WHATEVER it is, let’s just assume it’s cancelled. Normal service will not be resumed any time soon.

Since that includes my hairdresser’s appointment, I’ll have to take the nail scissors to my fringe.

But hey, as we’re confined to barracks, no-one will notice if the result’s a bit Boris. (They probably wouldn’t anyway. I’ve reached that invisible age familiar to post-menopausal women everywhere.)

So many of our trivial, everyday concerns, along with the ritualised retail opportunities that we rely on to brighten up our lives, are exposed as insignificant when we watch this crisis unfolding.

Mother’s Day was a case in point. I know it’s nonsense, but I always live in hope that my sons will remember.

This year they both did (wow!), but obviously they couldn’t come over bearing gifts, so we made do with phone calls.

I’m not grumbling. I’m extremely thankful that they and their wives are well.

But we’re going to have to work harder at stopping our days getting duller, aren’t we? That’s if we’re the lucky ones – and being retired, I count myself among them.

I don’t for a second forget the stress and worry facing those who still have to turn up at a workplace every day, whether in a hospital or sitting at a supermarket till selling groceries with no idea whether the next customer is infectious or not.

But enough gloom. It’s not what you’re reading this for.

Thank goodness for dogs. Poppy’s the perfect motivator.

Meandering around a deserted Middle Street Meadow, we’ve been enjoying the brimstone butterflies flittering about in the belated spring sunshine.

The other day we varied our routine and strolled down to the Cathedral Close, making future memories by photographing the sculptural installations. They’re fun. Simple pleasures.

This uneventful lifestyle, featuring an unprecedented amount of domestic cleaning and junk-sorting (and if I’m not careful, internet shopping) will do for the present. With a bit of peregrine-watching through the telescope. Hooray, they’re breeding again!

Actually, looking out now across the meadows at the sheep grazing contentedly, it’s disconcerting to realise that the rest of the natural world is going about its everyday business without a care, and that it’s only the human race that’s suffering.

One common antidote to boredom is to get outdoors and tidy the garden, but please, if that’s what you’re tempted to do, leave some scrubby, weedy bits as shelter for bugs, and maybe an ivy bush for the birds to nest in.

Put some seed out, and their company will reward and entertain you not just for the rest of this locked-in spring, but all year long. Keep Britain Scruffy, as my husband’s T-shirt proclaims!

And as we all hunker down, the daft videos and wry jokes we share with our mates on social media will have to substitute for a social life. Silliness is good for the soul, I reckon. Imagine how much worse we’d feel without tech gadgets to keep in touch.

Stay safe, and look after each other.

anneriddle36@gmail.com