Dear Reader

A COLLEAGUE on the Mail’s personal finance section bounded up a few weeks ago and said: ‘I hope you’re going to buy lots of euros today before the Pound crashes.’

And off she skipped to the Post Office (I always buy my foreign currency at M&S but the Post Office is an even better option), while I did nothing about it, not least because I had no plans to go anywhere until the end of this month.

Silly me. If I had taken her advice on March 7, I would have got 610 euros for £500, whereas yesterday £500 would only have bought 585 euros, as sterling fell 1.6 per cent against the euro to hit a 2022 low of 1.17.

Then the Governor of the Bank of England, Andrew

Bailey, adopted a funereal tone as he outlined what is to come — and it’s not good news, although he studiously avoided the word ‘recession’.

Commentators have spent most of the week resorting to cliches about how we are trapped in a ‘perfect storm’ of dire circumstances, which invariably means that households will be reassessing their priorities over the weekend. Holidays will have to be shortened; weekend breaks abandoned. Or will they?

I have a feeling the day-to-day horrors will fuel an even stronger wish to get away. That Greek taverna, pictured, seems all the sweeter, the lure of sunloungers and sundowners more enticing than ever.

And thank goodness for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee next month, which should assuage — even for just a long weekend — the collective pain and put a smile on Mr Bailey’s fearful face.

For richer or poorer, we’re getting into the spirit with our Jubilee Special cover story. There’s no end of activities all over the country. All those vehemently opposed to the monarchy will find the whole caboodle overwhelming. For the rest of us, the message is: get involved.