I suppose it was inevitable that one of us would get COVID at some point. There is so much of it about and no-one, including us, has been taking any precautions, although I have continued as an act of symbolic and increasingly eccentric obstinacy to wear a mask in the tube, a symbol to myself that it is not all over yet. In fact, it is Romilly who has got it, not me (so far), although in all likelihood I will. She is ultra high risk and I still worry that it will get worse or she will choke in the night and that will be it. They have been promising a fourth vaccination, but it keeps being promised – since February I have discovered; and she was promised access to a special drug, but we still await its delivery. What one realises – well, it’s obvious – is that we have all willed COVID to go away and have pretended it has, but it has been an act of the most tremendous wishful thinking, like so much of contemporary politics.