EERIE

This was the M25 near the M1 junction at 6.50pm.

Despite changing my mind last night about driving south today, I woke up this morning without any symptoms - not a cough or a sniffle, and realised that what I was feeling last night was a combination of tiredness, anxiety (which often makes my throat and upper chest feel tight) and hay fever, which I'm not yet used to having as it's only appeared in the last couple of years.

So I chucked everything in the car and headed south on eerily quiet roads, which was quite unnerving too. I'm aiming to drive home on Sunday and hope that Mum will be stocked up with everything she needs by then. She is now, really, but we don't know when we can get another delivery to her. Her tenant of 11 years (she rents out an apartment attached to the house), who's a taxi driver, apparently called earlier today to ask if he could help in any way. We think he's going to be hit very hard and Mum wants to tell him that she doesn't want to make his life any more difficult by worrying about rent, so I expect that's what I'll be doing while I'm here.

Daughter #1 in Australia and her partner - who works for an airline on which their visas depend - are being tested tomorrow because they've both developed a slight temperature while in isolation at home since returning from a holiday in Bali ten days ago. Troubling times.