What will I write about, maybe my thoughts on the coronavirus?” “Dad, don’t. People want a break from it.” Well I’m afraid my dear children, that in these extraordinary times there’s little else to muse. I had to go to three newsagents locally last Saturday to find a copy of the Irish Independent for my Dad. I told him to keep it safe as it will be a collector’s item in years to come. That’s probably why it was so hard to get. Maybe people were buying it to show the grandchildren, the day Ireland was sent into lockdown.

And yet here I am probably annoying you by saying I went to three newsagents while we are meant to stay at home. Isn’t it amazing how guilty we are made feel by just going to the shops? Well to be clear I was also picking up groceries for my parents who are cocooned. Little did we think a few weeks ago that cocooning would be a word entering our daily lexicon. It’s now my daily obligation to run errands for my otherwise fit and healthy parents who are cocooned until God knows when.

I am somewhat cocooned too. I have not been into the RTÉ studios except to present my programme. Although last Saturday we were shunted off air to make way for a Morning Ireland special following Leo’s lockdown announcement of Friday night. Technology allows me to work from home, but to think I don’t have the freedom anytime soon to sit into my car and travel down the country to visit a farmer is a real sign of the times.

If there is an upside, I seem to have unearthed a heretofore untapped skill for cooking. In normal times, bar breakfast, I tend to eat outside the home. But now I’m preparing meals three times a day. So while our dashboard dining and eating out have been curtailed, maybe we’ll all rediscover an appreciation for simple quality staples of locally produced meat, fruit and vegetables not to mention the art of cooking. Alongside a daily run, it’s good for mind and body in stressful times.

And so is turning off the wretched side of social media. The edgelords and misery junkies on Twitter in particular have been utterly infuriating. I wonder are there actual humans behind some of the posts or are they some sort of programmed bots? They were baying for a lockdown and then when it came about, it was too late. What people fail to grasp is the fact that the Government and the health agencies have had to carefully and chronologically piece together the actions which have led us to the situation we’re now in. They conditioned us over a couple of weeks into getting used to the new normal. They put in train all the necessary financial supports for people who have lost their jobs and then gradually implemented the lockdown. It was like putting a baby to sleep gently and needed to be strategically engineered in that order over a relatively short timeframe.

Had there been this sudden shutdown three weeks ago without notice or financial supports and advice to businesses in place, there would’ve been civil chaos. But of course the self-appointed virologists, epidemiologists and unelected politicians on Twitter always know best don’t they?

I’d rather pay attention to the nurses, doctors, gardaí, hospital cleaners, shop and pharmacy assistants, truck drivers, farmers, volunteers helping the elderly, communicators and army personnel who don’t moan and just get on with providing for the rest of us. Stay safe everybody.