Since @twang innocently enquired ‘Going out this weekend?’ (link at end) My own response was rather more bullish the the reality. I mentioned gigs that night and a few days later, both of which we went to, and a short break in Edinburgh after, which we cancelled after a sleepless night thinking about it.
So what have learned from a year unlike any other we have ever experienced and hopefully never will again? Some of my bullet point takes, and I’d be interested to see yours (or of course longer discussion).
Humans are extraordinarily adaptable creatures given the basics such as utilities and retail.
Retail workers seem to have been the forgotten heroes, and lets not leave out the supply chain which by and large kept shelves stocked.
Although the last 12 months have been ball-achingly dull they have, for someone like me lucky enough to stay well and stay in full time employment, not been personally unpleasant.
Speaking of work it’s plain that working from home, at least most of the time, if far better for a great many people and should have been introduced years ago.
My opinion of the government, never high, reached unimaginably depths.
I was surprised that the opposition to Covid restrictions came from the right and not the left, despite the colour of the ruling party.
People are generally happy to do as they’re told with sufficient belief in the reason.
People are also led by sentiment, leading to the conviction that clapping for the NHS would be worthwhile and a ‘vaccine bounce’ which has led to the government polling well.
I remember Twang’s thread and my comment that I would probably go to any gigs I had tickets for. I hadn’t really kept up on how the virus was spread and the London Underground was still open so if the tube was still ok, why wouldn’t I?
A year on and much better informed, there’s no way I would go to a gig under those conditions. Having said that, I can’t wait for venues to open again and to get back to what I used to do.
It’s been the weirdest year of my life. As a member of the vulnerables I went into lockdown very quickly, and I genuinely didn’t know where my food was coming from – I couldn’t get a supermarket delivery slot or go out shopping, which is why I panic-bought 5kg bags of rice and lentils, still unopened as far as I know. It was only a couple of weeks probably before I discovered I was on a list and the situation eased. The much-maligned government food boxes started to arrive and I ate corned beef for the first time probably in about 40 years and Homepride Cook-in Sauce for the first time ever. And then the supermarkets got their delivery act together and the panic was over. Even so, my whole life revolved around food and drink, and too much of both at that.
Then after 6 months of this weird existence I managed to escape, overweight and near-alcoholic, to Australia. After a surreal flight in the company of two dozen other people, and two weeks of hotel quarantine, I was reunited with Mrs thep and a life that’s as near ‘normal’ as anywhere is these days. I’m a lucky bugger. Even so, I haven’t seen my English family for over a year now, and that’s a source of continual sadness and frustration. I have a flight to Blighty booked for August 31; whether I’ll be able to get on it, time will tell.
Lockdown over here in NZ started quite intensely – an immediate 6 week period of full lockdown. Keeping the children (11, 11, 14, 16) reassured and upbeat was a challenge because our normal day to day life had changed so quickly. Even the most pampered and protected child of that age is old enough to know when something big and scary is happening.
Seeing our local medical centre transformed into a futuristic complex of white tents, protected by defence force staff in full PPE was confronting. Queuing up for 30 minutes to get into a supermarket and doing routine things without the usual hello-how-are-yous. Loud PA announcements every 30 seconds were in stark contrast to the usual Supermarket FM soundtrack of Robbie Williams and jaunty reminders that certain apples were on special that week.
All of that returned – and I can see now that we are coming out of it fully now that the vaccines are here.
For my work, I used to travel a great deal. That stopped and as a result we have all spent a great deal of time together in the last year. I couldn’t have spent this period with a nicer bunch of people.
This was Crowded House in New Zealand this week. I have tickets to see them in Manchester this July, postponed from the same time last year. Likelihood of it happening about zero, I’d say.
I’m seeing them this coming Sunday in Auckland. Never seen them before and am very much looking forward to it.
I’ll post a review here.
Apart from one day in August ( when I decided that I didn’t want to carry on working) one year ago was my last day at work.
I was a part time registrar at weddings boosting my work pension until I could receive my state pension. The wedding I attended was in the smallest room at the venue every seat taken and the bride and groom had four bridesmaids and four groomsmen plus two flower girls one on a tricycle. To put it mildly it was a touch stressful.
I got paid for all the time I was off but going back just brought the stress of having to deal with people unmasked etc so that was it.
Booked for a festival and a concert later in the year and to get away for my birthday in December.
NHS procurement was clearly found wanting and subject to croneyism.
NHS staff are stars.
Matt Hancock is a twat.
Tonight it’s exactly a year since I was last in London, and I live 40 minutes away by train. It was a charity quiz in Euston. I’d flown back from Glasgow that afternoon , gone to this pub, walked back to St Pancras and come home, and that was the last time I was on a plane or in a city.
