We’ll remember yesterday’s date for some years, that’s for sure. The day when the time of closed-in living began for middle England. Putting aside all the shameful panic-buying (who ARE those people?) middle England is actually very supportive and helpful when the chips are down. Or when old gaffers fall down. I was walking along the road into town yesterday afternoon when I saw a gathering up ahead. A couple of cars were stopped; two or three ladies were stood in the road. An older gentleman was sat on the grass verge, which at this point, was a steep bank a foot or so above the road.

An old fellow, making his way home along the awkwardly cambered footpath, had slipped and fell into the road. All the ladies had gathered round to help, rather than pass by on the other side; one offered to call an ambulance. But the chap seemed to have suffered little more than bruises and getting mud on his trousers. He seemed a little unsteady, and it was appropriate that I rather than they should to offer to escort him back to his home. Which I did. It reminded me a little later of an incident in John Wesley’s journal. Writing nearly three hundred years ago, he recounts how as an older man he fell over on a street in some town in England. Someone helped him up and brushed him off. Someone from a nearby barber’s shop brought a chair out for him to sit on. Someone else fetched a glasss of water.

By the time I’d seen him safely home, and turned back to the shops to do what I’d set out to do, I missed most of the astonishing announcement from the PM which changed everything. I missed a call from my boss getting behind Boris’s instructions to us all, reiterating that I should work from home henceforth.

This morning for a walk through the fields, before starting work at home. My thoughts might be a little unsteady – a walk out is always good to help with that. We listened uncritically to the PM and his advisers yesterday. They’re doing the best they can; doing a difficult job in difficult, unprecedented times. It would be churlish to find fault with them personally – though I see on social media that there is no shortage of people doing just that. It might be slightly easier, and more legitimate, to question their wisdom once – as the French say – “l’esprit d’escalier” kicks in. We’ll see as events take their place. One thing seems clear – though perhaps not yet to everyone. There’s going to be no swift return to “normal” life as it existed as recently as yesterday afternoon about three o’clock. It’s not quite the end of the world; it’s quite not the apocalypse. Not as we know it.