Life in Lockdown: Retrospective

Happy New Year everyone!!

It's been over 18 months since we went into our first lockdown in March 2020, and it's been a wild ride. From when the Pandemic started to now, we are living in a new normal, everything has changed, including the way we go about our daily lives. 

Here's my experience during the crisis through to now, and what's helped me through.

2020 started as mayhem. A nationwide disaster. The apocalypse. Whatever you want to call it; maybe not 'the apocalypse', but it was bad. Very, very bad. Everyone was panic buying, and cases were rising by hundreds of thousands each day. Many people were dying, and we were put into Lockdown by the government on March 18th.

That was the turning point.

All of a sudden, we were trapped in our homes with our families; no work, no school and, more importantly, no socializing; And it was tough.

However, as well as all the downsides, there were positives. It didn't feel great at the time, but we were no longer consumed by everyday activities, and instead had the chance to re-connect and spend more time with our families. There were people (including us) putting rainbows up in windows and saying thank you to the NHS and key-workers for being so brave; we united as a nation to fight the Coronavirus.

At home, we were doing fun activities like bread making, watching films together and playing games. My Dad and I went on regular bike rides and online learning took up quite a bit of time. It was an interesting experience, but in late June/July, restrictions started easing.

In August, we managed to get away on a break to Devon and Cornwall, which was really cool, and then we started the new academic year in September. But, on 31st October, some restrictions came back. We continued to go to school up until December, and it looked like Christmas was still going ahead as planned.

Then, on the 20th of December, 5 days before Christmas, Lockdown hit again. That was it. No Christmas celebrations and stuck at home like before. It was quite sad, but we still made the most of it. We had a Zoom meeting with our family, and still had a huge Christmas dinner and got lots of presents.

That Lockdown continued through to January, where we returned to school virtually, using Google Classroom and Teams.

Although, finally, on March the 8th 2021, we went back to school. There were some restrictions in place, but it was good nonetheless. 

Being in year 6, and having to get back used to being in a classroom environment, was quite an experience, yet still a fun one at that. We did the year 6 production, which was EPIC!!, and also managed to go on the residential, which was one of the highlights of my year.

And that brings us to now- January 2022, where everything seems to be going okay. I've started year 7 in high school, and it's going great, yet it still feels a bit weird to be back in full time education. We're still advised to wear masks and keep distance from others, and my school was shut for a few days in December, but hey, this new norm is working so far, even if it has radically changed the way we do things.

It'll be interesting to see how the virus affects life in the future, but for now, we are living in a some-what new world.

Thanks for reading :)

-Jayden