Ejja H’amorru:

Yes, I’m afraid it’s a bit like that up our way these days.

Gone are the visors and masks, unwillingly worn by the proprietors of the local grocer shops… yes both of them.

And this laissez faire attitude has extended to most of their customers too. Cetta, who cleans for the foreign family (they are in gaming, I believe) on the corner of our street, abandoned her face mask over two weeks ago. She informed my wife: “The government has cured the Covees x’ijdulu, so no need for it no more.” And she really believes that. Mind you, if Robert Abela or… God help us Mafia Muscat – told her they’d, single-handedly, ended the Syrian civil war… she’d believe that as well.

We assume she doesn’t watch international news on TV, to be aware of the resurgence of the virus everywhere else on the planet. And anyway I reckon she’s no more than 40 something, so I assume she reckons she’s immune. But she’s not is she. Sky News, the other evening, reported that the average age of the recent spike in cases in the US was between 25 and 45, so dream on Cetta.

When I called at the village shop two days ago – masked and socially distancing – the other customers looked at me as though I had something growing out of the top of my head. Some of them peered, the rest studiously avoided my eyes, presumably believing there was something mentally wrong with me.

When the lockdown was first imposed Gracie and Ray, who run the grocer’s shop, were particularly pernickety about maskwearing and social distancing. In fact, entering the shop – one at a time – was strictly enforced and both Gracie and her husband wore masks – and on one occasion – Ray appeared wearing both a mask and a visor. He looked a bit like a rather scruffy Dan Dare of Eagle comic fame. But yesterday neither masks nor visors were visible, apart from mine that is.

And they are far from the only miscreants in our village. A few days ago I visited the shop at the end of our street which is “conveniently” sited and stocked with a reasonable range of groceries… at a price. The assistants therein have, since the outbreak of the virus worn a fair selection of masks and visors… for a week or two. All pretence of masking has, however, long since disappeared and – should any customer make so bold as to enquire just where are the staffs’ masks/visors… that punter is likely to get a mouthful of fairly basic abuse for his/her trouble.

Now I hear that government is to reopen the airport. Well good luck with that. If we weren’t courting a resurgence of the virus before… we certainly will be once that happens. Can you imagine, hundreds and thousands of travellers pouring into our country maskless and fancy free?

I can just see Censu Jobsworth, temperature recorder in hand, hovering near the exit sign at Arrivals in MIA, poised and ready to temperature check everyone who passes through, on their way from Bergamo or Leicester. Can you see him or any other Civil Service bozo, bothering to stop and check every single passenger who emerges? No neither can I.

As the Noel Coward song once proclaimed, there just might be: “Bad times just around the corner.”