I do the same, stay isolated for long periods, then go out very occasionally to cafes. I find the experiences vary, depending on mood, whatever it is that's in the air. If we are unfortunate enough to pick a day when things are wrong, a down-day, then we don't just see one dystopian event but many.
The weirdest outing yet for me started that day with my apartment intercom bell being buzzed but when I went to check who was buzzing there was no one there on the intercom closed circuit camera, the street was empty.
This happens sometimes, a person might buzz several apartments, someone might activate the building front door lock without even looking to see who is buzzing. I don't, I always check.
Anyhow it got me curious enough to want to go out.
On the way down to ground in the lift, the next wierd thing happened, a woman's voice appeared on the lift intercom, repeating "Hello?, maybe three times, as if she'd been rung, and expected someone on the other end of the phone. This was the first time I ever heard anyone on that lift intercom, which I didn't even know for sure existed, since I moved into my flat 15 years ago, the first occupant after it was built in 2008. I guess the lift intercom might be there for emergencies but I don't know of anyone having occasion to use it.
Being a Systems Engineer, and knowing how networked systems now are hackable, even by "accident", by other networked systems, Remembering public demos of hackers hacking live flying aircraft, from anywhere connected by internet, nothing is impossible, so I suspect the lady on the internet might have been a resident of another of the sixty four flats in my apartment block, answering a phantom call from the street on her intercom, like I had earlier, though I hadn't bothered to lift my handset to query who might be hiding out of sight of the camera in the street, maybe she did, and this was what I was hearing on the speaker in the lift. It is technically feasible in that moment, her voice was connected to the intercom outlet in the lift, where I was, instead of the intercom in the street. I am not aware of any cameras in the lift. Anyhow by the time I'd gathered enough senses to answer her, she was gone, and it was time for me to exit the lift. I didn't hang around in the lift.
Further wierd events that day happened. I always choose to sit outside cafes, never inside. Passers-by in the pedestrian precinct of the cafe areas in my town, outside the cafes are much more interesting to watch than folk inside, like you say, on laptops and phones. A young guy in the street, a hoodie, with an oversized pit pull terrier, unleashed, bounding along the precinct terrorising everyone, spotted a blind and disabled woman sitting on her electric chair, at a table outside a cafe across the way from the one I was in, and noticed she had a dish there for her guide dog. He stopped in the middle of the street, his dog had gone way in front, he stood looking at this lady, his arms folded, the lady was sat with I presume maybe daughter.
Eventually when he maybe had got irritated they were paying no attention to him and his dog, he went over to their table and stood there where they couldn't ignore him, and asked whether his pit bull could have a drink from the water they'd put out for their labrador guide dog.
To me this was a little cheeky and selfish, even intimidating thing to do this lady and her daughter were not expecting to be rudely interrupted by such a weird request. There were, and are many places nearby that humans with dogs can drink water for free. Further, who knows what his dog might have been carrying that might have been unnecessarily transmitted to their much needed guide dog?
Why did he even have such a dog, if he couldn't even provide it's basic needs without begging for them from others?
Anyhow, they didn't refuse, they didn't dare, and no-one else dared challenge, him, because his dog was what it was, a dangerous, illegal, unleashed animal.
To their relief, when the guy went and got his dog, and brought it to their water bowl, it wasn't interested in either the water or the their guide dog, and off he went, on his way with unleashed dangerous dog.
On trying to work it out later, I think he might have been angling for the disabled lady and companion to give him some money to be on his way, rather than going through the aggro of his continued presence with worrying dog.
It gets better.
Within a few minutes two oversized policewomen came along the precinct from the direction of the hoodie with dangerous dog.
They had passed him without a murmur to him, not a word about his dangerous illegal dog.
They pounced on two girls sitting in the cafe near me.
These girls both had cakes.
One of the officers reached out across the girls as if to grab a cake off their table, then stopped, asking "I think I should seize this, what do you think?" She was grinning, before she and colleague burst into raucus laughter at her own joke.
The girls, who I already knew were foreign, not speaking English, I guessed Russian or Ukrainian looked at one another, then dutifully also started to nervously laugh.
Then the two officers went on their way, probably thinking they'd cheered everyone up with a lighter moment.
The girls were not happy, it had been an embarrassing moment for them not knowing what the hell was going on.
What I see is dystopia.
It reminded me of the movie "Brazil".
All kinds of wierd things happening, which are a result of the environmental and financial walls closing in, humans evidently react to this in very wierd ways, especially when they/we don't understand, or refuse to understand what is happening.
The incident with the intercom was probably due to interference by folk casing our building remotely as a possible future target, though it could have been by accident or even Ai, I am much more inclined to think it was people, seeking business /profit from new places now it is becoming so difficult to make money /profit by any means, due to the global energy problem that I write a lot about, like a broken record, as a fellow writer once commented.
The incidents by hoodie and police are more or less the same, even police fear for their jobs.
Sorry for rambling response with account not as positive as yours, but I thank you for inspiring me to write about this to add my view of UK, I wouldn't have done otherwise.
All the best, I hope all well.