It’s a sentence that most of us never want to write but I have something in common with the Conservatives’ political advisor Dominic Cummings. And I don’t just mean the similar hairstyles we sport.

I took a long journey in the car to visit my father. The big differences in our situations are that I wasn’t involved in telling everyone else to stay at home, I had no symptoms and I did it just last week when we were allowed to travel.

The reason for my journey was a birthday. That is or isn’t a similarity between me and Dominic depending on who you believe.

My dad is 81. He lives in a care home because he has vascular dementia. I used to visit him all the time. One of the benefits of working as a stand-up comedian is that you tour the country all the time so I was often near to where he is.

When lockdown happened I stayed at home. There will have been many people in that same situation.

You want to visit your loved ones but at the same time you don’t want to visit them. You don’t know if you’re carrying coronavirus and the guilt you would feel if you knew you passed it on would be huge.

When the restrictions were slightly eased I started planning with the care home.

We arranged that I could stand outside the window in his room and wave happy birthday to him. It works. It’s like window shopping but you know the mannequins.

On the day of the trip it was strange to be in a car. Thankfully I hadn’t forgotten how to drive; it’s like riding a bike, but way less liked by the cycling community.

I also regret parking under a tree just before the lockdown came in. My car looked like modern art, a metaphor for how we feel treated.

A three-hour drive each way was common when I was performing at live gigs but it felt longer this time. One reason is that public toilets are shut, so having at least six hours away from my home convenience brought out my inner camel.

The last time I saw my dad was the week before the lockdown kicked in. It was at my mother’s funeral. I hadn’t been able to visit and offer comfort for two months and sadly he can’t understand why I’d stopped visiting.

I don’t care much about who resigns or who keeps their jobs. I don’t care much about which minister is wheeled out to explain or excuse. I just want the people in charge to have some respect for what we’re all going through.