The numbers are up again (the bad ones, the COVID-19 ones) and the daily cases are actually above where they ever got in the first wave. The response has been slower, patchier; nobody’s ready to jump straight into a full national lockdown again. It feels like it could be coming, though. I’ve mixed feeling about how ready for that I am.

We have this new home: spaces to work and to rest that are separate from one another. We have a garden, although autumn’s washing in and that the garden is becoming less of a crucial assett over time. I have a new job to worry about, a sense of forward momentum that is very different from the feeling of forestalled progress we felt in the first lockdown.

I was going to start piano lessons, once I got paid. That feels like a foolish commitment to make now that increased restrictions feel imminent. We saw Emma’s parents this weekend, I’m glad for her sake that we fit that in beforew what feels like an inevitable closing down.

It feels like hunkering down again, this time for winter too.