Don Your Way column: Finding my feet again in outside world after lockdown

As the nation emerges from coronavirus lockdown, there’s a lot to get used to in this brave new world of ours.

Shedding the cabin fever we’ve all been suffering from since March, its been a delight to get out and about a bit more, having spent 12 weeks getting little further than the nearest supermarket.

My partner and I have made the conscious decision to head to places where socially distancing is easy.

In recent weeks, we've enjoyed the wild wastelands of Spurn Point (as you may recall, that ended in a particularly nasty case of sunburn, but enough about that).

We've also had a tootle up the East Coast to Hornsea and last weekend headed for the Peak District for a pleasurable, if somewhat lengthy, hike around the very picturesque Ladybower Reservoir.

We’ve also done our bit for the hospitality industry, frequenting some of Doncaster pubs for drinks and meals – but again, picking and choosing quieter, out of the way places.

It has certainly been an eye opener.

From the hand sanitiser on entry, arrows on the floor, disposable menus and staff encased behind Perspex screens, it is a world far removed from what we were all used to four or five months ago.

And don’t even get me started on the masks. I know they are essential and I’m wearing them in all the right places, but if anyone out there has any good ideas on how us specs wearers can don a face covering without steaming up like a Swedish sauna, then I’d like to hear about it.

It’s made doing the simplest of tasks a little trickier – but of course, better to be safe than sorry, so please make sure you stick to the rules.

Save the odd idiot here and there, by and large, people in Doncaster seem to be following the guidance.

And the sooner we all do, the sooner we can all get back to a degree of normality.