Stir crazy - a colourful phrase of marmalade makers or hand boiling of whites.

No, I speak of that disturber of minds and conjurer with sanity, the intolerable stress and angst of pandemic lockdown.

Never have I felt so lonely! Never before have I reached a stage of anxious expectancy.

Each day I see empty, unmoving views from my windows.

Telly I cannot watch. It’s lockdown’s drip, drip, drip... of silence, of nothingness.

I remember as a child staring transfixed before the window of puppies in Oxford’s Covered Market.

A hive of sparking activity, yet as I watched I noticed apparent lethargy, slowness. I felt a sadness, exactly as I see in people today.

Spring is tapping on the door and these few days of azure blue, sharp clean light and hot sun should be defeating my gloom, but it’s so difficult to shake it off.

Why am I sad? Why are others sad?

I’m an optimist at heart, I survived Covid-19 and though sleep is not my friend, I wake with an eagerness in my mind and the quiet excitement of a new day.

I dress for chilly wind then sit on Strand’s curved wooden seating, almond milk cappuccino balanced on my thigh but the faces are twisted, greetings almost forced out, no-one has that spring in their step, that bounce of life.

I’ve just realised what I’ve forgotten... we are the human animal, we need socialisation, we need to understand that things are gonna change, that vaccination will allow an end to this loneliness depression and shaming.

I am not going to stop being joyful!

Just going down to Exmouth beach... cheery bye.