hug him and tell him I was sorry he couldn't go and we had other fun things to do.