Cllr Rupert Bevan offers up his thoughts in his regular column.

President Franklin D Roosevelt once famously said: 'there is nothing to fear but fear itself.' I felt that phrase echoing down the decades to our present time and the current status of the pandemic.

True, the lock-down has been a considerable inconvenience and it seems that it will continue for a good long while yet. I miss my old routines, my old life which was both diverse and remunerative.

Nowadays I receive dire warnings from the NHS that I am critically endangered and the axe will surely fall if I so much as venture out for a postage stamp. They tell me that I am actually much more ill than I thought and should batten down the hatches, allowing only a small slot through which the postman can thrust further warnings.

Yet the Still Small Voice of Calm whispers in my other ear, telling me that it is all for the best and some day in the not-too-distant future we will be able to go about our daily business with only a tape measure and a mask to remind us of how much worse things were.

My collie, Penny is oblivious to all this stuff. She gets her anteprandial walk before most folk are about and provided she has a stick in her mouth, is as happy as a sandboy. At home she spends a lot of time on sentry duty, a little over zealous perhaps, as the postman pointed out, but that's the breed.

Roosevelt would have approved!