For us, another good month. Things are slowly becoming easier; making sure I have gloves and a mask in my pockets when I go out is becoming a habit. Washing hands when I get back in has been for a long time. It’s great that the park is open, even if it is overrun most of the time. Children being at home can’t be easy. Everything has really been rather good. I missed the travel I had booked, but the online Dublin Gastronomy Symposium was very enjoyable and not nearly as difficult as I feared it might be.

April was OK. We are much more fortunate than most, enjoying one another’s company, having a terrace, good ingredients nearby, jobs. We’ve got it all. Utterly selfishly, when the lockdown eases on Monday and the park opens, I'd prefer it to be open only to those of us who really want to know how nature took back ownership of the place, even if only temporarily. I know that’s not going to happen. Nor are the roads going to stay car-poor for long. But I can dream.

Hard to believe that this time last month I wrote “just another month. … Covid-19 had no impact.” Then came the lockdown. I didn’t even mark the date, just got on with it. I was immediately surprised by how well Italians were taking it, with orderly lines outside the open shops and supermarkets and no empty shelves inside. Truth be told, for me, personally, there honestly hasn’t been that much change. I can’t walk in the park, and when I do walk, which I must, I tend to circle around near to home. Meeting people on the streets, both parties generally take evasive action, which is easy as there is very little traffic on the roads. I’ve rapidly become bored by all the advice being given to home workers, first time cooks and all the rest of it, but I realise I am enormously privileged. I expect we’ll be here at least another couple of weeks, probably more, and all bets are off for the summer.

Just another month, really, which has flown by. There've been some warm harbingers of spring and some icy, damp reminders of winter. Paid work has been fine, although I seem to have lost control of keeping my podcast pipeline flowing. A bit more deliberately active. Covid-19 had no impact on the month, although I have had to cancel one brief trip in March.

My intention was to review not only December but the whole of 2019, and like the best of intentions, it went to hell in a handcart down a well-paved road. I have excuses aplenty, most notably that both December and January were short months thanks to a long holiday. This will probably be a bit truncated.