I got pulled over by a cop this morning. Wanted to know where I was going. So I gazed at him over the top of my aviator shades. 'I'm going all the way, baby. Til the wheels fall off and burn.'

I was really just going for the milk. But it's a good line. From a Bob Dylan road-trip song called Brownsville Girl, co-written by the great Sam Shepard. Of course, I only thought it; I didn't actually say it, because I was in the wife's Nissan Qashqai and you couldn't back it up in that. If it had been my old sports car . . . who knows?

Road trips are off the plans for now. The best we can do is get Google Maps out and plot a nimble 2K canter on foot in the vicinity of our own homes. I figured the best way to do this was to pick the four points of the compass and see where they took me.

Due East for 2K would bring me several hundred metres out into the Irish Sea. I haven't seen many fishermen out in boats recently, so in terms of social distancing that's safe ground — water. Can fish contract the corona virus? I heard a tiger in a New York zoo did. You can’t be too careful. Best pour cold water on that option.

ROUNDABOUT

Due South takes me smack bang onto a roundabout. That's an interesting one. I could go at night, circle it for as long as it took for the sky to spin and the stars to merge into one great whirling constellation before attempting a very dizzying stroll back home. It's the best alternative to a walk back from the pub that I've got. And for that reason, it’s a strong possibility for a decidedly somber weekend ahead.

Due North brings me to a Circle K, and while we no longer need fuel so much, the trusty petrol station is always a safe bet if you're stuck for a sausage or a birthday card. Or even a bunch of flowers. I recall an occasion a long time ago when a late night kept getting later despite all the will I could muster to draw it to a close. I'd ended up in one of those mysterious wine bars which don't exist at all in the daytime, with a circle of wonderful friends, none of whom I had ever met before. Eventually, single vision became double vision, double vision became triple vision, triple vision – you get the picture – until all the faces began to layer like a tower of beer mats and I knew it was high time to go.

STAGGERING

Outside, dawn was beginning to cascade in blinding shards of light and I knew I was in trouble. Staggering into a petrol station to get anything cold from the fridge and a handful of scratch cards in case the worst came to the worst, I spotted the bunches of flowers, all aglow and ashining in a black bucket by the door. Every colour of the rainbow was represented. (Except indigo, because I've yet to meet anyone who knows what colour indigo even is. I mean, did Jimi Hendrix write ‘Indigo Haze’? Did Prince write ‘Indigo Rain’?) They spoke to me, those flowers. No, they sang. Think it was Folsom Prison Blues and I knew they were my get-out-of-jail tokens.

Clambering through the front door of the tiny flat we lived in back then, the noise of the plastic wrapping on the flowers was like the sound of coarse gravel being tipped from the back of a truck and thus she appeared, at the bedroom door, aglow like a moving statue of white marble but just not so benevolent or saintly-looking.

'What the hell is this?' she said, pointing at the flowers.

I did the dejection look.

'I get up early. On a Saturday morning. To go and get you flowers. And this is the thanks I get. I'm going back to bed.'

SURPRISE

Due West for 2K, finally, will take me exactly to a house on Wolfe Tone Square West. I've never been to Wolfe Tone Square West. I've never had a reason to go to Wolfe Tone Square West and I don’t know who lives there. But wouldn't it be a nice surprise if I popped up in their garden and gave them a wave through the living-room window? 'Hi! I'm your new 2K friend. Staying safe, all? Are we?'

It could catch on. If we all did it. Making new socially distant companions at a time when we so desperately need the company and solidarity of others.

I miss it. Being out there. And if there is one positive that we can look to as we work our way through this nightmare, it's each other. Friends, we will meet again. And when we do, it will be with the realisation that time is short, it moves too quickly and not enough of it is spent together. So we will make amends by being together more and more often. If we had good friends before this, we will have great friends when it's all over. We can focus on that. Remember it as the trials of each day begin and be comforted by it when each day ends.

There are the substitute meet-ups of course. Video-conferencing hang-outs on Skype or Zoom, where friends with pastel faces raise glasses and chat and reminisce about the days before the lockdown. It's better than solitude but it's not the same. You can't borrow money. You miss the familiarity of the beer farts. The laughter of others. Women and men together. The foot on the stool. The elbow on the bar. The slosh of the stout. The jangle of ice. The background music. Sticky carpets. Bleached tiles. The brisk clean air outside. The surreal conversations in the back of a taxi home.

Ordinary life in ordinary times.

And buying flowers in a petrol station.

Stay Sane.

Next episode: Let there be no more frozen peas