Our member Adele kept a Covid Diary during lockdown, from which she is reading extracts during our fortnightly meetings […American readers: that means “every two weeks”]. I am shocked to discover how rapidly my memories are fading of those unhappy times.

With Adele’s permission, here’s an extract of what she read out to us. It impresses me as encapsulating in a single paragraph the nation’s feelings about the whole sorry lockdown episode and its aftermath:

After wondering about testing positive or negative on a Covid LFT [Lateral Flow] test before visiting family due to having a cold, memories came flooding back of those anxious times when rules were in place, and we were allowed to travel, go places and so on, only if we had a negative test.  The worries of not being allowed to do something after being denied for so long was a hard pill to swallow, but this made me think again of those terrible times where plans went awry, and events had to be postponed so often that no-one could be certain of anything until it actually happened.  It’s so odd to think how ‘on hold’ our lives were.  People are still just getting round to experiences this year that they should have had back in 2020 but are only just getting to now because of the numerous cancellations and rearrangements.  That’s three years!  It’s like we’ve been in a freeze-frame of time. The term ‘pre-Covid’ and post-Covid’ are used by all and sundry, so it will go down in history as a world-wide major event and 2020 will be remembered and may possibly even become part of a school’s curriculum of historic dates to memorise.  Having said that, this is probably no worse than the Spanish Flu and we didn’t even cover that In school when I was a child, so maybe not.