I’ve broken lockdown rules, so fine me!

LAST weekend, my friend Hilary called. How about Sunday lunch in a country pub garden? She would drive, she knew a good place and had managed to get an outdoor booking for two at 12.15pm. A bit early, but every other pub she’d called seemed to be fully booked until August.

The sun was shining, the prospect of getting out of town and not having to cook was overwhelmingly tempting, but I hesitated. Was it allowed? We are very close friends and neighbours but we’re not in a bubble. Would we be breaking the law by spending a couple of hours in close proximity? We weren’t sure, but we did it anyway.

As the Joint Committee on Human Rights, chaired by Harriet Harman, pointed out this week, the coronavirus regulations have changed at least 65 times since March last year, leading to confusion, anxiety and what the committee described as tens of thousands of Covid fines which have been ‘ muddled, discriminatory and unfair’.

The committee is demanding a review of the 85,000 fixed penalty notices — anything from £200 for failing to wear a mask to £10,000 for offences relating to organised gatherings. All very well if you’re a billionaire pop star throwing a party for a load of mates; a very different thing if you’ve met up with a chum more than five miles from home and are accused of having an illegal picnic consisting of nothing more than a couple of takeaway coffees.

Harriet Harman acknowledges that the police have had a difficult job enforcing so many changing rules, and accepts that some were necessary to make restrictions effective. And yes, we needed to protect as many people as possible from the virus. But she is right to demand a review. She believes many penalty notices may have been wrongly issued because of a ‘lack of legal clarity’.

If someone like me, who reads every newspaper and listens to every news bulletin, has spent the past year in a nerve-racked muddle, terrified of being publicly shamed as a lawbreaker, how are people who don’t have time to avidly read the news meant to stay abreast of the shifting ‘stay home and stay safe’ demands we’ve all had to endure?

I’m still in a quandary about travelling from London to the

South Coast to be with my husband, older son and his fiancee. I haven’t seen them since October. I’ve missed their birthdays. Am I allowed to drive 200 miles to stay in our home, where we haven’t been able to bubble since before Christmas? If not, when can I? I’m honestly not sure. I am sure, though, that fear has changed my personality.

I have always enjoyed meeting friends for lunch or dinner, sometimes in a restaurant, sometimes in my house or theirs, but now I’m nervous about doing so. Will it be safe? Will it be legal? Will I have anything to talk to them about, apart from Line Of Duty?

BUTI have no regrets about my pub lunch on Sunday.

I took precautions. Fully vaccinated with two doses of the Pfizer jab, I decided to order, via the NHS, a Covid 19 rapid antigen test which I could administer myself. It arrived in less than 24 hours and it was as easy to carry out as we’ve been told.

The poking about in the throat and up a nostril is not pleasant, but in half an hour I had evidence I didn’t have the virus.

I put on some make-up, did my hair, wore a nice top and clean trousers. We sat outdoors, put on our masks to go to the loo, the tables were distanced and the spring countryside was glorious.

If we did break the law by sharing a car without wearing masks, I confess, and will take any punishment meted out to me.

Frankly, it was worth it.