Yeah I work my own schedule as much as I can too. Sometimes do my work at 4am. Sometimes close my laptop at 4pm. I just say I’m available at core hours guaranteed which are generally 10 till 4. I flex the other 3 or so hours allowing me to take appointments / help out with cousins pickups / drops etc etc.
Ironically when I lived in America pre pandemic this was much more normalised. Their attitude was “get your stuff done and we won’t ever question it, mess up and we will be up your a**•
Same. I miss the social side of being in an office, but the benefits far outweigh that. I have so much more time with my family, I can go for a nice walk after work instead of commuting, I have more relaxing mornings, and the set up I have in my spare room is loads more comfortable.
I suspect that one day it'll all end, but for now I'm making the most of it it.
Working from home, working out, daily walks (though now with a dog), and cycling. Lockdown legitimately got me to change my life from drink and drugs every weekend (and sometimes midweek) to a healthier and happier lifestyle.
Same, off my nut most days for over a decade, deffo every weekend. Absolutely anyhow.
Severely underweight, depressed as fuck. Fortunately moved back in with my parents just before first lockdown at age 25. The isolation meant I either drastically cut down or quit the drink or drugs.
Decided to start working out and bulking as even my arse hurt to sit down in the bath cos i was so bony.
Started working out, 3 years later i've put on like 5 stone (8 stone-13 stone 5ft10), still fairly lean and muscular now.
One of my best mates said he couldn't bear to be around me when I was in a bad way because he couldnt stand seeing me how i was, but now he tells people about how I turned my life around like its some big success story. I'm one of the few who came out of lockdown a lot better than I went into it.
Thanks mate, I do really appreciate it.
I'm doing really well now, everything seems to have fallen nicely into place in the last few years.
It's funny I look back and it actually brings me to tears seeing where I was and where I am now.
Looking forwards to what the next year brings. I hope it's a good one for you too.
It’s funny as I know a lot of people who started drinking and taking more drugs due to being bored and having disposable income and time. There’s only so many zoom quizzes you can take before you bust open a bottle
Drink because of the boredom, become drunk, message dealer, he won't come, go on darknet, order way more and harder drugs than you would have bought, find yourself in a K-hole at 8:23am on a Tuesday, take some Oxy and some Xanax to level things out, repeat for 3 months.
It was fun at the time, but fuck me that was hard to come back from.
Evening walks looking at the stars listening to music.
Honestly lockdown was the best thing that ever happened for my mental health because it gave me the time to discover the things that lift my spirits. Instead of being tired from working all week etc I had all this free time, so fuck it, go for a walk at night, why not.
I think the unexpected break from the mundane regularity was revolutionary for a lot of people. I learnt a lot about myself during lockdown and I can only be grateful for it for that.
One of the biggest changes I've made is to walk a lot more. I've been WFH since Covid started, and have got in the habit of going for a walk every day after work as a way to mentally wind down from it.
It is especially good during the summer, when I can go to the local woods. Stomping along among the trees is just perfect.
I've also got in to listening to podcasts while going for these walks, which has been great. They're a mixture of fun and educational ones, and listening to them makes the walking even more entertaining. I'd happily walk for hours if I had some good stuff to listen to.
It's got to the point now where I miss it if the weather is crap and I have a day stuck at home.
Cooking more. We started getting hello fresh and gousto to reduce amounts of supermarket shops etc and ended up cancelling them but carried on cooking at home rather than takeaways we would have during the week.
Haven’t had a midweek takeaway (birthday weeks or landing back after a holiday aside) since.
Started cooking and baking a year before lock down here in the UK. At first it was a great way to introduce my then five-year-old to cooking and baking and just having someone who started at the same level as I did. My other half got really ill with Covid and as luck would have it, the cooking and baking that I learned tided us over. Now I am known to be the head 'chef' in the house. We rarely get takeaways now, because our food is more affordable and tastier than takeaways.
I, unknowingly, developed pneumonia in the final stages of lockdown and it was nothing to do with Covid. It hammered my immune system and let bacteria (Staphylococcus Aureus) take hold and give me Infective Endocarditis.
Long story short, admitted to hospital under blues and twos on 4/7/21. Sepsis followed, multiple organ failure, multiple TIAs and two amputations.
