The Lockdown Years

[MONKMAN]

I openly admitted on here at the time, much to the dismay of my fellow posters, that I didn't pay much attention to the rules due to the utter stupidity of them. 

At no point did I stop visiting my family or friends, and spent most weekends sitting boozing with our next door neighbours. 

Living 2 minutes from Glasgow green, I certainly wasn't restricted to the time and frequency of how often I went walking or running.

Managed to sneak off a couple of holidays depending on the restrictions at the time. 

Went hiking as often as we liked, although coming through Glencoe one winters day the police were randomly stopping and ID'ing cars going into the ski centre to ensure they were local.  We luckily got waved through.

When the ridiculous Tier system came into place, I just stopped giving any f**k.  Back down to Dumfries if we fancied a meal and a few drinks.  We even travelled to Aviemore for the weekend, where I used my old driving licence (dumfries address) as ID to check into the hotel. 

When things started opening up, we used restrictions as an excuse to have a small private wedding, even though we were always planning on doing it that way.

Managed to get to all 3 Euros games, but hated missing out on Queens games.

Lockdowns were actually a great excuse not to see people.

Hopefully in years to come, people will study just how obscenely moronic the whole situation was.

 

ETA... waiting anxiously for all the 'ooooh you're hard' replies.

 

Edited February 7, 2023 by MONKMAN

[philpy]

The limiting outdoor exercise thing was a lot of bollocks that probably near enough no c**t adhered to.  Sitting in the house/garden was cracking me up, so regular 5 mile walks took place. Got a new camera and got really into wildlife photography. Now most weekends I'm up early, hangover free and away out with the camera. Was only furloughed for a month which was long enough.  Was busy as f**k when I went back, as every c**t was doing decking or putting up new fences. Lowest point was having to "celebrate" my dad's 70th through a video call.

[8MileBU]

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.

[Scary Bear]

I’m still living the dream. Come March, I’ll have been working from home for 3 years. They’ll literally have to drag me kicking and screaming if they want me back in the office.

In terms of memories of the time, the weather when we went into the first lockdown was lovely so I recall sitting in the back garden a lot. A lot of the rest of it was a pain in the arse and I have no time for the current Scottish Government anymore. A shower of useless c***s who can’t get punted soon enough. 

Wearing masks becoming the norm, and watching football on your laptop will also linger in the memory.

[Mr. Brightside]

Banging pots and pans every week to  "show support" for NHS workers and now being raging that they're on strike to try and get a decent wage. Classic virtue-signalling right-wing Brits.

[Ekhibee88]

In some ways I miss the early eerie quiet lockdown but in many ways I don't. Only good thing to come out of it was WFH.

[Alert Mongoose]

The sheer futility of the Woolwich Ferry doing 'doughnuts' on the Thames to support nurses/carers.

 

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

6 hours ago, Molotov said:

What were the restrictions at the outset? A single 20minute walk a day?  

Fresh air and exercise probably the best things to do for your health. Physical and mental. 

 

In fairness, Police Officers were in a position where they were damned if they do or damned if they didnt. There was genuine outcry, people foaming at the mouth, reporting their neighbours for going out 2 walks a day, this also wasnt just a small amount of people it was a massive cross section of society. Then there was the sections of society who felt that rules didnt apply to them. A lot of colleagues took the restrictions as literal non shifting guidance for different reasons/motivations, we were being briefed that this was going to be massively dangerous, were preparing for people dying at rates even higher than we saw, like old depictions of the plague, so for the first couple of months at least people were genuinely terrified, given we were being sent out to be spat on with the government not giving a shit about protective equipment for us , it was a massively worrying time. 
I had colleagues who had kids undergoing cancer treatment who moved out of the house to avoid the risk of bringing it home, like ive said we were seeing on the media and being briefed internally that this was going to be catastrophic. People were terrified about going to work and being sent to our deaths. I had mates who’s parents died and didnt take proper time off to get over their death for fear of not being their for their colleagues. I was terrified as well, my dad even before his cancer diagnosis was really unwell, i am a carer for him, being locked up for 14/10 days because some dickhead with or who claimed to have a positive covid diagnosis was spitting on you or was even just in proximity was so upsetting. This unfortunately happened to me and some people on several occasions. 
Yes some can on reflection think the polis were jobsworths and maybe some were, but besides the fact it was policing in entirely alien circumstances, it was also as a person genuinely frightening until we knew more about the virus etc. 

[Benjamin_Nevis]

Pros

• I managed to buy the last turbo-trainer Halfords had the day before lockdown was officially announced which got me onto Zwift which helped exercise-wise
• The roads being quiet as f**k for cycling
• Working from home all week was initially glorious. There wasn't much to do as the Tribunal Service were shut and most of my debt cases were fully aware they could patch their rent and council tax as recoveries were not effectively happening. 
• Because I couldn't drive far enough to tackle any new munros i was limited to local walks and hills which was actually really good, discovered quite a few nice ones
• Being absolutely fucking loaded because we weren't going out to send money on anything other than shopping. Obvs I then proceed to buy loads of shite I didn't need. It was like an unending christmas. Superb. 
• The meltdowns from Hearts and Thistle fans after Dundee's email-gate. Sensational stuff and highly enjoyable. 

