AT 74 I’ve mixed feeling towards the lockdown easing.

I should, says my thinking daemon, remember that I’m in the “vulnerable” age group, and that while I’m generally healthy now, I’ve had respiratory problems not connected with Covid 19 all last year, and this might make me more vulnerable to infection.

And I’ve read the stories of how badly and in what grim way this virus can affect the elderly. So it’s perhaps less rationality, more fear that gives me pause.

However, reminds the imp of impulsiveness (an old friend), I’ve been out every other day to the supermarket or the post office, wearing a good quality blue face mask, and been unaffected; I've spent most of my time in or on my property; I’ve been cycling; I’ve spent this year getting better while all around me, apparently, older folk were falling like flies, so in a sense I’m stronger now than when the virus hit us; and besides I still don’t know anyone who knows anyone who knew anyone who caught it, let alone died.

And then that final Lord of the Flies thought: well, what are the odds?

I wrote last week that I longed only for a haircut and my pub seat. Surely sitting outside at a distance from a few drinking mates on a sunny day…well, how likely is it I’ll get the virus? And truly, I don’t know. I am sorely tempted.

So I still haven’t decided whether to remain cautious even though I feel strongly that the easing has been too quick and too ill-defined and above all not enforced by law. While I sneer at Bournemouth’s packed beaches I understand what it is that’s driving the crowds to throw off restraint and the hell with it. I’ve to try to balance quality of life with quantity of life and it’s not easy. Where are my dice?

Allan Friswell

Cowling