Back in April I reached out to friends around the world for their thoughts on lockdown. Deb wrote about lockdown life in Southern England here.
Six months on, she’s kindly written an update, before the government announced a month-long, England-wide lockdown, and has a lot to say … so maybe grab a cuppa. 🙂
In April, when the UK was in full lockdown, Ruth asked me to share a post on the subject of Covid. Supermarket shelves were depleted, food-shopping deliveries were few and far between, and we all needed a good haircut.
Six months later, how much has changed?
My hair colour for a start! I embraced the grey that had grown through and when hairdressers reopened in July I decided to stay a lighter shade with just a few highlights put through it.
Schools are back! Grandparents who provide informal childcare can help out again so working parents could get back to work or (if working from home) not have a toddler included in an important departmental zoom meeting.
Ah Zoom! How we relied on you during those early months. Zumba in the lounge was good but now we are back doing the class in a hall I realise how important the social contact of seeing other people participating too is to the enjoyment of the class. Paul’s badminton has returned, so we don’t have Tuesday night Zoom quizzes with his badminton crowd any more. I must be honest and say that the zoom quizzes had quite lost their novelty value by the time sports halls reopened and I’m in no hurry to do another for quite some time!
Supermarket queues have more or less gone. The shelves are well stocked and I don’t get anxious if I use up the last bag of rice or tin of tomatoes.
I’d forgotten what being stuck in traffic felt like! Now schools are back and people are gradually returning to work it is best to avoid going anywhere until the 9am school run is over.
But – we may have to hit the ‘pause’ button. Sadly our numbers are starting to increase again, and the county where our son lives is one of those moving to Tier 2. We are on the border of that county so who knows how long it will be before we have more restrictions again too.
In the meantime, we have been invited to take part in regular Covid tests for the Office of National Statistics. The idea is to test people who have no symptoms for a truer picture of how many people in the area have coronavirus. We will be tested once a week for a month and then once a month for a further 11 months. It will be interesting to see the results!
Thanks so much, Deb!
This West London Life 
Deb thanks for sharing your view. I think that there are many women world wide that have changed how they feel about their hair! Yours looks great. I am glad of Zoom, up to a point & I am most thankful I’ve not been part of any or seen any adult faux pas in Zoom, but it’s interesting to have little voices join in. There’s a whole lot of people thankful for Grandparent child minding volunteering. I’ve said on your blog, how great that is that you & Paul are part of this national study. Good Luck with this next lockdown segment!!
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While not a huge fan of Zoom, I’m still glad for the opportunity to interact with other people. 🙂
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That’s a lovely photo of you – you really suit your hair like that, Deb :). Yes, social contact is so important, isn’t it. Many of our friends are shielding, so our out-and-about is fairly solitary. We’re hoping to help out with childminding too in a week or two – a month seems such a long time! Lockdown 2.0 here we come
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Hoping that you’ll be able to see your grandchild/ren soon. 🙂
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It sounds like things really opened up there, although I’m reading a few weeks behind & it may be locking down again. The numbers here in the states are atrocious, but there’s lots of backlash about locking down & most people are doing what they want. Some stay home, others get out carefully (masks & social distancing) and then the rest … well, they do what they want. 😐
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So here we are – England is in a nationwide lockdown until early December – all non-essential shops closed, all bars, pubs and restaurants closed (except for take-away). Schools still open, for now – hoorah! Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland also have some sort of national restrictions in place.
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