RIGHT, no excuses! No saying in several months’ time: “Ooh, I didn’t know about that!”

Every single person who reads this newspaper or its website can have an input into the future of our city.

There’s a survey out there that will feed into the Neighbourhood Development Plan.

What’s that? It’s sort of a locally agreed policy document/wish list that those who really have the power to decide what happens to Salisbury in the coming years will be obliged to take into consideration.

So it looks at such things as our opinions on climate change, how to make both new-build and historic buildings more energy-efficient, housing need, what we like to do when we go out of an evening and what would improve the experience, our attitudes to green spaces and nature, why we visit the city centre and how we get there …

Surely everyone must have something constructive to contribute on one of those subjects?

And my favourite question: If you had a million smackers to invest in improving facilities for the community, what would you spend it on? We all love a fantasy shopping list, don’t we?

It’ll give you something constructive to do while you’re stuck at home wondering whether you can stand another pointless, mind-numbing episode of some minister or other standing at a lectern reeling off coronavirus statistics or sitting socially distanced from fellow panellists on Question Time spouting pseudo-scientific waffle that explains why their policies have been such a brilliant success after all. Which they have, haven’t they? I’m sure nobody could disagree with that.

Anyway, the survey. It’s easy to take part, and you can do so anonymously. Just go to the Salisbury city council website and there’s a link on the front page.

Now’s your chance to influence the future in some small way, and the prospect of a better future is something we all need to hang onto in these terrible and terrifying times.

PPE for pet owners!

“I OUGHT to have PPE for this,” said my husband pointedly as he stood in the front garden, shaking a cloud of dust and dog hair from the old bedspread that protects the futon in his office.

Ha, ha! Poppy has her favourite places in every room for snoozing away the afternoon, and housework’s never been my forte.

But even I draw the line at laid-back lurchers on the spare bed, which is where I’ve discovered her lounging, legs in the air, twice this week, only removing herself from the duvet with the utmost yawning reluctance.

She’s not really naughty, or defiant. And she’s very affectionate. She just, well, goes her own way in her own time, as I’m sure we’d all love to be able to do. She’s afflicted with strategic deafness, too.

I don’t understand how I’ve allowed her to get away with it. Aren’t we journalists supposed to be rottweilers?

I would never have let my kids ignore me like that.

anneriddle36@gmail.com