Groundhog Day. Eat, sleep, repeat. Life’s been like that for a while. Shielding in a suburban house for 15 months tends to restrict the amount of variety and excitement in life.

Just over a year ago, my daughter was forced to cancel her wedding – that was to be a getaway highlight for us.

A happy occasion which we planned to extend with a couple of nights in a large rented house in Stirlingshire with some other family guests from the wedding.

But at least we still had another trip to look forward to – friends from Bath coming to spend a week with us touring Bute, Arran and travelling north to show them the mountains.

My cancer wasn’t caring about any of this and it decided to raise its ugly game and put me in need of some fairly desperate emergency hospital interventions.

Another escape cancelled.

But as we concentrated on getting through treatment, at least we had the light relief of jumping into our car and taking the dog to a quiet beach and woodlands a few miles away to walk in isolation.

And, with the spirit of Robert the Bruce and the wee inspirational spider in the cave, we tried yet again to plan another getaway escape from the house.

A cottage in Fife was booked but new travel restrictions kicked in once again and the plug was pulled on that, too.

With stoic determination we booked a cottage in Wales for August this year.

Then the law of sod. Tumours had grown in my brain and my driving licence was taken away.

With Laura being a non-driver the car was sold and Wales had to be cancelled.

I am ill. I don’t have a lot of energy. I sleep an awful lot and I am sure that as I snore on the couch Laura doesn’t find my company the most scintillating.

She is tired too. I can see it on her face.

So, we’ve booked something else a little closer so that we can get a lift there and back.

Lower Largo here we come: a tiny cottage just big enough for us and Mishka and three minutes’ walk from the beach.

We’ll take all our provisions with us and I will snore on the holiday cottage couch – but we will be somewhere else other than our house.

But then there’s the risk of this third wave and potential new restrictions, and new variants looming larger as every day passes.

Please, dear Lord – let us get away this time.

Ally McLaws is a freelance specialist in writing, business marketing and reputation management. See the full range of services on offer and view all previous back issues of this column at: www.mclawsconsultancy.com