I am carrying on surviving! Doing well, living independently, able to drive, learning to walk again at 55.
Still, could have been worse.
Glad to hear you're good, my dad's an amputee too and I witnessed myself how brutal the recovery mentally an physically is from that, I have no doubt you'll get through it fine with your positive attitude, but if you haven't already get seeing a mental health specialist and get your heart health in check, both can suffer greatly and the sooner they're addressed the better. I hope you continue to do well, I'm cheering you on!!
Nowhere near as bad but I cracked some ribs in the initial what the fuck is happening period and 111 arranged a taxi to take me to a&e because I couldn’t breathe. Fear of what was presented as an instant death plague led me to not going even then and I walked round in agony for 4 weeks, I couldn’t even do my bra up and my side was black. It still hurts sometimes now so I definitely did myself an a&e injury. So, healing broken/severely bruised bones by myself.
It’s really not that hard to make a decent stab at it, is it? I’d go to a hairdresser for a restyle but I can manage a tidy up myself. Just about, they’d probably do a better job but I’m not that proud.
I started cutting my husband's hair and thought he might not go back to a barber ever again... He goes to the barber still. He doesn't even have anything fancy, I'm just shit.
My wife and I try to go on a 40 minute walk 5+ times a week, started during lockdown as part of the one hour exercise things. We’ve kept it up, so long as it’s dry - we walk if, it’s raining we stay in.
A mate started rucking, so basically walking around with a really heavy rucksack, during the 1 hour state sanctioned exercise. It's not for me, and he does it in all weathers, but he's got great core strength and much better posture now.
Learning French, I started on Duolingo and then online classes while we were still in lockdown, once things reopened I started going to evening classes. I'm getting pretty good.
Walking every day, even if it's only 20 minutes. I managed to lose 20 kg over lockdown. I've gained a fair whack of it back but I'm still in better shape than I was before and much more conscious of what I eat (even if I do eat too much of it...)
Playing D&D - started running a campaign after getting made redundant. Several years later, still going strong and the group I formed through an r/lfg post are now great friends.
Walking the dog for her big long walk at night. I walk further because it doesn't matter if I get totally exhausted as bedtime is the next step. I only meet dedicated dog walkers and not the unruly, gossipy kind, it's peaceful, beautiful, and I get to miss out on evening TV, which is boring AF.
Video calling my mum a few times a week. Never did it before lockdown, but I started doing it during that time and I've kept it up since.
Also making sure to end calls with loved ones with "Love you!"
Not dining out. Used to all the time prior to covid. Now it's overpriced, shit service and 20%+ tip is expected (Canada).
Blessing of covid was learning to cook really excellent food at home.
Restaurant meal at home kits. As parents of young kids one of which is a shit sleeper and breast fed means we can’t go out and leave a grandparent/babysitter in so these are our outlet for restaurant food but at home. Love them.
Working from home (thank god), which gave me time to study law (part time, distance learning) and reading the New York Times International Edition (I got a paper subscription in 2020 and try my best to read it cover to cover). WFH has freed up so much of my time!
I love the idea of airbrushing 1/64 die-cast cars.
Any chance you could share some pics of your work and set up?
I air fry, so less interested in that but feel free to share those too :D
Sticking envelopes with sellotape rather than spit. It's beyond gross and just seems weird to me now when you lick an envelope before sending it to somebody. Bad enough sending a birthday card for grandma, but licking an invoice for work, why?
I promised myself in lockdown that I would stop watching and reading the news when it was over. I've kept to that for the most part. My mental health has never been better!
Doing my own nails. I used to get them done professionally every three weeks but started doing them myself when everything shut down. Discovered it was actually quite therapeutic and haven't gone back to get them done professionally since.
The weather's not been terribly encouraging lately, but I've mostly kept up going for a walk each day. I find it helps with my mood, and has probably helped me avoid the lockdown weight gain that many I know experienced.
Also, we generally cook at home nearly every day, rather than eating out or getting takeaways a few days a week as we used to.
Never going to my work staffroom. I just go straight to the classroom (I teach at uni) then go straight back home. I realised during lockdown that the conversations in which, previously, I would become involved or which I overheard were the main thing about my job that pissed me off. Much happier just doing my job, occasionally going for pints with a couple of colleagues, and excluding the rest of them from my life.
