We might not have a Government of competence or credibility – but we’ve got the ducks and geese.

My wife and I, approaching our mid 70s , don’t have to go far from our home – so we don’t. Everything we need to buy is available on home delivery. Not visiting shops is hardly a burden. Our lifestyles in retirement revolved around Travel, The Arts and Sport. We miss them but there are other things to do and hopefully they will all return refreshed come the dawn.

Time on our hands has allowed us to study our political leaders more closely than we would usually. Neither of us wears patriotism on our sleeve in normal times but it is sad to be British at the moment. The Government has got nothing right from the start of this deadly time. The mistakes are woeful but it’s the lies which really damage our spirits. You cannot believe a word they say and they take us for fools.

It didn’t have to be like this. Indeed around the world, a few exceptions aside, the virus has been competently managed. Britain has been the worst in Europe by far and you don’t need to be a flag-waving patriot to find that sad. The first serious political issue since Brexit has been botched because of politics. The virus was an act of God. It’s failed management has been a political failure of gargantuan proportions. The wrong things have been done at the wrong time for the wrong reasons by the wrong people. And they never apologise. Thousands of citizens are dead who didn’t need to be if we’d got it right – failure doesn’t come much greater than that.

The same people that sponsored the absurdity of Brexit (and lied about its spurious benefits) are misgoverning us now. If you believe this gang can deliver us a clean and rational break from the EU on 31st December you haven’t been paying attention. There was something symbolic about the chaotic and absurd charade of voting in the House of Commons yesterday – this lot couldn’t run a whelk stall.

And so back to our bunker by the Thames. The ducks and geese are breeding successfully along the river bank and we have high hopes of a couple of Swans. We expect a delivery from the Wine Society and Waitrose (whose priority list we are on) later today. It’s an odd time and you need to take personal charge of how you cope with it. But it would be better if we had a Government we could believe in – sadly we don’t.