I don’t think I am saying anything radical that as lockdown began and the whole world bunkered down, we were all a little scared about what lay ahead. Overnight – quite literally – we said goodbye to all those big and small things we had taken for granted and had always thought would be there. For me, there was freedom to move about this planet on whims for the sheer hell of it. There were the art galleries and museums and cinemas that had always been there for me but were now shut, their secrets and pleasures locked inside. And then there were the little things, the once inalienable right to browse idly in Boots or to talk to strangers at bus stops or to sing in a choir. As the world was silenced, I woke early and walked the dogs as the sun rose over this peaceful and still world.

But more than anything, I missed my friends. At first, we sent messages wondering how the other was doing. There were the WhatsApp group calls, there was the friend who sent me pieces from The Guardian every week he knew I’d like. There was the cheese and wine party I attended on FaceTime or the film club screening where we all watched the same film at the same time. It sort of worked but it wasn’t the same as us all being together sitting in a row in the dark.

My best friend was self-isolating completely on her own and for the first time in our 30 year friendship, we had breakfast or elevenses or lunch together several times a week, she in her kitchen in Sunderland and me in mine in Dublin. I don’t know what we talked about as we drank our tea and ate together, but it was one of the happiest things to result from this global pause. I thought about friends a great deal when writing my novel Friends Like Us. It’s the story of Steph, Eilis and Melissa – best friends in school but had since lost touch. Melissa had grown up under the shadow of her alcoholic mother, Eilis is an over-worked doctor who long-term relationship has ground to a halt, and Steph is married to a bully of a husband who is also having an affair. All three have reached a point in their lives where they know they have to make changes but alone it seems almost impossible. Once they reconnect, they find that strength that comes from being safe with friends. Life can be challenging, as we all know, but it can also be exhilarating.

Even if you are not in the same room, or the even the same country, just knowing you have people who’ve got your back and are on your side, gives you special powers that act like a booster rocket to get you through the trickier – and the quieter – times in life.