SUNDAY in lockdown...

...begins with MASS, live-streamed from Walsingham.   Recommended. 9.30am daily.

Then prayers with next-door neighbours - all keeping the right distance from one another. A lovely Evangelical family. We each chose a psalm - mine was "The Lord is my shepherd".

This afternoon a walk  - meeting some friends but again keeping distance.  Hot coffee and delicious cakes from a German takeaway coffee-shop, eaten on a breezy corner - no eating inside allowed, and everything done at a distance, but very, very much enjoyed.

Bright spring sunshine, and daffodils everywhere.  Yesterday, on a walk along the river at Kingston with a friend, we dropped in to the ancient parish church, where people have worshipped for over a thousand years. It's where our Saxon kings were crowned...and where my father's Regimental colours hang in the regimental chapel. A plaque on the wall recalls the ceremony. I remember it v. well...

For future walks, all all cafes etc have to close, even takeaways, I'll use the excellent backpack picnic set given us by friends for our Silver Wedding some years ago - huge thanks to Alenka and John! - packed with a thermos of coffee and some sandwiches and buns...

Back home for our 6pm rendezvous with neighbours, all greeting one another out in the road. Mood so far is cheery, and everyone is being wonderful...and people boost each other, breaking the sense of isolation.   But, as I returned to the house, I thought of long weeks ahead with  a sense of  the weird unreality to everything.