Covid lockdown: When the restrictions lift, will we be ready for our rediscovered freedom? – Susan Morrison

You can go around correcting your friends when you socialise with them outside, which I think we’ll soon be able to do because one of the governments says that in a few weeks we can meet six friends without any issues, which is awkward, because everyone I know has some issues. But maybe that's just in England? I might need new friends.

Anyway, the council crocuses, or croci, are doing a lovely job of brightening the place up. There are clumps of cheery bloom all over Leith Links.

Is winter nearly over? No-one is fooled. We’ve had sunscreen in March and snow in April.

But the air is softer, the temperatures are rising and the nice weather people are standing before the map of Scotland smiling, not wincing, the way they do when a howler of a weather front is moving in like a bad Tory policy.

Spring and a rumour of freedom is in the air. Boris is spaffing away about a bright new day tomorrow whilst Nicola, between gritted teeth, says there will be something at some time at some date to be announced.

We’re like kids trapped between two warring parents at the dawn of a divorce. Nicola is like a worn-out mum who’s had it up to the eyeballs with under-achieving, over-promising dad and is endlessly trying to temper his reckless promises of foreign holidays and slap-up dinners in fancy restaurants.

You can’t deny it though. The vaccines are working. Mum’s got her date for the second dose. Loads of my friends are showing off their jabbed arms, like being back in the playground on BCG day when we all ran about proudly sporting Elastoplast.

More and more pals have received blue envelopes. Just like to point out here, I have received neither envelope nor jag. Starting to feel left out.

Soon we’ll be able to emerge blinking back into the daylight.

Can we? We’ve grown so used to this under-the-duvet experience that there’s genuine anxiety about getting out and about. It’s been months since I’ve even been on a bus.

The last time I got on a Number 16, I panicked slightly. How do I do ‘bus’? Where do I sit? Is eye contact allowed? Can I talk to myself, since that’s what I’ve been doing all year? Mind you, it was a bus in Leith. Blethering to yourself is practically compulsory down here.

How will we cope when shops open again and there are actual crowds? Even if they are the terribly well-behaved and doubtless virus-free shoppers of John Lewis?

My working life is usually spent in rammed comedy clubs. How will it feel to stand on stage whilst hundreds of people laugh, exhaling out the contents of their lungs in my direction? Should I invest in one of those full-on forensic scientist outfits? With my bahookie? I think not.

We’ll have to leave off our masks, which is partly a pity. They’re awesome for hiding a multitude of sins, like those annoying lines around your mouth that are so ageing, darling.

There may be a new dawn soon, but you’ll have to forgive us if we hover nervously on the doorstep for a minute or two.

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