Lockdown saw us using local shops more, and Chris Noice of the Association of Convenience Stores tells me that sales are holding up since restrictions eased, although there’s been a shift towards city-centre shops close to people’s workplaces. Yes, prices are a bit higher, he says, but ‘people understand that the economies of scale and business models are different for smaller shops’.

I hope that’s true. It’s all too easy to appreciate having local independent shops for emergencies, but walk past them when it comes to bigger purchases. But if we want these community stalwarts to survive, they need to sell more than the odd pint of milk. Use it or lose it: you know the rules.

Meanwhile, supermarkets’ reputations are looking distinctly tarnished. Take their direct competitors to the local independents, the Sainsbury’s Locals and Tesco Metros. The branding implies that they are simply smaller versions of their bigger brothers, offering the same knock-down pricing. They don’t. Not only do they tend not to offer the cheaper ranges, sticking to the high-end, higher-margin products, but even there the prices are often tweaked up in the smaller stores.

The loyalty schemes that supermarkets have used to turn our heads since Green Shield stamps launched in 1958 have lost their lustre, too. Tesco has subtly shifted the balance from rewarding its Clubcard holders to penalising people who choose not to share their data with the mega-retailer, as special offers are available only to card-carrying customers. Even Waitrose has dropped its joyfully generous free newspaper offer.