At time of writing, we’re back in sort-of lockdown, expertly handled by our exemplary, skilled government.

We felt we needed to get out before it happened, as we’ve missed one holiday, and are about to miss another through the combined efforts of lockdown and my back playing me up, so I re-arranged one day of leave, and taking advantage of working from home, caught a bus bound for la-di-dah Lichfield (the service doesn’t run later in the evening).

We reached the city at around 6pm, got cash, and headed to The Angel Inn. A couple of beers, and then Thai food, taking advantage of Lichfield having a good range of places to eat. We chose Thai over Mediterranean as we’d got Greek planned for Lockdown Eve, but more of that later.

We tried The Horse & Jockey, but there were only high tables or outside available, so back to The Angel it was, followed by a taxi home: extravagant compared to a bus, but not too bad at 15 quid.

Hoping to make the most of it, we’d arranged a night out the next evening too: another taxi ride, The Lazy Hill, and a local, new Greek restaurant. Sadly, this all went wrong with them not having the booking they’d confirmed to us two days earlier. Fantastic. Our Greek became a KFC and a few drinks locally: at least we’d been in a nice pub.

Now we’re back in lockdown, so it’s back to takeaways at best and a beer delivery from that lovely Backyard Brewhouse. It remains to be seen if this lockdown will succeed, despite the broken way it as been handled.