Sherry

Lord, it's complicated, isn't it? No clear guidance from anywhere, numbers that don't seem to add up, some talk of cases "doubling", but also a struggling hospitality trade. I'm genuinely at a loss. Intellectually, that is: in practical terms, for better or worse, I seem to have been doing my bit for the bars and restaurants of every town and city I visit.

That has meant visiting some packed bars - e.g. the Royal Barn with Hugo on Wednesday, and the King's Arms with Milly after last night's school Christmas concert - where I'm not sure that wearing my mask when I wasn't sat down really provided the desired level of protection for me or my fellows.

There are a handful of really useful things the government could have done over the last nine months and one of those would have been to provide grants for better ventilation in schools, offices, and bars and restaurants. But, of course, they didn't.

So, it was a mild relief, today, to meet Simon at Flok in Manchester for a sherry and a bottle of wine, since the bar was pretty much empty apart from us. It's been a while since we're sat down for a natter and it was lovely to see him again but by half-past five, the bar was suddenly full. Happily, we had to be on our ways, anyway: him to go and see Lonelady performing and me to head home to see the Minx.