Notes On A Year of Lockdown

It’s taken a year to even begin to find the words to articulate my experiences over the past year, but the one year anniversary of Lockdown feels like a good time to try.

It surprised me today, digging out my crocheted NHS rainbow to decorate the window again, and the Spring bunting that I bought at the start of the first Lockdown to cheer the house up, how nostalgic I felt, but then I am a ludicrously sentimental person.  The beginning of Lockdown did feel a lot brighter, and more hopeful than what was to come, and I certainly think that if we’d known we’d still be in the same position one year later, our feelings would have been much darker.

At the beginning of March 2020, I was one of the people taking the whispers of a global pandemic very seriously.  As someone with a life-long heart condition, I was very alert to the early warnings about which people would be more vulnerable.  In that first week, I spent every lunch hour scouring Boots and Superdrug, staring at empty shelves, and notices about lack of hand sanitiser, and anti-bacterial soap shortages.  As someone which chronic OCD, I always have a sturdy supply at home, because they’re things I use a lot of even without a pandemic, but my supply was dwindling. 

In the early stages, I think there was a sort of excitement, and novelty in the air, and wartime spirit of coming together, as anything out of the ordinary does have.  Liverpool City Centre, where I worked, felt like we were heading into an apocalypse. 

On the day that we watched two coach-loads of people being transported back from Wuhan in Hasmat Suits, and taken to Arrowe Park Hospital, just up the road from us, I told my Employer about my health condition, and said that I would need to work from home from then on, which was about a week before it was made official for everybody to do the same.   It was disorientating to watch Boris making his 5:00pm live broadcast, sitting at my desk, then packing up my immediate personal belongings, and closing my office door, thinking I’d probably be away for a week, maybe two at worst.   I actually never went back to that office, and my glasses are probably still on the desk.   I came out into the early dusk light, to a Mathew Street packed with people celebrating St Patrick’s Day in green hats, already falling over drunk, and oblivious to the warnings already being given.   That was the last time I got on a train, or went into town for nine months.

A couple of days before, I had elbowed my way through Queen Square, and a crowd of rowdy football supporters, now recognised as one of the turning points of the crisis.  I couldn’t get through town without passing through them.  I could see the Police slowly drawing them closer into the kettle, ready to escort them as a walking parade to the football ground.  If I was behind the kettle, I would have missed my train home, so I held my breath, and elbowed my way through as quickly as I could. 

The first week of Lockdown was quite exhilarating.   I rode my bike every day in the sunshine, having been told that we shouldn’t make car journeys, or travel out of our local area.  We stopped out weekly supermarket shop, and in the few weeks until we could get a slot for home delivery, we had to rely on our small local corner shops for essentials.   There was a lovely feeling of community, which is one of the positive things to come out of all this.   We ordered fresh vegetables, and cheese from local shops, planted flowers in the garden, started growing vegetables.

In the first week I ordered a batch of locally made handmade cotton face masks for my family, which were delivered by an NHS motorbike courier.  I’ve been wearing a mask every day since, long before it was made mandatory.

Local restaurants used up their surplus stock by taking meals to local elderly residents, and everybody put rainbows in their windows.  We started a weekly virtual pub quiz, comparing scores with my grandparents afterwards, which we still do.   We also started doing Ken Bruce’s Popmasters Quiz religiously, now that we weren’t stuck in work, and again compared scores afterwards with my grandparents.   We’re still doing that every day.   I was placed on Furlough, and spent the Summer sitting in a chair in the garden, reading as many books as I could get through.  We’ve learned to bake bread, and joined the obsession with banana bread, and ordered copious amounts of cheese to be sent through the post from our local cheese shop.

There have been low points, such as when I was made redundant, and even lower points, such as when I finally managed to secure a temporary job in October, and had to start getting the train into the city every day, after not leaving the house for nine months, terrified of the people who wouldn’t wear masks, or keep a distance.  Or the time we watched my Grandad being taken into hospital in an Ambulance, not with COVID, but we really thought we’d never see him again.

There have also been high points, such as VE Day, when all our neighbours sat on their front gardens with afternoon tea, we decorated our houses with Union Jacks, and played 1940s music. We chatted across the road with people who we’ve lived along side for 30 years, and grown up with, and had many outrageous parted with over the years.  I made a red, white, and blue trifle, and watched Captain Tom on the tv.

We clapped every Thursday at 8:00pm; partly to show our gratitude for the NHS, and partly as an excuse to see our neighbours, and hear their pots and pans along the road.  At the time, it was the only human interaction we experienced.

We were filled with optimism at the start, mainly because our energy and resources hadn’t been worn down, as they have now.  We didn’t know how much would be lost.  Simply the task of wiping down every item of food with the weekly shopping delivery has become an exhaustion.  Spending Mother’s day on my Nanna’s drive, waving to her through the door was okay, because we thought that by this year, we’d be back to normal.  We never imagined it would last this long.

Watching my sister go through the first few months of her pregnancy by herself was painful.  She didn’t even tell us for a long time, because she was waiting to see us in person to give us the news, but it never came, so she told us over Zoom, like everything else this year.  She went to every scan and appointment by herself, because nobody else could go with her.  She struggled to breathe through her face mask, and dreaded every appointment bringing bad news that she would have to face alone.

But then Boris introduced Support Bubbles, and we have never been so grateful.  Everything changed, and we could share that experience.  Becoming an Auntie has been the greatest joy of my life, but it’s heart-breaking that Tiger Lily still hasn’t met the majority of her family, and there are so many people who love her, but can’t hold her, or even be in the same room as her.  It’s been a hard road.

Living with OCD during a global pandemic has been difficult, but not as much as I expected.  If anything, I’ve felt slightly more relaxed on that front than I would normally.  My OCD is specifically concentrated around bacteria, and contamination.  All those things that we’re all doing now; washing hands every two minutes, keeping sanitiser in pockets and bags, standing back from people so as not to breathe in their aerosols, covering our hands when touching any public things such as doors, handles, ATMs, money, etc, washing/wiping and items bought in shops, or handled by anybody else, holding your breath when you pass anyone else, removing clothes, and showering as soon as you enter your house, these are all things I’ve been doing for about 20 years.  Now that they’ve become normal, and I know that everybody else is washing their hands, and sanitising any items they come into contact with, I don’t feel *as* anxious about touching things. It’s quite comforting to know that now everybody’s hands are raw and bleeding from all the washing, and I’ve become the go-to guru for any family members who want advice on the best soaps, or sanitisers. 

There have been joyous moments, such as when I hosted Desert Island Discs for my family over Zoom to celebrate my birthday, which made me feel less alone, or when we organised a Christmas light switch-on in our road, to make up for all the local annual celebrations that we were missing, and everybody switched their lights on at the same time, and we played Christmas music, and walked around the streets with mugs of mulled wine, admiring each other’s decorations.  There have been a lot of joyous moments amongst the darkness.

I was so happy last week to receive the first dose of the vaccine.  Whilst I’ve felt rough all week, I’m so grateful to be vaccinated, and it’s the first small step to getting back to normal.  As we approach another Easter in Lockdown, let’s hope it’s the last.

Keep going, everybody.