This pandemic is showing us for who we really are

The spaniel curled up in her basket with one of my shoes, one of his socks and a packet of biscuits, as if stockpiling.

Every time I give her a treat she rushes outside to dig it into the garden. Tucking some essential treasures into her bed with her, she peeped back at me with soulful eyes. Cydney is sensitive. She knows something is up. The other spaniel, big, bear-like Poppy, is oblivious. She’s happy so long as the routine continues. We don’t see people at the best of times. We go to the field in the morning to feed the horses, come back, mooch about the house and garden. That’s our routine anyway.

It’s the number of walkers that has changed. They were pouring in their hundreds along the footpaths and tracks until the authorities told people to stop it. They come in smaller numbers now, wearing Lycra and stretching their arms ostentatiously over their heads as if to emphasise that they are exercising, as they clamber over stiles and gates.

The people we rent land from farm crops and livestock. The farm workers have to touch these gates when they’re rolling and harrowing. I want to scream at people: ‘This is where they produce food!’

A family came down the track at the builder boyfriend’s smallholding and ordered him out of their way as they passed. ‘Excuse me! We are self-isolating!’ said the man, as he walked his children past the BB who was putting up a fence to make another paddock in case we run out of hay, which has been subject to panic-buying.

‘You’re walking through us!’ the BB pointed out.