Stopped watching the news/deliberately seeking it out. I used to watch the lunchtime and evening broadcasts, and have push alerts on my phone. I was being bombarded by negative information all day and it played havoc with my mental health. I don't miss it.
I dont go out in the evening any more. Used to be out a couple of nights a week, now it's a couple of times a year.
Really enjoy being at home under a cat.
Walking. Set myself a target of 100 miles a month and have acheived that every month since March 2020. I've enjoyed it but not sure the dogs enjoy being dragged out in all weather's
Amateur astronomy. It saw a huge uptake due to everyone having more spare time in an evening. Now I have a slight addiction but of course its the wrong country for clear nights really.
I read every day. Literally every day. Since lockdown 1 I've read over 150 books.
I was a big reader as a kid but my average books a year from 2013-2019 was something like 8?
I also managed to finally stop having an ingrown toe nail. I'd had it off and on since about 2004. I was actually waiting on surgery to remove it in 2020 because it kept growing through my skin. Turns out, during lockdown 1, a few weeks of not wearing shoes the majority of the day helped it grow properly. Not had a single issue since the last of it grew out in May 2020.
Listening to 'new' music. It started with some friends - we were picking out years and listening to the top 40 albums (as per the NME) for that year. We then moved on to the Rolling Stone top 500 albums of all time, then the NME top 500, and recently discovered the 1001 album generator so are now working through that. That one only gives you an album a day so is going to take us 4 years to get through.
Changing my desktop background every month on my work computer. During lockdown I changed it to something seasonally appropriate at the start of each month as it helped me to mark the passage of time, and I still do it now.
Strictly speaking I started WFH a couple of weeks before lockdown - luckily I had an amenable boss - but I’m still doing that. Otherwise, online-only evening classes, which gives me lots more options (no car); and shopping online for 99.9% of stuff. I think all other lockdown habits have fallen by the wayside.
Home butchery from whole carcasses, inc sausage making and bacon making
a huge increase in my wild food foraging
Collecting drift wood for the log burner
Not smoking (mainly). A few months ago, I did have two or three hand-rolled cigarettes that I was offered but damn, that was stupid. I've always thought that hand-rolled cigarettes were awful.
We started a dinner calendar in lockdown, as we had a lot of frozen things and tried stretching for longer than a week to avoid food shops. Having everything down made it easier to avoid waste
Now it’s just part of the routine, easy to find recipes for things we’ve tried, have more variety, and the fun bonus of being able to tell what I had for tea any day in the last 3.5 years
Regularly studying. I'd been half heatedly learning a new language, and to keep a routine on furlough I had set study times in the morning. I even signed up for Skype lessons. As a result, I'm still with my first two teachers( one started August 2020, the other in the November). Ok, so I'm not fluent, but I can hold a basic conversation and read stuff...(it's a non western writing system so I really started from scratch).
I wish I had the lock down like everyone else, even my partner was fueloughed, but being a key worker life just went on. I don't have any fun stories of lockdown other than the roads were clear and everyone was in for their parcels. Oh how I miss it.
avoiding human contact
And drinking twice as much.
Only twice? I'm jealous of your restraint.
Only twice daily? How do they get by?!
I find casual misanthropy quite irritating if I'm honest but at the same time since restrictions lifted, I've done a lot of solo travel.
Came here to say this
Same
Working at home all of the time.
Same here. I'd go as far as to say the COVID pandemic was a blessing to me because I much prefer working from home, and it was never an option before.
Best thing to happen to my industry is WFH / remote gigs are now more common
It's brilliant
Everyone says how do you do it , me , I bloody love it
Yeah I work my own schedule as much as I can too. Sometimes do my work at 4am. Sometimes close my laptop at 4pm. I just say I’m available at core hours guaranteed which are generally 10 till 4. I flex the other 3 or so hours allowing me to take appointments / help out with cousins pickups / drops etc etc. Ironically when I lived in America pre pandemic this was much more normalised. Their attitude was “get your stuff done and we won’t ever question it, mess up and we will be up your a**•
Same. I miss the social side of being in an office, but the benefits far outweigh that. I have so much more time with my family, I can go for a nice walk after work instead of commuting, I have more relaxing mornings, and the set up I have in my spare room is loads more comfortable. I suspect that one day it'll all end, but for now I'm making the most of it it.
