Or as we face the biggest cost of living crisis in 70 years do you think we will all end up April fools. 

The poet TS Eliot was right 'April is the cruellest month' as it plunges us into a perfect storm of financial hardships.

It is baton down the hatches time.

Either that or start blocking up our letterboxes to stop the bills dropping through.

6.2% inflation following a 7% rise in house prices and fuel bills rocketing by 50%. The average householder faces a £700 annual increase!

Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s spring budget has offered cost saving measures through 5p fuel duty and National Insurance. Is it enough though?

Furlough has taken its toll on Treasury coffers and the goodwill tap has run dry at a time when food and fuel costs are astronomical.

READ MORE: Difficult times but Newsquest Cumbria and Sellafield join up to help

So what now?  

What if all the penny-pinching has been done. The savings are spent. Tomorrow will be a day when we stare down the barrel of huge price hikes – shrug our shoulders and ask each other ‘So what now?’

A woolly jumper instead of wood fire kindling? A vegetarian option instead of Sunday roast. Carshare on the school run? These are some of the everyday lifestyle choices we are already making.

On the breadline 

People on the breadline line are now on the poverty line. People who were 'okay' are now on the breadline. Those comfortably off are cancelling holidays. 

The cost of living crisis is another bitter pill to swallow and comes off the back of a torrid ten years which has seen the impact of the 2008 bank bailout followed by the 'age of austerity'.

Then Covid 19 swept in 2020 killing 165,000 people in the UK to date. The invasion of Ukraine has killed thousands and ousted 4 million refugees.

Grim reading isn't it.

READ MORE: Cumbria cost of living live blog

Bank of mum and dad?

So what next for working families with children as we approach the Easter holidays? 

The bank of 'mum and dad' will once again be plundered and grandparents mobilised to support working families like never before.

For WWII evacuees and children rationed until 1954 time has come full circle. Our senior citizens may wonder that being backed up against the wall will bring the best out of us.

There was a civic duty and patriotic sensibility. We may need to summon it again.

Those politicians who told us over the years that we have 'never had it so good' will be judged on how they deal with right now when it feels like we've never had it so bad. 

The communities of Cumbria are already rallying. 

The poorer families in our community will bear the brunt of the costs and the hardship. 

Yet so many times it is the people who have little that give a lot and in the poorer communities we will see Cumbria's enduring community spirit wielded. 

This cost of living squeeze hopefully is a once in lifetime rut that we can ride out.

Where there is community spirit there is hope. This crisis is a call to arms to Cumbrian folk to rally together and come through together. 

Unsung heroes

The unsung heroes are already out among us:

volunteering at food banks;

helping elderly people get shopping and getting prescriptions;

doing car shares on school runs;

During this dark hour the stalwarts and community champions will be doing what they do best - helping people 

Once again Cumbrians remember their proud heritage of generosity and compassion and will show we are a county with a big heart.

There is expertise and advice on all our streets and neighbours can be turfed out of their comfort zones and be neighbourly.

And the pessimists and sceptics? Well now is THE time to be glass half full.  

READ MORE: Carlisle residents told to get advice about energy bills