The main thing I think is that losing a whole year is not so bad when you’re 56. It’s just one out of the 56 you’ve had. If you were 17 – imagine losing the whole glorious year of being 17. I’ve had it very easy working from home throughout, and the only legacy will be not wanting ever go back to crowded trains and offices full of idiots and overpriced sandwiches. Our generation will get off light, as usual.
Good points. Some of the reasons that I have thrived relatively are that although I have been working in my living room it is a big enough room to be ‘zoned’, so I set up in the corner next to the window during the day with a completely different outlook to the rest of the day. I also live alone and like my own company, but am in a bubble with my other half so haven’t been starved of contact.
Young people, whether living with their parents or in house shares spending all day in one room and battling each other for wifi, must have had a far worse time of it.
Tomorrow is the second Sunday in March. On the second Sunday in March last year I went to my last gig before a year of lockdown. Impatient to experience live music again.
Since then my only contact with other humans has been brief chats at social distance with a few neighbours, minimal interaction with shop staff, phone calls to my sister and brother, zoom chats with a few friends, a chat with a police officer after I crashed my car at the end of November, Covid jab a few weeks ago at my doctor’s surgery, and one lockdown-breaking visit to my sister’s on my birthday, for cake and coffee.
Time has dragged horribly at times, but I’ve done more reading than before.
Yes it’s been a funny old year since I wrote that blog. I was genuinely trying to sort out whether to go the the Ben Watt gig (which was cancelled anyway, as I reported in the thread). A week or so later I applied for a permie job which I got and started in June ending 14 years of freelance work. So I’ve spent more time in the dining room than I have since we bought the house. Solid days of Microsoft Teams calls, one after another, all day every day…since you can’t do bugger all else I suppose I might as well be earning a crust. It’s either that or retirement, and what’s the point of that at the moment when you can’t do anything? Funnily enough, exactly a year on, today I had my first Covid jab which was beautifully administered mostly by volunteers. It’s cold but sunny and we are allowed to go to France so I am starting to feel optimistic for the first time in quite a while.
Excellent thread, Gatz. It promises to be very illuminating.
Chiz has hit the nail on the head. For those of us of a certain age, who live a pretty quiet life anyway, the pandemic has been fairly painless. For others, it is far worse.
We have an 18 year old who seems to be managing rather well. Since the autumn, his upper secondary school has re-opened and that is very good news.
Now he can finally go to the pub, however they all stop serving booze here at 20.00. For parents this is wonderful news. There are still small parties going on and girls who ring him on his hotline. So he’s doing OK
I do feel sorry for..
nursing staff all over the world who have been working their socks. off.
actors, musicians, cinema projectionists, dancers, artists, roadies etc
waiters, tourist guides, hotel receptionists, restauranters, flight attendants
A lot of people who have precarious incomes at the best of times, have had a very rough year.
And then there all the young adults who were planning to do some travelling.
Or those who have found their soulmate in anther part of the country or abroad and who can no longer meet up.
No fun!
Sharon and I went into a lockdown very early – her Agency was really good about this, and we had about four months of being in the house with just ourselves and the dog. The only time we went outside was to walk the dog. Much to our mutual relief, for it bodes well for retirement, we got on well in those circumstances.
Early September we moved to Texas, which was more or less the same thing, except in prettier circumstances. Sharon flew to Aus late September and I followed mid November. I found the 2 weeks quarantine easy, if I am honest. TV, internet, and as much coffee and Tim Tams as I could consume…
Life in Alice is normal. The only reminder that it may not be is when we use the US facilities over here, when we have to use facemasks.
Rugby is going on, so is trivia night, groceries and booze, day trips…
The only downside, as Mike says, is that I haven’t seen my family for ages, and it may be a year and a half before I see my son again. Thank God for Facetime
Being a civilian on Saturday afternoons is very difficult.
It’s never happened to me before.
7th March 2020
Our local rivals are at home on a beautiful sunny day, so I go. Crowd about 100, everyone presumes it will be the last game of the season. It is. Good game, 2-2.
Social distancing is being carried out in the part of the ground where everyone usually congregates quite independent of any instruction, social distancing not yet really being a thing.
Meanwhile, Boris Johnson, having missed FIVE Cobra meetings on the subject, is sitting with 81,521 other people at a packed Twickenham.
Midweek
Liverpool welcome a Spanish team to Anfield. Attendance: 52,267.
The (always) loathsome Cheltenham Festival goes ahead. Attendance: 251,684
14th March 2020
Sport decimated in Cornwall, but the Pirates do play out a bizarre match at Ampthill where the Radio Cornwall commentator declared it, pretty much off his own bat, to be the last game of the season.
