Happy birthday...

I’m washing my hands… even more often than Lady Macbeth. Ensuring that I wash them for the full twenty seconds, I usually sing ‘Happy birthday to you’, twice, or, to ring the changes, an aria from Tosca. Today, however, I’m able to make a small change to the lyrics and sing ‘Happy birthday to me’.

Just read an article in the Guardian about camper van owners who are deciding to ‘self-isolate’ north of the border. Fergus Ewing, the MSP for Inverness and Nairn, is not best pleased: “I am furious at the reckless and irresponsible behaviour of some people travelling to the Highland and Islands. This has to stop now. Let me be crystal clear – people should not be travelling to rural and island communities, full stop. They are endangering lives. Do not travel.”

I’m rather glad that my nomadic days are (probably) over. I wouldn’t want to be viewed as a virus-carrying pariah, being chased out of one town after another by an angry mob. I feel fortunate to have a roof over my head as the crisis deepens; if I can’t be sociable, at least I can be comfortable.

Bishop Burton, yesterday...