Here in the UK, we are approaching the first anniversary of going into lockdown. It's funny to think that when we first heard about Covid, many thought "it's just a little bug, it'll go away soon". How naive we were. This virus has turned the whole world upside down. Killing thousands and leaving many others with long lasting health complications. Not only that, it has closed many businesses, cut off families and friends and left many people isolated.
A year on and several vaccines have been created with varying degrees of success against the virus and the whole world is now on the road out of the pandemic as countries are vaccinating their citizens with the hope that some kind of normality can return to our lives.
This year has seen humanity at it's worst. Anti-maskers, anti-vaxxers, anti-lockdown protestors and conspiracy theorists who have spread so many lies and misinformation. Selfishness and disrespect have lead many to flout lockdown rules, causing cases to spike and lockdowns to drag on longer than necessary. not to mention several governments trying to cash in on this pandemic (UK being one of the worst).
But we have seen humanity at it's best as well. Many communities came together to help their most vulnerable people. The courage and selflessness of health care professionals, key workers and many other public servants has been phenomenal. And there have been some governments who have gone out of their way to protect as many of their citizens as they could (New Zealand, in particular).
The path out of this pandemic is now within reach, but it will likely take at least to the end of this year for everyone to be vaccinated and for life to go back to the way it was, and the effects of this will be felt for years to come.
How have you coped with this lockdown? Did you learn any new skills during this time? Have you had your first vaccine dose yet? What will you do to celebrate when this is over? Share your lockdown stories here.

" How have you coped with this lockdown? Did you learn any new skills during this time? Have you had your first vaccine dose yet? What will you do to celebrate when this is over? Share your lockdown stories here."

One coping mechanism is exploding diffident substances
New skills all digital learning styles
Vaccine I'm helping building a booster with moderna
Celebrate dance in the rain or in the mud some form of dancing

Thanks for posting your questions

Lockdown 1 was great for me: At home, getting projects done and not seeing people and doing photography.
Then I was recalled due to a tiny error in the PM's wording.

Since July I have been working my time in the hospital PLUS giving free counselling to those who need it. I am on 50-70 hour weeks since August last year!
It has been "over" for me for quite some time now, the only difference is I can't go shopping or visit places. On the plus side, I am getting my 2nd vaccine in April.
Celebrate? I'll buy a new watch as I decided I don't need one telling me how few steps I have done.
I am very tired, I might sleep.

The longer it went on the more frustrating it has been. Lockdown No 1 was weird, with a lot more respect being paid to the virus. The roads were so quiet, in a way peaceful. Since then the UK has made mistake after mistake with policy decisions. You look at countries like New Zealand and admire how they have kept the loss of life to a minimum.

I am waiting for my first jab. I won't be celebrating, just anxious to get on with life and goals. I think foreign travel for me will be a no-go this year, instead, it will be plenty of staycations.

Yes, blowing things up has been quite cathartic.

Victoria, here, experienced a miniature version of what yo brits have gone through which highly contrasts with the rest of Aus. Victoria fucked up big time, caused their own second wave and has the dubious honor of being responsible for 90% of Aus's death toll to covid and over 2/3rds of all cases. You take Victoria out of the equation and Aus would only have under 100 deaths and 10k cases.
As a contrast example, NSW pop is 1.5M higher than Victoria, yet had only a quarter of Vic's case numbers and 1/15th the number of deaths (54 compared to 820).

Interesting hearing your lockdown stories. My story has been up and down more times than my undies. The first lockdown was tough but, after a couple of weeks, I got used to it. The weather was beautiful during most of it, so that helped alleviate my mood a lot. I got a bit of lockdown respite mid-summer when my shop reopened for a bit. It was much quieter than usual, especially during August (which is normally our busiest time because of the Fringe Festival) but at least it was some semblance of normality. That was fine until November and Lockdown 2: Lockdown Harder. Three weeks of farting about at home got very frustrating very quickly. Then we got a bit of a release in December until Christmas and then Lockdown 3: Lockdown With a Vengeance. That has been the worst lockdown of the lot, because I had to cope with the general grey shittiness of January. But, we're almost out of it, and I get a feeling better days are on the horizon.
I have learnt a lot during this lockdown. I've been doing a lot of Duolingo to keep myself feeling productive and managed to finish the Gaelic and Italian courses (and regain my French trophy), and I'm now over a third of the way through the Spanish course.
Also, these last few weeks, I've been working a lot on my mental health. I started by logging off Facebook at the beginning of March and I think it's one of the best things I could've done. I've started relearning to love myself again, I'm starting to get on top of my anxiety, particularly my social anxiety, and I've been doing a lot of meditation, which has been such a huge help. It has helped me get some of my anxious thought under control and I feel a lot calmer now. So, when I log back onto FB in April, I will be able to go back feeling more like myself again.
That's basically been my lockdown life. I hope that, once this is over, we can go back to the way we were but with a much better perspective of our own lives.
Oh and I'll look forward to getting my first post-lockdown flanning, whenever that may be hehehe

It's been filled with inconveniences but nothing all that drastic or life altering for me. The two months of actual "everybody stay home lockdown" really worked well for me as I got to spend time with my immediate family because they were all home. I've gone to work at my office every day since it all began. I've had a mask on as required but we enjoyed the holidays with extended family, went to the beach, and generally had as much normal life as possible. Local government hasn't tried to cause too much trouble (they don't dare). I've got an appointment for my first vaccine dose on Monday. Looking forward to it.

Here in Canada (I'm north west of Toronto) there's been relatively little anti-mask sentiment. Right now there are enough people clamouring to get vaccinated that we're not worried about the anti-vaxers. The government response has been mixed.

Inconvenience for us but still we feel the emotional oppression of having to restrict contact with friends and family. The writing groups I belong to went online, but it's not quite the same as in-person meetings.

I get the sense the people will put up with social distancing and masking up but that there's little appetite for another lockdown.