Weekend in London

[Smilesonfaces]

We were also in London last week. We thought it was fairly quiet considering it was half term. I was surprised at how many people we saw wearing masks. I never see anyone wearing them at home now. We did wear ours on public transport and in the shops. I admit to no longer wearing one locally but it somehow still felt quite normal in London.

[Princess Alison]

We spent half term in London and found it generally normal aside from the city which was very very quiet. Most people wore masks, which was great. I'm still signed into the covid track and trace app though and it's up to 10 people who I've been near and who have since tested positive ( I've not been near long enough to trigger an alert though)

[DisneyDaffodil]

We are in Birmingham for a few days and it’s just the same here. Quite a shock to us as we are from Wales so are so used to still wearing masks etc

We did wear our masks in the shops today, as we do so at home so we felt more comfortable continuing to do so

[scooby99]

London is ‘back to normal’ except for one major area; a huge number of office workers aren’t back.
Saw a news item last week; said that TFL journeys at weekends are back to circa 90% of pre-covid levels; weekday journeys less than 50%.

I’ve worked in my office (15 minutes walk from Oxford Circus) twice since March 2020; I was the only member of my team in and most of the others have no plans or date in mind to return; it was deserted and felt soulless; the coffee/sandwich shops in the area were so quiet compared to life pre 2020.

[Mexy02]

Originally Posted by scooby99

London is ‘back to normal’ except for one major area; a huge number of office workers aren’t back.
Saw a news item last week; said that TFL journeys at weekends are back to circa 90% of pre-covid levels; weekday journeys less than 50%.

I’ve worked in my office (15 minutes walk from Oxford Circus) twice since March 2020; I was the only member of my team in and most of the others have no plans or date in mind to return; it was deserted and felt soulless; the coffee/sandwich shops in the area were so quiet compared to life pre 2020.

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I think that’s the same country wide ,why commute when you can do the same job at home and do more work .

It certainly felt like pre covid and as we know ha,f term yet we didn’t see many kids , mainly adults everywhere . Shows , pubs, eating out , shopping .
It will be interesting as we are going down again over Christmas . Obviously may be even more tourists over the Christmas period as well.

[Mexy02]

Originally Posted by Princess Alison

We spent half term in London and found it generally normal aside from the city which was very very quiet. Most people wore masks, which was great. I'm still signed into the covid track and trace app though and it's up to 10 people who I've been near and who have since tested positive ( I've not been near long enough to trigger an alert though)

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We got rid of that app a long time ago . Just couldn’t see the point when you don’t even have to isolate even if a family member has it and your test is neg . Complete waste of time and money which could be ploughed into nhs services instead.
Our kids are back tomorrow so still half term up to today .

[loldis]

Originally Posted by Mexy02

I think that’s the same country wide ,why commute when you can do the same job at home and do more work .

It certainly felt like pre covid and as we know ha,f term yet we didn’t see many kids , mainly adults everywhere . Shows , pubs, eating out , shopping .
It will be interesting as we are going down again over Christmas . Obviously may be even more tourists over the Christmas period as well.

See more...

What I've always found funny about half term and school holidays is the number of adults I know without children who still take this as their time off. It's like it's been ingrained from all the years at school.

It's been a couple months since I was last in central London and it was still absolutely dead compared to what I was used to as a daily commuter. As someone else said, huge number of office workers aren't back yet with no signs of returning. So the second you step away from the main tourist/shopping areas and into the more office heavy areas, you can really feel it.

While not in London itself, I was on a London bound train last week in peak hour and it was less than half the normal volume for that time of day. And it was on a day where a lot of services were cancelled due to a line fault, so that train would have been busier than usual.