The lie of the land: we’re not all in this together

There’s a friend of mine who likes to torture me occasionally. ‘I really don’t like to tell you this,’ she trills, ‘but I’m looking out on to a field of daffodils. In the hedge just outside the kitchen window there’s a blue tit nesting.’ If she wants to go for a walk, she heads into the woodland behind the house. She’s in her oather home in Wales (normal residence: Fulham) and rather fancies staying there, having got the hang of the whole working-from-home thing.

Another friend, who’s getting on a bit, is in her other home (this isn’t just a holiday cottage, but a proper estate that they’ve had for years) in Cornwall (normal residence: Chelsea). She called the other day when it was hot. ‘Isn’t it dreadful?’ she says. ‘We’re not really seeing the family but we do manage to get out into the fields, and then there’s the garden.