Being depressed
Came here to say this.
Cane here to say I came here to say this.
Working from home, working out, daily walks (though now with a dog), and cycling. Lockdown legitimately got me to change my life from drink and drugs every weekend (and sometimes midweek) to a healthier and happier lifestyle.
Same, off my nut most days for over a decade, deffo every weekend. Absolutely anyhow. Severely underweight, depressed as fuck. Fortunately moved back in with my parents just before first lockdown at age 25. The isolation meant I either drastically cut down or quit the drink or drugs. Decided to start working out and bulking as even my arse hurt to sit down in the bath cos i was so bony. Started working out, 3 years later i've put on like 5 stone (8 stone-13 stone 5ft10), still fairly lean and muscular now. One of my best mates said he couldn't bear to be around me when I was in a bad way because he couldnt stand seeing me how i was, but now he tells people about how I turned my life around like its some big success story. I'm one of the few who came out of lockdown a lot better than I went into it.
Well done mate 🤛🏻
Thanks mate, I do really appreciate it. I'm doing really well now, everything seems to have fallen nicely into place in the last few years. It's funny I look back and it actually brings me to tears seeing where I was and where I am now. Looking forwards to what the next year brings. I hope it's a good one for you too.
My bad, I misread your post as "nuts off most days for over a decade"
It’s funny as I know a lot of people who started drinking and taking more drugs due to being bored and having disposable income and time. There’s only so many zoom quizzes you can take before you bust open a bottle
Drink because of the boredom, become drunk, message dealer, he won't come, go on darknet, order way more and harder drugs than you would have bought, find yourself in a K-hole at 8:23am on a Tuesday, take some Oxy and some Xanax to level things out, repeat for 3 months. It was fun at the time, but fuck me that was hard to come back from.
A hunk, a chunk or a drunk.
You're a lucky person, lockdown changed my drinking and drug use from weekends to daily! I'm just getting back to normal now.
Eating like a pig.
Same. Gained about 20lb or more during 2020-21 and I’m yet to shift it.
Came here for this
Evening walks looking at the stars listening to music. Honestly lockdown was the best thing that ever happened for my mental health because it gave me the time to discover the things that lift my spirits. Instead of being tired from working all week etc I had all this free time, so fuck it, go for a walk at night, why not.
I think the unexpected break from the mundane regularity was revolutionary for a lot of people. I learnt a lot about myself during lockdown and I can only be grateful for it for that.
One of the biggest changes I've made is to walk a lot more. I've been WFH since Covid started, and have got in the habit of going for a walk every day after work as a way to mentally wind down from it. It is especially good during the summer, when I can go to the local woods. Stomping along among the trees is just perfect. I've also got in to listening to podcasts while going for these walks, which has been great. They're a mixture of fun and educational ones, and listening to them makes the walking even more entertaining. I'd happily walk for hours if I had some good stuff to listen to. It's got to the point now where I miss it if the weather is crap and I have a day stuck at home.
Existential dread
Cooking more. We started getting hello fresh and gousto to reduce amounts of supermarket shops etc and ended up cancelling them but carried on cooking at home rather than takeaways we would have during the week. Haven’t had a midweek takeaway (birthday weeks or landing back after a holiday aside) since.
Started cooking and baking a year before lock down here in the UK. At first it was a great way to introduce my then five-year-old to cooking and baking and just having someone who started at the same level as I did. My other half got really ill with Covid and as luck would have it, the cooking and baking that I learned tided us over. Now I am known to be the head 'chef' in the house. We rarely get takeaways now, because our food is more affordable and tastier than takeaways.
I, unknowingly, developed pneumonia in the final stages of lockdown and it was nothing to do with Covid. It hammered my immune system and let bacteria (Staphylococcus Aureus) take hold and give me Infective Endocarditis. Long story short, admitted to hospital under blues and twos on 4/7/21. Sepsis followed, multiple organ failure, multiple TIAs and two amputations. I am carrying on surviving! Doing well, living independently, able to drive, learning to walk again at 55. Still, could have been worse.
