This will be the last time we drive to a location other than foodstore until who knows… When I say ‘we’ I mean ML as I actually can’t drive. When I tried some lessons twenty years ago my instructor, shocked by my interpretation of the middle of the road, told me to get an eye test. My vision, as it turned out, was not the problem but very probably dyspraxia. I am only finding this out in my fifties but it also explains the difficulty holding a sequence of instructions in my head which led me to risk both our lives pretending to know what he meant. One day I rang up to book more lessons to be told by my instructor’s mother “He’s given up due to ulcers.” Anyway, I digress.

Our destination is The Wenallt, ancient woodlands north of Cardiff recommended to us due to ML’s love of spotting birds of prey. As today it is beyond crystal clear, we think this can be our allotted daily exercise. But I’m slightly nervous. Though the drive is barely 15 minutes we are no longer supposed to be ‘heading to beauty spots’. So, we compromise. We don’t head all the way in but park up where it’s quiet. We hand sanitise in and out of the car. We wear gloves. We touch no surfaces.

And oh, the joy of these trees! God, I’m in heaven. We are hand in (gloved) hand. Free of traffic and people noise, nature is supremely loud. The birds and the wind cry “It’s our turn now!” I swear I’m not just being poetic if I tell you the sky is sapphire, splintered above us through a canopy of skinny branches. They remind me of the ones The Artist has been sketching all month from her garden. When The Big Pause is over, please let me remember this bliss. May I always be grateful for nature.