So three of us are locked down at home in the suburbs whilst the youngest daughter is still refusing to come home from university. The university has effectively closed but she still prefers to stay away leaving me with conflicted emotions, partly rejection and partly relief. She’s tricky and that wouldn’t play out well with the rest of us stuck at home.

My eldest and I are taking the allowed walk around the park, painting the careful 2m distance from any of the other people out in the sunshine. With the sun shining away it’s quite uplifting to be out, tempered with a fair bit of bitchy judgementalism when you see other people encroaching on each other’s space.

We’re lucky: we have a garden to enjoy and decent parks nearby that are not too crowded. I’m also one of those mad people who always overstocks the food cupboard and always books deliveries weeks in advance.

My partner is working from home, which is to say, holed up in the spare room (the child still at university) with a couple of computer screens and phone. It’s a relief that hes’ being kept busy and distracted from the “end of days” and from repeat counting of his thermometers.

Whether it’s true or not I can believe the stories of people coming out of family isolation in Wuhan only to immediately file for divorce. Enforced intimacy is a great way to destroy any relationship.

Things which may end up in divorce or murder include (but are not limited to):

• Getting up at the crack of dawn (loudly) and insisting on coming in and out of the bedroom looking for “stuff” instead of letting me sleep!
• Failing to clean up ones own mess.
• Stacking dirty dishes on top of the dishwasher, but not in the actual dishwasher.
• Complaining about the noise (or anything else actually) whilst holding a video conference at top volume with the bedroom door open.
• Constant temperature taking.
• Failing to carry out their share of the agreed housework.
• Flush the bloody toilet!

On the other hand there are plenty of reasons to be cheerful not limited to the fact that we’re all basically healthy or at least asymptomatic, that the sun is shining and the garden is lovely. We’re lucky to have enough space to afford each other some time alone and a garden that is a delight at the moment.

I have finally managed to rid every one of my toilets from limescale thanks to an acid wash specialist treatment or two.

Aside from that epic achievement, my gardener arrived yesterday convinced her job qualified as “key work”and absolutely refused to head home without completing all of the jobs she had planned. She gets paid weekly, and I was very clear (from a 2m distance) that she’d be paid whether or not my grass was mown, but she was insistent that clearing the weeds was an essential task and “Well I’m here now”

I was left feeling both a bit relieved (my garden will look lovely) and incredibly powerless (unable to evict her from MY garden). In some ways it was a peculiarly British feeling, since I could obviously have shouted or otherwise insisted but it would have felt rude…

My cleaner has stayed home with her husband and kids. We’ll keep paying her weekly wage as well. The tennis club has closed this week and although I’d like to keep paying my coach the amount I normally spend each week, I don’t think that he’d take the money. His wife works so they probably won’t starve but it’s not clear that the club will reopen once the apocalypse is over.

Looking through the Imperial College model currently in favour, this epidemic wave should peak and collapse by August but will be followed by subsequent waves, all hopefully less severe. It is, as yet, unclear as whether this virus creates an effective long term immunity, or whether it’s likely to mutate into a more or less dangerous versions over the coming years.

It is endemic though which means it isn’t going away, ever, but hopefully the worst will be contained and the health service capacity for critical care will not be swamped.

Stay well.