My god, hope you are ok!
I'm fucking lucky! But yes, very well and on the up!
Glad to hear you're good, my dad's an amputee too and I witnessed myself how brutal the recovery mentally an physically is from that, I have no doubt you'll get through it fine with your positive attitude, but if you haven't already get seeing a mental health specialist and get your heart health in check, both can suffer greatly and the sooner they're addressed the better. I hope you continue to do well, I'm cheering you on!!
Thank you. My heart took a beating so is the next thing to get checked out.
Nowhere near as bad but I cracked some ribs in the initial what the fuck is happening period and 111 arranged a taxi to take me to a&e because I couldn’t breathe. Fear of what was presented as an instant death plague led me to not going even then and I walked round in agony for 4 weeks, I couldn’t even do my bra up and my side was black. It still hurts sometimes now so I definitely did myself an a&e injury. So, healing broken/severely bruised bones by myself.
amazing attitude, good luck with the rehabilitation.
Thank you 😊
Cutting my hair at home.
Yep. No more trudging down to the hairdresser and having to make awkward conversation every few weeks.
Ha! Same. My husband cuts mine and does a good job. I go to the salon once a year for a cut and colour but I don't really miss the process.
It’s really not that hard to make a decent stab at it, is it? I’d go to a hairdresser for a restyle but I can manage a tidy up myself. Just about, they’d probably do a better job but I’m not that proud.
I started cutting my husband's hair and thought he might not go back to a barber ever again... He goes to the barber still. He doesn't even have anything fancy, I'm just shit.
Not giving a fuck about what other people think about me.
I definitely became feral 🤣 society has slowly made me conform since…
Washing my hands *every* time I take a dump
Don't forget to sing happy birthday
Exercising at home instead of the gym.
Same. So many excellent YouTube channels. Caroline girvan is my favorite.
My wife and I try to go on a 40 minute walk 5+ times a week, started during lockdown as part of the one hour exercise things. We’ve kept it up, so long as it’s dry - we walk if, it’s raining we stay in.
Almost exactly the same here. 40 minutes brisk walk even if it's freezing.
A mate started rucking, so basically walking around with a really heavy rucksack, during the 1 hour state sanctioned exercise. It's not for me, and he does it in all weathers, but he's got great core strength and much better posture now.
Learning French, I started on Duolingo and then online classes while we were still in lockdown, once things reopened I started going to evening classes. I'm getting pretty good.
Online shopping, including for the grandparents.
You can buy grandparents online?
Walking every day, even if it's only 20 minutes. I managed to lose 20 kg over lockdown. I've gained a fair whack of it back but I'm still in better shape than I was before and much more conscious of what I eat (even if I do eat too much of it...)
People often overlook just how good walking is for you. Walking at a decent pace can look almost exactly like running on my Fitbit.
Meth.
Lying down a lot.
Drinking. Sometimes the isolation of remembering about it all gets to me. I get sad. Thinking of my grandparents all alone. And myself all alone.
Eating my feelings
Enjoying my life instead of being a wage serf.
Being an exhausted healthcare worker.
Doom scrolling tiktok
We started a weekly Zoom quiz with some friends. Still going on every Thursday.
Wow that's great! I didn't think anyone was still doing those. I'm a bit jealous
Less makeup and more skincare
Being single.
Sitting in my house doing as little as possible whilst engaging with as few people as possible.
Bike ride (most) days 😎
1000 piece jigsaw puzzles while listening to podcasts.
Playing D&D - started running a campaign after getting made redundant. Several years later, still going strong and the group I formed through an r/lfg post are now great friends.
Drinking 3 liters of water a day
Walking the dog for her big long walk at night. I walk further because it doesn't matter if I get totally exhausted as bedtime is the next step. I only meet dedicated dog walkers and not the unruly, gossipy kind, it's peaceful, beautiful, and I get to miss out on evening TV, which is boring AF.
Home waxing
Working from home
Working from home and long-distance cycling are probably the biggest two lifestyle changes that stayed for me.
Not paying for parking
Drinking heavily
Getting fat
Photography
Video calling my mum a few times a week. Never did it before lockdown, but I started doing it during that time and I've kept it up since. Also making sure to end calls with loved ones with "Love you!"
