The voice on the phone was that of my cousin from the UK: "So how does freedom feel?" Freedom? You must be joking: Getting your hair cut by a mask-wearing, muffle-voiced, scissors-brandishing masochist, it's bloody terrifying!
On a normal hairdressing appointment, Karmenu usually takes no more than 10 minutes to tidy up my rapidly disappearing thatch, last week he was fiddling about with it for 25! And it didn't help the situation that his mask was two sizes too big for him and kept obscuring his vision, every time he leaned over, when it slipped up over his eyes. So when he told me to keep as still as I possibly could, I can tell you, I froze like a manequin.
Anyway, it got cut and I didn't bleed too much. Of course he apologised, but his contrition didn't extend to letting me off paying him for the experience. I reckon that haircut, although not quite the most terrifying experience of my life was right up there with trying to cross the Mriehel Bypass on foot... in the rush hour.
And oh joy! The restaurants are also now permitted to open for business... that is if you can find one that is prepared to run the gauntlet of a promised second wave of the virus. My wife and I are not habitual restaurant frequenters, but we do have a small cache of eateries that we like to visit from time to time... none of which are currently open. Maybe it's because they are all fairly small enterprises and social distancing is difficult, if not impossible, or more likely because their proprietors have made so much money out of us in the past, they don't fancy putting all the, albeit essential, required safeguards in place for a resumption of business.
But surely cafes and restaurants are places where mask-wearing is, at best, a little tricky. Or maybe they could invent one with a sort of flap that you could lift every time you wanted to put food into your mouth?
One thing I haven't yet grasped is just what is a "non-essential shop"? Surely a shop's indispensability depends on what you need at any given time. I mean a menswear shop selling trousers would be pretty essential if your last decent pair sprang a hole and you had to go for a job interview the next day.
A beauty salon may not be everybody's idea of an essential enterprise, but just think of the number of excruciatingly ugly women who rely on such places to mitigate their natural repellence. So I'd call that essential as well... kind of.
The reopening of nail bars may be a contentious one. I mean having scruffy talons may not be a matter of life and death, but there are women of my acquaintance who wouldn't be seen dead on their own doorstep without intricately illustrated talons.
And what's going to happen if our esteemed PM (aka Bob the puppet) is wrong (heaven forbid) and there is a very nasty second spike of COVID-19? Does he do a Trump and pretend it isn't happening? Does he run for cover and go for a reimposition of lockdown? Or does he simply resign and leave Chris Fearne to sort it out?
Watch this space.