My Grandma misses hugging people.

She tells me that she feels like a leper, shielded but marginalised, left to look on through her window as the rest of us attempt to go about our daily business. We’re all lepers right now, I tell her. The people we most want to hug are almost invariably those we are supposed to keep away from. The sad truth is that a hug within the day-to-day household is never quite as meaningful as the embrace of a long-lost locked-down loved one.

We could break the rules, of course, but as my Dad keeps telling me, it’s beholden upon the intelligent to protect the stupid. That said, his attitude may have been tempered somewhat by a recent supermarket encounter with a young lady from Essex who, mask-free, was coughing and spluttering over every last food item while proudly declaring to the dismayed onlookers, “Don’t worry, I don’t have Covid.”

Doubtless, she is correct. After all, most people don’t have Covid. And yet, the frustration of we, the largely compliant, continues to increase towards the carefree, conscience-free rule-breakers who we observe every day, ignoring the guidelines, the signs and posters, the PPE-wearing passers-by, even the midnight pleas of our hapless ministers.

It comes as no surprise to me, to read that every weekend our beaches and beauty spots are being trashed and littered into oblivion. My guess is that it’s the same people who wilfully deposit their waste upon the land – despite knowing full-well the rules about littering – who are refusing to play ball regarding the virus, as though it’s every citizen’s inalienable right to be a dickhead.

I can’t tell my Grandma exactly when I’ll be able to hug her again. Maybe if I’m prepared to self-isolate for a few weeks, when time allows, take a test or two and walk the nine-mile journey over to her house, making sure to keep well out of the way of every pedestrian I come across en route. It’s not going to be easy to orchestrate.

So instead, I tell her that I won’t litter. I think she understands.