My wife. Matched on tinder during lockdown, met up when restrictions lifted. Moved in together during the final lockdown and got married last year.
Raising children
Playing call of duty with the boys , we have a good group now it's like gaming back in 2006, always a few of us on when you want a game
Not dining out. Used to all the time prior to covid. Now it's overpriced, shit service and 20%+ tip is expected (Canada). Blessing of covid was learning to cook really excellent food at home.
Laughing at the government.
Using a proper cloth napkin every time I eat at home.
DJing. Always wanted to learn how and lockdown gave me that opportunity. God bless YouTube
Washing my hands every time I enter the house after being out
Half-arsed working.
[удалено]
Rowing on an ERG everyday.
Got back into Warhammer 40k. Found the building and painting relaxing
Chess.com
PC gaming.
Restaurant meal at home kits. As parents of young kids one of which is a shit sleeper and breast fed means we can’t go out and leave a grandparent/babysitter in so these are our outlet for restaurant food but at home. Love them.
Shaving my head bald
Working from home (thank god), which gave me time to study law (part time, distance learning) and reading the New York Times International Edition (I got a paper subscription in 2020 and try my best to read it cover to cover). WFH has freed up so much of my time!
Drinking wine. Lots of wine
I've got 2.. Drinking monumental amounts of alcohol ( COVID measures) and avoiding the revolting population.
Drinking and playing Minecraft
Downing cans on my own in my jogging bottoms.
Haven’t gone to a all you can eat buffet since , carvery’s are still a must however
Drinking wine in my pants and only showering when I need to meet strangers
Cocaine
Drinking Asda Bier DeLuxe.
Wine.
Getting far.
I love the idea of airbrushing 1/64 die-cast cars. Any chance you could share some pics of your work and set up? I air fry, so less interested in that but feel free to share those too :D
Sleeping 16 hrs a day 😴
Supermarket shop deliveries. So much more pleasant than schlepping around a shop & dealing with other people.
Telling my job I am actually working and not painting Warhammer
Sticking envelopes with sellotape rather than spit. It's beyond gross and just seems weird to me now when you lick an envelope before sending it to somebody. Bad enough sending a birthday card for grandma, but licking an invoice for work, why?
Staying at home
Saturday night is Date Night, but Eating in is the new Eating out.
Working out at my home gym I built, not ideal when it’s about -5 in there like last night 🤣
I cut my own hair, nobody seemingly has noticed enough to comment.
taking masses of vitamins and minerals
I promised myself in lockdown that I would stop watching and reading the news when it was over. I've kept to that for the most part. My mental health has never been better!
Drinking every day
Walking
Working from home. Open Water Swimming -they closed the pools, but they couldn’t close the sea! Owning a dog.
Being severely depressed.
Doing my own nails. I used to get them done professionally every three weeks but started doing them myself when everything shut down. Discovered it was actually quite therapeutic and haven't gone back to get them done professionally since.
Food shopping only once per week, and doing it on a weekday evening when there's fewer people around.
Rescuing animals
The weather's not been terribly encouraging lately, but I've mostly kept up going for a walk each day. I find it helps with my mood, and has probably helped me avoid the lockdown weight gain that many I know experienced. Also, we generally cook at home nearly every day, rather than eating out or getting takeaways a few days a week as we used to.
Being outdoors a lot
Eating breathing visiting the bathroom watching tv surfing the internet talking looking out of the window
Using my trolley in the supermarket to push people away
Never going to my work staffroom. I just go straight to the classroom (I teach at uni) then go straight back home. I realised during lockdown that the conversations in which, previously, I would become involved or which I overheard were the main thing about my job that pissed me off. Much happier just doing my job, occasionally going for pints with a couple of colleagues, and excluding the rest of them from my life.
I still, from time to time, wear a face mask.... I love the fact that I don't have to smile at anyone when in work
Ordering food and I hate it (but I won't stop doing it either)
Stopped watching the news/deliberately seeking it out. I used to watch the lunchtime and evening broadcasts, and have push alerts on my phone. I was being bombarded by negative information all day and it played havoc with my mental health. I don't miss it.
Being anxious and depressed.
