Ride on: cycling through a pandemic
I stood on the verge and photographed the sunrise-silhouettes of the trees and the ridge line of the hills. A moment of stillness in a world of upheaval.
The UK had just been locked down to try and halt the terrifying progress of the Covid-19 respiratory disease, and I was out at dawn to take my one permitted dose of daily exercise. Soon I would turn for home, where my family and I had shut ourselves off from others to try and avoid catching and spreading the virus.
A loud cough behind me jolted me away from my thoughts. What on earth? Who was coughing out here, miles from the nearest village? A month of worsening headlines and media stories about the potentially gruesome symptoms of Covid-19 had made me paranoid about hearing people coughing. Now here was someone right behind me with a chest infection. Who was it? I spun round.