The Lockdown Years

[Melanius Mullarkey]

4 minutes ago, 10menwent2mow said:

Taking about half an hour to get ready to go to the pub because you had to put on about 20 layers for sitting outside was particularly interesting. 

On the upside, Dundee city centre looked like the streets of Paris during the summer with its jakey pavement cafe culture.

[peasy23]

As far as work went it made very little. difference to me as I still had to go to work all the way through it. Lots of ludicrous rules at work around social distancing and the like. Only plus that came of it was that our shift times were all swapped around so that there were no overlaps and only one set of workers were in the building at a time, and we also got away with working 1 hour less per shift for nearly 18 months.

Pretty sad existence for a while with work and f**k all else to do, but looking back having some sort of routine probably helped to keep my mental health in a better place than it might have been. Golf course was shut for a month or so and once that reopened that was great for getting out in the fresh air. Missed the football even though we were having a pretty shite season when it was stopped.

[Gaz]

Spending about ten hours a day planning and delivering lessons that I, the pupils, and the school, knew fine well wouldn’t be attended by anyone.

Mental health going through the shitter. Putting on five stone.

My in-laws, who had previously spent a grand total of 23 minutes in each other’s company over the past 40 years (including when they conceived their three kids) visiting about four different supermarkets every day.

[Gaz]

I think it’s easy to look back and laugh at the ridiculousness of some of it. I certainly do.

However I think folk forget at the initial outset just how genuinely horrific the scenes from places like Italy were. Live video of overflowing hospitals, mass graves being dug, military vehicles driving around the cities ordering people to get home.

My middle daughter has a history of breathing problems and underlying conditions related to her lungs and I was absolutely terrified she might catch it.

[Karpaty Lviv]

On 06/02/2023 at 22:29, welshbairn said:

I quite enjoyed mastering all the Covid rules in different countries to find ways of sneaking around them to go on holiday between hardcore lockdowns. And not having to bother looking presentable going out to the shops thanks to face masks. And getting out of some family visits.

Me and three mates got a weekend in Berlin less than a week before they went full lockdown. We needed negative tests but from private companies and not NHS. We chanced it and upon arrival, German border force just glared at it like “WTF is this?” and just threw it back and waved us through. About 5 hours later I was sat at a bar drinking a pint and smoking a snout whilst back home that would have got you various degrees of charges. It was very surreal. 

infact I’m sure you were a great help for that trip, so thanks for that!

Edited February 8, 2023 by Karpaty Lviv

[Derry Alli]

The price of nose sugar going through the ducking roof.

[bennett]

On 07/02/2023 at 19:30, 8MileBU said:

My main memory from the Lockdown years has to be routinely going out to the doorstep every Thursday night for a month to clap for that boy from Irvine who got a month in the jail for jet-skiing 4.5 hours over the Irish Sea to the Isle of Man for his Nat King Cole.

Surprised that's not been made into a film or tv show yet.

[buchan30]

Worked all the way through it. Was a little bit scary at first, seeing icu staff in the full gear etc.  mrs took covid early on and it was shite. Real worry about her being taken into hospital. 
my youngest sons learning involved learning about scotland, glasgow in particular. I did consider letting him just sit and watch billy connollys world tour of Scotland, purely for help with his learning. 
We actually spent hours with him kicking my arse at star wars battlefront as well, and we had such a laugh with it. We built a shed and i bought a treadmill. When my hairdressers opened back up, they had an appointment system in place, which stopped us having to wait an hour, just to get a haircut. So there were some positives, but like others, it was a struggle. No 5s, no nights out, just work, home, walk the dug some nights.

 

[parsforlife]

Disaster all round, life stolen for 2 years.

Gave abit of an alarming insight into the British society, the fringe conspiracy theorists being part of it but I always knew they were mental, I was much more shocked at how many people live their lives not too far away from full lockdown their entire lives,   Sleep,  work, dinner and shite TV 5 nights a week and some gardening at the weekend.  Met a lot of people who ‘ didn’t really bother them’ they maybe missed one or two meals out for birthdays and that was it.  I didn’t realize quite how many people lived 350+ days a year in an utter pathetic existence and being happy with it.

[Hillonearth]

One thing I remember was a couple of weeks in having to nip into town to pick up some stuff from work - went in about 10am and was the only passenger in a four carriage train. You normally don't notice the jakeys and junkies about the place, but at that point they were all that was around...genuine 28 Days Later vibe going on.

Never paid much attention to the tier system...I'm walking distance from another health board area dnd it never stopped me. I remember it was a bit weird though being issued with a letter from the SFA which "allowed" me to travel as I was involved in the delivery of elite sport. Strange times.

[Fuctifano]

10 minutes ago, Hillonearth said:

One thing I remember was a couple of weeks in having to nip into town to pick up some stuff from work - went in about 10am and was the only passenger in a four carriage train. You normally don't notice the jakeys and junkies about the place, but at that point they were all that was around...genuine 28 Days Later vibe going on.

Never paid much attention to the tier system...I'm walking distance from another health board area dnd it never stopped me. I remember it was a bit weird though being issued with a letter from the SFA which "allowed" me to travel as I was involved in the delivery of elite sport. Strange times.