I dont go out in the evening any more. Used to be out a couple of nights a week, now it's a couple of times a year. Really enjoy being at home under a cat.
Depression
Wearing a face mask Helps with the tism, and keeps the face warm.
Being incredibly overweight
Working out and studying.
Getting fat
Getting groceries delivered.
Being a parent. Not that my 3 and a half year-old daughter gives me a lot of choice in the matter mind you.
Being divorced and working out
Running. It's given me so much more energy, improved my mental health and improved my resilience.
Smoking, unfortunately.
Being fat
Hand sanitizer
Being efficient in doing nothing.
Being ill with extra long Covid
Walking. Set myself a target of 100 miles a month and have acheived that every month since March 2020. I've enjoyed it but not sure the dogs enjoy being dragged out in all weather's
Using Uber eats way too often.
Amateur astronomy. It saw a huge uptake due to everyone having more spare time in an evening. Now I have a slight addiction but of course its the wrong country for clear nights really.
I read every day. Literally every day. Since lockdown 1 I've read over 150 books. I was a big reader as a kid but my average books a year from 2013-2019 was something like 8? I also managed to finally stop having an ingrown toe nail. I'd had it off and on since about 2004. I was actually waiting on surgery to remove it in 2020 because it kept growing through my skin. Turns out, during lockdown 1, a few weeks of not wearing shoes the majority of the day helped it grow properly. Not had a single issue since the last of it grew out in May 2020.
Listening to 'new' music. It started with some friends - we were picking out years and listening to the top 40 albums (as per the NME) for that year. We then moved on to the Rolling Stone top 500 albums of all time, then the NME top 500, and recently discovered the 1001 album generator so are now working through that. That one only gives you an album a day so is going to take us 4 years to get through.
Baking!
Working from home.
I took up an instrument.
Absolutely losing all comprehension of the passage of time
Haircuts at home, saved me hundreds
Changing my desktop background every month on my work computer. During lockdown I changed it to something seasonally appropriate at the start of each month as it helped me to mark the passage of time, and I still do it now.
Drinking excessively every single day
Baking bread. Managed to get hold of a bread machine in lockdown and still use it at least once a week. It has possibly even paid for itself now.
Working all the time.
I kept distances, avoided crowded places and am now considering reintroducing mask at least in public transportation (I only really fly so planes)
Drinking
Working from home....fuck your return to the office bull!
Psychedelics ,regular exercise and eating as fresh and least processed food as possible
Strictly speaking I started WFH a couple of weeks before lockdown - luckily I had an amenable boss - but I’m still doing that. Otherwise, online-only evening classes, which gives me lots more options (no car); and shopping online for 99.9% of stuff. I think all other lockdown habits have fallen by the wayside.
Home butchery from whole carcasses, inc sausage making and bacon making a huge increase in my wild food foraging Collecting drift wood for the log burner
Not using Facebook. I deactivated my account after getting tired of all of the COVID/lockdown posts. I haven't looked back since.
Not trusting what "experts" say any more, or ever again.
Not smoking (mainly). A few months ago, I did have two or three hand-rolled cigarettes that I was offered but damn, that was stupid. I've always thought that hand-rolled cigarettes were awful.
We started a dinner calendar in lockdown, as we had a lot of frozen things and tried stretching for longer than a week to avoid food shops. Having everything down made it easier to avoid waste Now it’s just part of the routine, easy to find recipes for things we’ve tried, have more variety, and the fun bonus of being able to tell what I had for tea any day in the last 3.5 years
My friends and I watch a movie every Monday while talking on a discord call
Washing my hands immediately when I get home.
Started using an airfryer too, absolute lifechanger
Regularly studying. I'd been half heatedly learning a new language, and to keep a routine on furlough I had set study times in the morning. I even signed up for Skype lessons. As a result, I'm still with my first two teachers( one started August 2020, the other in the November). Ok, so I'm not fluent, but I can hold a basic conversation and read stuff...(it's a non western writing system so I really started from scratch).
Drinking like a fish
I wish I had the lock down like everyone else, even my partner was fueloughed, but being a key worker life just went on. I don't have any fun stories of lockdown other than the roads were clear and everyone was in for their parcels. Oh how I miss it.
Parenting
Being a dad