We were taking it seriously.
When did the Government start?
13 March 2020 was my last day in the office, although I did go in briefly on the 16th to bring home my fancy chair, after 8 hours of sitting on a dining chair. As others have said, I’ve found it relatively easy to WFH with 100Mb/s broadband and Teams – last time I tried it, the tech was a 56k modem and a mobile phone for calls.
I find I eat better (no need for microwave packet rice) – I have dietary issues so can’t use the work’s canteen. I certainly don’t miss the commute (45 mins for 13 miles), or the shitty location (view of the A14 from one window, or the back of Tesco from the other), so I’ve opted to desk-share. I’ll probably go in one day a week just to talk to people in 3D.
My 17-y-o has suffered a fair bit, but she rarely goes out anyway, preferring to keep up with friends via video calls. I’ve noticed her mood lift after a week back at college. My 15-y-o spends too long gaming but goes out once a week and kicks a socially-distance football with a friend.
It’s people in their first year at university I really feel for – away from home for the first time, locked in a tiny room, doing online lessons, and paying thousands for it. But for a year, that could be my eldest. We’ve just paid the deposit on her Halls at Lincoln – nearly £8000 a year self-catered. In the 88-91 I paid £1000 a year full-board out of a £2000 grant, and had my fees paid.
My daughter is in the second year of Uni. At least she had almost two terms last year of the normal student life, so she got to know some nice new friends and they quickly made plans to move into a student house for their second year Living in the rented house this year, she spent her first year in Halls but moved home once lockdown started and lessons went online. She’s been in her shared house since September now and while its been far from ideal, her boyfriend (very nice lad) lives fairly near and they can see each other regularly, so I’m not too worried about her.
The fees are eye watering @fentonsteve aren’t they? And the way some of the unis have behaved towards sections of students over the last year is nothing short of an absolute disgrace.
Back in my day (same era as you) it was full grant and housing benefit. And I only got a loan to buy a new stereo and electric guitar…
Universities seem more like Education Businesses, these days.
Bums on seats….
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A rum ‘un, that’s for sure. How many of us thought it would drag on so long? I gave it a month or two, max, at the time, let alone expecting the outcomes to 120k+ people in this country. Yes, I was scared, but more confident than many of the doomsayers, many of whom have been proven right. For me, as a lucky one, I have had no drop in workflow or income. Bar one week of self isolating, I have gone into the “office” each workday as usual. Sure, it has changed hugely: it is 75% phone, video and e-consults, with only a few F2Fs, and those only where necessary and by pre-arrangement, aka triaged first by phone. And no need for shirts and slacks, it’s been scrubs every day, with masks, gloves and aprons for any contact, including home visits. But, despite that, downtime has hung heavy, with concerts and festivals cancelled, day trips to local towns and Nat Trust off the menu. And, as we are emerging slowly from the bunker, clutching our painful arms, it is worse in a way. The anxiety of what and how is impinging on the when, not least as ‘data willing’ has been dropped from any media blue skies ahead reporting. Do I want to go back into crowded pubs and other venues, restaurants and cinemas? Yes, but. It is a bit like the anticipatory fear I had around putting on PPE for the first time, terrifying at the time, now routine. And the new routine has made the old seem alien.
I wouldn’t like to do it all the time but I like WFH. This is going to carry on on average 2-3 days a week as part of the newly published way the company will work from the end of restrictions.
I know some people don’t like open plan offices but I do. I went in a couple of times last week and spent far too long chatting to people I hadn’t seen for ages (in case you’re thinking what I would be thinking, most of them came to me and I didn’t spot anyone running for cover as I approached!) so didn’t get as much actual work done as I’d hoped. I’m pretty certain that retirement isn’t going to suit me as much as working does (I like my job) and WFH is hopefully going to allow me to work longer (I’ve long suspected the thing that’ll make the final decision is the commute and if that’s drastically reduced – or moved outside rush hours, it won’t be so much of an issue).
I’ve stopped looking forward to events that then got cancelled or postponed and I think it’s important to me that there’s no FOMO because there’s nothing to miss!
It’s still hard to believe that, back in April, I was still expecting to be able to go to gigs in July!!
We had a nice weeks holiday in Edinburgh last August because it was already booked for the festival. It was a bit odd but we visited places we would never have had time to get to if the festival had been running.
For me, the worst thing has probably been only being able to see my mum once in the whole 12 months – especially when she recently spent 2 weeks in hospital – she’s always been one to go with the flow and her dementia has fortunately amplified that but she must have wondered what was going on with no familiar faces although she must have got so used to people about her in the care home wearing PPE, she may not have noticed!