Cons

• Not being able to see my folks for a while. Eventually just ignored that pish. 
• My old man developing cancer through lockdown. Only mum was permitted to see him in hospital. I had to drop some clothes off at Ninewells reception for him once, it was incredibly eerie, hazard tape and masks everywhere. Almost like a scene from a zombie movie. When he got home eventually he point blank refused any further treatment that involved a hospital stay. 
• My partner being ambulanced into ninewells after a series of brain-injury related mini-seizures. I wasn't allowed to go until it was time to collect her the day after. 
• Working from home all week became a bit tedious, I actually missed the office side of things. We're now working a 2/3 home/office split which is decent
• Endless enquiries from middle class folk now discovering the benefits system for the first time. "Is this all I get?! This can't be right11!!!"
• Being ripped off by Sykes Cottages trying to only give out a partial refund for lost holiday bookings. It took months for them to cough up. c***s. 
• Community Facebook pages rammed full of arseholes moaning that their street wasn't clapping loud enough at 8pm on a Thursday. 

Just a surreal as f**k period tbh

[Molotov]

2 hours ago, Inanimate Carbon Rod said:

In fairness, Police Officers were in a position where they were damned if they do or damned if they didnt. 

Agree with all you said.
In fairness my post was never directly critical of the polis. Sorry if it came across that way. 

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

30 minutes ago, Molotov said:

Agree with all you said.
In fairness my post was never directly critical of the polis. Sorry if it came across that way. 

No no didnt take that way for a second, should have multi quoted a few folks, just trying to give people an insight into the reality of why certainly at first people were critical etc and a bit of a first hand take on it. 

[hk blues]

23 hours ago, ICTChris said:

Someone who might know this sort of thing told me that when the Scottish Government introduced the different Zones for local authorities they initially went to the police and asked them to plan for enforcing travel bans between local authority areas - ie having cops standing guard, pulling people over etc.  They were quickly told that you'd need to recruit several thousand officers to do this and that even if you could, should you?  You drive across a couple of council areas if you go all the way round the Edinburgh bypass.

We had this situation - there were guard points between each major area in the city and only folk with a pass were allowed to travel through the checkpoints.  Folk here just took it on the chin as they do most things.  

[ICTChris]

Just now, hk blues said:

We had this situation - there were guard points between each major area in the city and only folk with a pass were allowed to travel through the checkpoints.  Folk here just took it on the chin as they do most things.  

I think they might have had a different enforcement strategy in your neck of the woods - https://interaksyon.philstar.com/politics-issues/2020/04/02/165579/shoot-them-dead-duterte-says-wont-tolerate-lockdown-violators/

[hk blues]

1 minute ago, ICTChris said:

I think they might have had a different enforcement strategy in your neck of the woods - https://interaksyon.philstar.com/politics-issues/2020/04/02/165579/shoot-them-dead-duterte-says-wont-tolerate-lockdown-violators/

He was some boi!

His daughter's now the Vice President but he doesn't seem to have rubbed off on her. (there's a tap-in for somebody).

[scottsdad]

12 hours ago, Benjamin_Nevis said:

Being ripped off by Sykes Cottages trying to only give out a partial refund for lost holiday bookings. It took months for them to cough up. c***s. 

I booked a holiday with Sykes for July 2020. Booked it in October 2019, and cancelled it in April 2022. They gave me a partial refund at the time then a few weeks later gave us the remainder. 

[KD1711]

17 hours ago, philpy said:

The limiting outdoor exercise thing was a lot of bollocks that probably near enough no c**t adhered to.  Sitting in the house/garden was cracking me up, so regular 5 mile walks took place. Got a new camera and got really into wildlife photography. Now most weekends I'm up early, hangover free and away out with the camera. Was only furloughed for a month which was long enough.  Was busy as f**k when I went back, as every c**t was doing decking or putting up new fences. Lowest point was having to "celebrate" my dad's 70th through a video call.

I remember going a workout with one of my mates at the beggining, and there was someone calling us out on the running track for not being from the same household.

I had a pretty good time in the first lockdown, I had sold my business for decent money in January 2020 which was a shop so I couldn't have timed it any better, finished off my uni degree (got a 1st) and got into running so I ended up losing about 5st and ran a marathon and plenty of half marathons.

Managed to get to Ibiza and Crete in 2020 which was brilliant with how quiet and cheap it was, just chilling in the sun all day. Went to Alton Towers and Blackpool Pleasure Beach a few times too and the lack of queues were great.

When everything started to shut back down again I hit a proper lull for a few months where I'd just be eating shite and scrolling endlessly on social media, rotating between Instagram, snapchat and twitter, and playing Warzone all day.

Moved to Newcastle in January 21 for a new job starting in the September, got my masters from Newcastle Uni and moved in with the Mrs so it got a lot better again. Got back into decent nick and managed to get away on couple of holidays, go to Wembley and the Czech game during the Euros.

Weird time looking back and just feel like it is 2 years totally wasted.

[Ron Aldo]

It was utterly miserable and anyone who says otherwise is at it. 

The novelty of working from home well and truly wore off after the first couple of weeks.

Initially there felt like a strange sense of togetherness but the ridiculous tier system soon put paid to that with whole areas of the country (mainly Lanarkshire) being treated as though they were disease ridden cesspits. 

Restrictions would be lifted and there appeared to be a glimmer of hope only for a new "variant" to appear. 

The only positive thing to come from it is my barber brought in a booking system which is still in place and means I no longer need to queue for a haircut. 

[Widge]

I didn't like not seeing the sun until 4.30pm most days living in an Edinburgh tenement and having to work.

On the flip side, realised I didn't want to live in the city centre anymore and bought a house with a garden, so swings and roundabouts.

[Alert Mongoose]

20 minutes ago, Widge said:

I didn't like not seeing the sun until 4.30pm most days living in an Edinburgh tenement and having to work.

On the flip side, realised I didn't want to live in the city centre anymore and bought a house with a garden, so swings and roundabouts.

Do you go out into the garden and use them?

[10menwent2mow]

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.