COVID-19 Lockdown by Signa Gillysdottir

Name: Signa Gillysdottir

Event: COVID-19

Time frame: February 2020 - October 2021

Where: England, Sheffield

Age at the time: 32-33

Gender: Female

Occupation: Unemployed

Any other details that may be relevant: I am disabled; registered visually impaired, and at the time I was caring for my mum who had MS.

A lot of it doesn't stand out; days seemed to bleed into one another and the passage of time felt so weird. I'm writing this in 2026, too, so my memory is unreliable when it comes to details.

My first real interactions with COVID safety stuff was during February 2020. I was volunteering at the annual Jorvik Viking Festival in York. We were told to use hand sanitiser and to wipe everything down.

When the first lockdown started a month later, I was living with a now ex-partner, and my mum lived about a 5-minute walk away. My mum had MS, and due to her being immunocompromised, we had to take extra steps. They called it a bubble. One or two people you were able to see, usually people you'd share your home with while lockdown was in effect. Being my mum's carer meant that she was also part of my bubble. I think they called our level of lockdown ‘shielding’. My partner was a frontline worker, but he was eventually put on furlough.

He would be the one to go out and run errands because he could drive. He'd do all the food shopping for my mum and us, dropping hers off at her front door to reduce contact.

I remember getting incredibly bored, and I picked up so many new hobbies, like most people did. I finally learnt to crochet and I'll admit to hoarding yarn. Even when most people were able to go outside again, I still had to be very careful because of being my mum's carer. Most of my life became consumed with one of two things: fibre arts or history. Buying yarn was one way I could bring a bit of novelty into my otherwise long and dull days. If I wasn't with my mum, I'd be at home crocheting and watching a documentary. My mum's house was all I got to see of the outside world, so those balls of brightly coloured yarn almost became a lifeline, a bit of stimulation.

Things started getting back to a kind of normal in the late spring of 2021. Face masks were essential, even when other people stopped using them, mum and I still had to be extra careful.

Then in August, mum was diagnosed with cancer of the lungs and brain, and my world turned upside down again. I stayed with her from that first day. Slept on her sofa, even moved some of my things to her home. My caring duties picked up, and so did our safety precautions. Her birthday was in September 2021, we could only invite her twin and my partner. We were basically under lockdown restrictions again. MS and cancer meant mum was at a very high risk.

When she was in hospital, I'd have to put on a lot of PPE to visit her. Face mask, face shield, apron, gloves. She was only allowed to have 2 authorised visitors. As her carer, I didn't count, so it was myself, my partner, and her twin.

She died in October 2021, 12 weeks after her diagnosis. She had already paid for a direct cremation, so there was no funeral. It felt strange not having to be so cautious anymore.