I could kick myself! Two days before the ‘lockdown’ I should - and could - have had my haircut but I decided against it. Big mistake I’m afraid, as almost a whole month later I’m now beginning to bare a resemblance to Dolly Parton - with two major exceptions I hasten to point out.

I should also add that, for those of my friends who are follicly challenged, life is much easier: when they get up in the morning and look in the mirror, that’s the way they’re going to look all day. From my point of view I’m left wondering if I should consider purchasing one of those razor things. I understand that they are being sold online at apparently cut-throat prices.

On the face of it this is perhaps the least of my worries for we all now live in a world overshadowed by the sword of Damocles. Vanity is not an emotion that we should allow in our lives anymore, so maybe I should simply remove my straggled locks. Would I end up with a head like a football? Would I end up kicking myself?

It is amazing how our lives have changed in such a short time. It’s also astounding to see how our attitudes are changing as well. Do you find that you are starting to value the simple things? Without the sound of traffic, birdsong becomes more noticeable and I could never imagine my grandchildren being excited about doing a jigsaw puzzle or even associating with each other come to that. They seem happy these days just spending time with their parents.

How grateful we become for those things in our life that we previously took for granted. For as long as I can remember the newspapers have been delivered in the morning and so has the milk. All of a sudden we are beginning to appreciate how important this is and how we have learnt to value the dedication of people who continue to carry out their tasks even though their own lives must be equally difficult. And, of course, most of all we must remember the doctors, nurses and staff involved in all aspects of care and in fact all of those people who just keep on keeping on.

Talking of value. How do we put a value on happiness? Certainly not in terms of materialism any more I would suggest. We have just received a delivery from our local supermarket that we thought was not going to arrive and with our own supplies running very low. That’s what I call happiness. A brand new super shiny automobile would not have had the same appeal at that moment. Maybe in our past we have considered that we have a divine right to be happy, but of course this is not the case. In previous generations happiness was considered a bonus.

Learning that we were ‘confined to barracks’ initially made us think that time would pass really slowly, but in fact the opposite has been the case and we just can’t find enough time at the moment. In fact everyday seems like a Sunday so at this point we have been living for a month of Sundays

Of course from a business point of view things are mainly tough and we are left with a feeling that things will never be the same again. Yet I remember that horrible moment, after the reality of the 9/11 attacks had taken place, when we all thought that things would never ever be the same again. But of course things returned to a normality much more quickly than we would ever have envisaged. This will hopefully be the case with regard to our present situation. We will most certainly come out of this the other side and return to what might even be a better and more measured normality.

So as I write it seems that most of us have a lot more isolation ahead of us with family and friends reduced to a series of flickering images on computer screens, but thank goodness at least for that.

The moving industry will get back to normal in due course and I’m confident that, knowing the industry as I do, most of you will come through this with flying colours. There must be quite a housing log jam building up out there and you will be in a good position to mitigate it.

I notice that this whole tract started with a discussion about my need for a haircut and finished with a log jam, which is quite a divergent path to travel. Remember that the only way through situations like this is to keep calm and make the most of those precious moments. So keep safe and whatever happens just remember to ‘Keep your hair on!’