We have some focus in that we’re in the throes of buying a new house so, although organisationally it’s been tricky, we’ve been allowed to travel to see new houses and have had face to face conversations with quite a few people. January was a particularly busy month for us.
The good news is that the end is now in sight.
Apart from 2 big things, no travel and no concerts, it has been not too dissimilar to normal for me. I need to work in the office 4 or 5 days a week, we have only had 5 or 6 people there instead of 50 the whole year. Also not much eating out, but that is hardly a terrible hardship, I feel for the restaurants though, a few near me have gone under. Last summer I went to pubs and drank/ate on outside patios, it’s what we generally do here anyway in warm weather.
Big thing is having my daughter with me for about 50% of the time when she had no school or is schooling from home (still continuing), She is 14 and has found things quite difficult especially as she lost her Grandma and my ex’s boyfriend also passed away. I have been able to spend the most time with her since she was about 6 though, not sure she appreciates it as much!
Canada has not had it nearly as bad as UK, and we are mostly out of lockdown now, however cases are rising and vaccinations have been much slower than over there. Cling to my hope of concerts and travel late summer/autumn but we shall see.
It was 1 year ago today that I held my dad for the last time. He had been a little off for a couple of days while we were visiting in the UK. We had popped over from Ireland where we had been looking at schools for our son for when we moved here. He was on a chemo course and his digestive system was reacting pretty badly to it. We said our goodbyes and headed to Heathrow for the fight back to Dallas. There were really bad storms over Texas that evening and we got diverted to Houston. A couple of hours there and eventually took off again and landed in Dallas around midnight, exactly as the travel ban (from UK to U.S.) came into effect. The next day we went to remote working. Dad went into hospital as he was not eating and dehydrated. At this point he just needed rest and observation. Store shelves were getting emptied by this time. Had a video chat with dad on the Tuesday of that week. On Saturday night I got the call.
Looking back now it’s hard to know how I managed the next month or so. Work, and our move here basically on hold, locked down at home, no purpose, no chance to mourn properly. Without my wife and son I’ve no idea how I’d have managed. The old ship was a bit rudderless. I threw myself into getting stuff sold online – we had way too much stuff to bring over here with us. I actually became pretty good at it. My wife had already quit her job in anticipation of us moving so it was difficult for her too. We kept going. Turned 50 in May and we actually went away for the weekend. It was the first wave of the rules being relaxed. By this time the move was back on and our home in Texas was going on the market by the end of June. We were clearing out and moving to Southern Illinois to stay with her sister for a few weeks before heading to the east coast and onward to Dublin. We had a pretty good month there. We finally reached Ireland in mid July. 2 weeks of quarantine to kick things off. We only left the flat to take the rubbish downstairs. Once we were finally able to get out out first job was to find a permanent home. The house we are in today was a little out of our price range but we fell in love with it immediately. Things definitely on the up. My wife’s father back in Illinois fell ill with Covid in August and sadly passed away within a week. Yeah, you couldn’t write this stuff could you? We moved into our new home in September.
So, here we are then. All the lads (my son loves that). We are very happy here, let’s get that out of the way. I wish we’d moved here years ago. I don’t think either of us have come to terms with everything that has happened though. You tell yourself that other people have had a worse time then us, and that’s undoubtedly true. You also tell yourself that your parents will die some time, that’s how things work. You tell yourself that it’s just a lot of things that were always going to happen just happened all at once, and just happened to be during a global crisis. We hope to visit the U.K. in June and then the U.S. in August. I haven’t seen my mum in 2 years now. Just want to hug everyone and tell them how much we love them and have missed them. I hope we always feel this way.
Ah, that’s a sad read @dkhbrit so much to cope with in a short space of time, so I really hope you’re all OK but I note the optimistic and pragmatic tone towards the end, so well done on getting to a place where you can feel that. My Dad (77) was very ill indeed and in hospital (not covid related) from November to two weeks ago and in mid December we thought we were losing him but the stubborn old bugger rallied. Initially in for a quadruple heart bypass, he had a stroke in theatre which resulted in some mild brain damage and kidney issues, followed by Sepsis. Not being allowed to visit was complete torture, although my Mum was allowed in once, and I suspected at the time that this was because they thought the end was near. To see him fight back and be at a point where he is now back home is the highlight of the last year by a long long way.
I don’t want to sound twee and cliched but the last year really has demonstrated just how important family and close friends are. Sure, I miss going to see my little local football team and the occasional gig but I know I’ll be back at those sometime this year. Big changes are ahead as both kids will be away at university in the autumn which will give my wife and I a new way of living but we’ll be embracing that idea.
Being able to visit this little corner of the internet has helped get through the day on many occasions too, so thanks all for that!