The 23rd March 2020 saw the UK go into total lock down. It was a very challenging time.
My story is one of continuing to work through the lockdown taking on allot more work and hours. My wife also worked during this time at the local ambulance station where some deaths have directly hit the paramedics.
During this time I had already ordered my BEV, but it wasn’t delivered until a few weeks ago. So you might wonder why I had anxiety over range anxiety.
COVID19 was a completely new experience for the UK, I had lived through SARS and MERS when I lived in asia so had some understanding of what was to come.
My job involved being on call for 4 sites in Europe, France had gone into lockdown the week before and our company was having a few knee jerk reactions.
They decided to split the site into 2 working 3 days one week and 2 days the next on rotation, there are 4 managers on site 2 were immediately at home shielding due to new restrictions.
In the first week or so another manager felt hot and unwell and went to A&E so we lost him for 2 weeks also.
There were lots of messages flying around and not allot of regulations from the government. The local supermarket started to have no stock within days of this announcement.
My fear was that fuel would go the same way due to supply issues.
If I had to drive 288 mile return journey to our other UK site I would always need to have enough
diesel fuel in my car.
So this started me filling my car up on a weekly basis (normally my commute is around 30 miles), which opened up risks of using the filling station. It was a constant worry for weeks whether there would be any fuel, there aren’t many options around me.
The roads were eerily quiet, I didn’t see another car on the roads on the way to or from work. The whole of the estate I am on was dead quiet.
I saw stories in newspapers of cars taking this opportunity to speed heavily due to lack of traffic.
Pedestrians were also walking all over the road and became angry when you wanted to drive by !