Isle be having a drink back in the boozer

THE first place in the British Isles reopened pubs and ended social distancing yesterday.

Relaxing lockdown means up to 30 people can gather outdoors on the Isle of Man.

Health and care settings must stick to social distancing, but island chiefs said removing it for everybody else would boost the economy.

Restaurants, hotels, cafes and gyms will be able to open with some adjustments. Pubs will offer seated service inside with drinks – where there is a “substantive meal served”.

Chief Minister Howard Quayle has indicated that pubs may be fully open by June 29.

The island has reported no positive tests for coronavirus for 25 days in a row on Sunday.

The number of confirmed cases is 336, with 24 deaths.

I WAS after some bitumen paint for the roof of the Routers’ Return, my allotment hospitality venue, aka t’shed.

I queued in the rain outside Martin and Helen The Handyman in our High Street, with ladies wanting bird food.

This shop is a veritable Aladdin’s cave of hardware items, but I was out of luck, the last tin had been sold.

What else has there been a run on? “Paint brushes and white gloss. Can’t get them for love or money,” says Martin, a large, beaming man who could be mistaken for Mr Pickwick.

And compost, and something else I can’t remember. “Anything to do with the house,” he added.

No queuing outside the village Co-op, where I notice the price of alcohol has increased. That’s not very co-operative in time of lockdown, with weeks to go before the pubs open.

If you call sitting outside in the rain two metres apart “opening”. How can you have a conversation if you are a bit Mutt and Jeff?

Never mind. We can improvise. Pal Robert is coming from Huddersfield to the Routers’ Return, and I can show him my vintage greenhouse.

Stuff the virus. Life goes on.