Looking back to early 2020

In view of events I'm just going to express a few thoughts around the at times forever change nature of restrictions.

One big problem with making restrictions is everybody's situation is different, some have easy access to open countryside, others are very dependent upon the parks and green spaces and in those early days of 2020 things were highly restrictive.

Here you were challenged if you wanted to go the commercial centre of the district and if your answer was to want to look around you'd be turfed right off the bus by drivers.

Derbyshire police famously arrested a woman  for sitting on a sit while out having a coffee cos she was cold lest others do the same and might get close.

In Wales restrictions were such that parents could not get clothes to fit their children properly because shops were banned from opening even for the most essential items such as damaged or not fitting coats so children went cold.

Everybody lives in different sorts of accommodation from say a two bedroom flat in a high rise block to a mansion via a farm house and the open space such as gardens varies hugely.

Even in this district we have terraces with just a"postage stamp" rear garden to large ones belong to detached properties and my own being a corner plot has a small front, substantial side and medium sized rear gardens.

The restrictions while being based upon the best available advice about spreading covid through shared spaces and taking in social distancing initially two metres were identical regardless of your situation meaning while the letter of the law may of been broken, a good number of us could and did meet more people out of doors than regulations permitted because we felt the understanding given showed no risk to public health where the rules were based on what everyone could do.

For us this was using "common sense" with caution.

We read about things like groups of over a hundred in indoor spaces meeting for weddings because it was custom and equally while some were misguidedly told no one was allowed to attend funerals for partners or immediate families three hundred plus strong funerals did take place in some communities with the police turning a blind eye to it and many of us at that point  could only at best get around 14 to 18 attendees.

I know in this district rules certainly were not followed to the letter in the early months in the spring and summer of 2020 with people buying sheds to make unofficial points to gather for alcohol and chat.

Ill advised for sure but it happened regardless and so across all society rules were bent if not broken some certainly by people who really should of known better given the work they did.

While some do owe us an explanation of just why they did and in certain situations I do feel it was plain wrong, I don't feel it was an Us and Them situation as from where I'm standing plenty of Us did it too.

I feel in hindsight some of those initial restrictions were flawed, stopping things that were good for peoples health where actually there was little risk and the enforcement was all over the place, overzealous in some areas while ineffective and ignored for social order reasons elsewhere.