When restrictions ease next week, who will you hug first?

The sun is shining, we’ve had no new Covid deaths recorded in the Horsham district for five weeks, and restrictions are continuing to ease.

There’s a great sense of positivity in the air - and won’t it be lovely when we are allowed to share a hug with someone outside of our household again?

Such a simple pleasure, and one that is usually taken for granted - just basic human contact that conveys friendship, love, protection and unity in a way that has been missing from our many months of video calls and socially distanced gatherings.

Being allowed inside pubs is also hugely anticipated by many of us - beer gardens are lovely in the sunshine but not quite so enticing on chilly evenings or drizzly afternoons.

We are being warned to be ‘cautious’ and for many people it will be hard to be anything but - even when restrictions ease many of us are now so used to keeping our distance and being afraid of the virus that we won’t relax overnight.

The sight of people touching, going into each other’s homes and gathering in larger groups is going to seem a bit odd for a while.

And that’s ok - we should allow ourselves to decompress slowly after these traumatic times and adjust back towards normality at our own pace.