Letter from a self-isolating home

How are you doing?

Are you OK?

I hope so.

Are you looking for ways to help other people going through hard times?

You could donate to your local foodbank or the national foodbank charity The Trussell Trust.

You could ring up someone who is living on their own to have a friendly chat.

You could sew some scrubs for NHS staff, like my friend Het is going to do. Volunteers who can sew are buying fabric and downloading the pattern and instructions from the Facebook page, sewing sets of scrubs and donating them to their nearest NHS hospital. Read about it here. You can find it on Facebook but I am not on it so can't give you a link. It might be called 'For the Love of Scrubs.'

It is the initiative of a Lincolnshire nurse, Ashleigh Linsdell, and thousands of people stuck at home under lockdown have volunteered to join in and sew scrubs. There is a Just Giving page where you can donate money to buy kits for people who can't afford to buy their own.


All is well at Hepworth Towers, despite our living in the county with currently the most heavy-handed police force in the UK -  who last week used drones to shame people who had driven to the Peak District for their once-a-day exercise.

The Derbyshire police have now been chastised by the powers that be, so that's OK.

I've been staying strictly at home since March 13th (18 days) apart from two brief trips out in the car both of which were related to food. 

I've been out for bike rides of course. It is always spookily quiet on the Trail so I no longer have to time my rides to avoid the crowds. I went out midday yesterday and saw 10 people when normally at that time I'd have seen 100.  There have been a lot more cheery hellos between strangers in the last two weeks, though occasional hikers don't smile, don't say hello, back away, or turn their backs, even though I am clearly observing the two metre rule. 

The sun wasn't out yesterday, but I took this picture of wood anemones for you:

Someone in Monsaldale has mown this into the grass. The letters beneath the heart read NHS. This is the best pic I could manage from the Trail:

The paperback formatting for DAYS ARE WHERE WE LIVE is done and it's ready to publish. We're just awaiting the cover, the production of which is too technical an operation for us to attempt. Actually, we didn't even do the ebook cover: Isaac did. I'll keep you posted as I suspect most of you are waiting for the paperback. The ebook is here.

The most exciting thing to happen, happened this morning. I got my very first email from Cece (almost 8) in Colorado. She is a very articulate girl and I know it's going to be a long and entertaining correspondence - at least until the lockdown is over and she is back at school. Tomorrow I hope to hear from Lux.

I have so much to be thankful for.