And so you shouldn't regret it. You broke an unfeeling rule but acted like a decent human being. The most difficult thing for me was my mum in a home just ten minutes from me. Naturally, the setup didn't allow me to break any rules and the home was very caring and allowed me visit her (through a Perspex screen at the appropriate distance) every week or so. Very tough, as she was profoundly deaf, and with my face shield in place we found it next to impossible to converse. In the end I resorted to a portable whiteboard. It was awful but every day I read about much worse cases in homes apparently not being run by normal humans. Before that I'd been round to her room four or five times a week. She died (not of the virus) at the end of October. The hospital broke the rules (no pressure at all from us) to let us be with her at the end. I can't complain about tight rules in hospitals and care homes, I hasten to add. But masks, rules of six, bubbles and the rest should always have been matters for our own judgement, and the government's job should have been to inform, advise and guide. Too many edicts and nowhere near enough of that (and don't get me started on mixed messages). Ironically, the sudden lifting of all restrictions on one day almost feels like an edict in itself. The government will find it all the easier to get us to comply with orders next time around, and that, to me, would be a very worrying development.