Yeah, working in Glasgow city centre those first few weeks was nuts, zombie film is the exact vibe I thought of with everything shut and boarded up and these mutants roaming about, as they always are tbf but the ratio of them to regular people was off the charts at that point.

My work's solution when folk complained they were terrified walking to their cars or to whatever public transport existed was to give us all personal alarms.

One quite cool thing was walking over the pedestrian bridge over the Kingston bridge at say 8am and there being about 3 cars on it.

[welshbairn]

26 minutes ago, parsforlife said:

Disaster all round, life stolen for 2 years.

Gave abit of an alarming insight into the British society, the fringe conspiracy theorists being part of it but I always knew they were mental, I was much more shocked at how many people live their lives not too far away from full lockdown their entire lives,   Sleep,  work, dinner and shite TV 5 nights a week and some gardening at the weekend.  Met a lot of people who ‘ didn’t really bother them’ they maybe missed one or two meals out for birthdays and that was it.  I didn’t realize quite how many people lived 350+ days a year in an utter pathetic existence and being happy with it.

Didn't affect me too much as I was a 24/7 home carer apart from respite breaks. I missed pubs but I had a garden and a beer pump and I'm in my sixties. If I'd been between say 15 and 30 I would have probably exploded with rage, or more likely just ignored the guidance and rules and been one of these terrible people having house parties.

[Satoshi]

I experienced lockdown in three different countries, and it ranged from good to annoying then horrific.

When it first happened, the restrictions were incredibly strict (i.e. you can only leave certain times of the day, and not at all on weekends) to effectively no restrictions by middle of 2020.

By the end, in a different part of the world, it was a kafkaesque quarantine and monitoring system as I fought hoards of ants in ropey temporary accomodation.

But I really enjoyed working from home.

It happened, it's part of life, very happy we have moved on.

I will 100% pretend to future generations it was a big hardship I was tough enough to overcome, rather than the truth that I was in a dressing gown most of the time.

Can't imagine what those in China went through with the years of lockdowns, that would have driven anyone crazy.

[Alert Mongoose]

8 hours ago, parsforlife said:

Disaster all round, life stolen for 2 years.

Gave abit of an alarming insight into the British society, the fringe conspiracy theorists being part of it but I always knew they were mental, I was much more shocked at how many people live their lives not too far away from full lockdown their entire lives,   Sleep,  work, dinner and shite TV 5 nights a week and some gardening at the weekend.  Met a lot of people who ‘ didn’t really bother them’ they maybe missed one or two meals out for birthdays and that was it.  I didn’t realize quite how many people lived 350+ days a year in an utter pathetic existence and being happy with it.

Each to their own, no? If they are happy with it, what's the issue?

[The Moonster]

8 hours ago, parsforlife said:

Disaster all round, life stolen for 2 years.

Gave abit of an alarming insight into the British society, the fringe conspiracy theorists being part of it but I always knew they were mental, I was much more shocked at how many people live their lives not too far away from full lockdown their entire lives,   Sleep,  work, dinner and shite TV 5 nights a week and some gardening at the weekend.  Met a lot of people who ‘ didn’t really bother them’ they maybe missed one or two meals out for birthdays and that was it.  I didn’t realize quite how many people lived 350+ days a year in an utter pathetic existence and being happy with it.

Can you give us an example of the weekly schedule in the exciting life of parsforlife? 

What a judgemental c**t. 

[RiG]

Queuing to get into Sainsburys for a pint of milk during the great toilet roll / flour / sugar / disinfectant shortage of 2020.

 

[Gaz]

Just now, Alert Mongoose said:

Each to their own, no? If they are happy with it, what's the issue?

There's nothing wrong with folk being happy with it if that's their lifestyle choice.

To have folk whose entire life revolves around work and watching telly try to tell the rest of us to be content with that same mind-numbing boredom was absolutely galling, though.

[Alert Mongoose]

11 hours ago, Gaz said:

There's nothing wrong with folk being happy with it if that's their lifestyle choice.

To have folk whose entire life revolves around work and watching telly try to tell the rest of us to be content with that same mind-numbing boredom was absolutely galling, though.

That would be annoying as you say. I don't recall anyone telling me to do that though?  Unless this is an attempt to have a go at lockdowns which is surely a different argument.

[effeffsee_the2nd]

4 minutes ago, Alert Mongoose said:

That would be annoying as you say. I don't recall anyone telling me to do that though?  Unless this is an attempt to have a go at lockdowns which is surely a different argument.

There was enough holier than thou c***s giving it "oh stop complaining all you have to do is stay home and watch TV"  how about naw ya c**t!  people don't like being confined to their living quarters and not being able to do or see who they want to. That's why we send people to jail as a punishment

[Alert Mongoose]

35 minutes ago, effeffsee_the2nd said:

There was enough holier than thou c***s giving it "oh stop complaining all you have to do is stay home and watch TV"  how about naw ya c**t!  people don't like being confined to their living quarters and not being able to do or see who they want to. That's why we send people to jail as a punishment

Did anyone actually listen to those people though?