So it looks like the Covid infection rates may possibly be starting to fall (or maybe not, it depends on which data you use).

In any event, the ending of virtually all social distancing and mask-wearing requirements has sent the biggest signal that things are ‘getting back to normal’.

And next up we will have the end of the furlough scheme – officially known as the Job Retention Scheme. It has been a lifeline to millions of households and will continue to run until the end of September.

And now, of course, we are all being told there is no official requirement to work from home where possible.

I consider myself to have been very fortunate throughout the pandemic. I’ve been working from home since before the first official lockdown in March last year and I’ve only been furloughed for a couple of weeks during all that time.

I’ll be honest, I like working from home. I enjoy the fact I don’t have to get up at the crack of dawn for a train commute into Manchester. I like the fact that as soon as I knock off for the day, I am in my front room and not crammed into an old Northern train.

I can do my job perfectly well from home (I actually think I can do it better from home) and I’m in no rush to return to the office, despite the fact most of my colleagues are back at their desks.

But what happens when I inevitably have that difficult phone conversation with my boss, asking me to go back in? Do I have any rights to continue to work from home?

The short answer is no, none at all.

When I signed my contract, in effect I agreed to comply with ‘reasonable management requests’. That means my boss can ask me to return to my ‘normal workplace’, even if I don’t want to.

I guess I’m not alone in this situation. It looks very much like there are a lot of people around the country who have used the enforced restrictions of the pandemic to take a long, hard look at their lives and what they now consider to be important.

Frankly, I don’t consider losing two or three hours a day to commuting as important any more.

So yes, when that conversation with my boss finally arrives, I can pretty much guarantee it will be ‘difficult’.

On a different (and recurring) topic, my views on Brexit seem to have stirred strong emotions in some of my readers.

Of course, they are entitled to their opinions and I’m always delighted to read them, even if I don’t disagree, because that’s what reasoned debate is all about.

I could keep the argument going and point out things such as the closure of Swindon’s Honda plant because of Brexit; the chief executive of The National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations saying the Government (not the EU) had broken its promises about the Brexit deal; the NFU complaining about the shortage of seasonal workers to pick crops because of post-Brexit visa regulations; or the Road Haulage Association (RHA), pointing out a shortfall of 100,000 lorry drivers caused in part by Britain’s exit from the EU and the introduction of onerous new visa rules that triggered an exodus of drivers back to Eastern Europe.

I suppose if you signed up for the idea of Brexit – and got your sovereignty back in the process – you are still committed. That, of course, is up to you,

But it looks like some of the more high-profile supporters of that viewpoint perhaps aren’t quite as committed as you are.

And no, they’re not your usual suspects.

Step forward Dominic Cummings, the mastermind of the Vote Leave campaign who has admitted that Brexit might have been ‘a mistake’ and that anyone who claims to be certain the 2016 decision to quit the EU will turn out to be good for the UK would have to have ‘a screw loose’.

That’s hardly a ringing endorsement, is it?

But even more critical of Brexit is Steve Baker, the former deputy chairman of the European Research Group and self-proclaimed ‘hard man of Brexit’.

Mr Baker took to Twitter to criticise the ‘policy-making elite’ about the cost of net-zero carbon plans and added: “Politicians need to level with the public about the scale of change needed in our lives so we don’t have another political fiasco like Brexit.”

So there you have it out of the mouths of leading Brexiters – it might be a mistake, it is a fiasco and you’ve got a screw loose if you’re certain Brexit will be a success.

I have nothing further to add.