So after the announcement from Boris last night I had to make the very sad decision to close down my business. Whilst my work cannot be done at home so on that count I could continue, I cannot honestly say it's 'essential' and it just feels like the right thing to do. We all need to stay home wherever possible.

I know there are lots that will carry on as but dogs will not die from not having a walk. Another human being might if you carry the virus into their house. Once I have clarification I may be able to continue to walk dogs for our 'key workers' and for me that would morally be ok but it's not clear at the moment so I'm stopping completely. By the time I'd phoned the employee's to tell them, then typed an email to the customers it was very late but I still couldn't sleep so I feel a bit washed out today. Thinking any further forward than the next few days feels overwhelming so that's all I'm doing.

I've had so many lovely supportive messages from the customers. I'm going to miss all the dogs so much.

So today I did the home schooling thing. It's actually quite nice. They've got a timetable of stuff to do from school on line then Mike did them a science lesson in the garden and we did some pottering outdoors as it was such a lovely sunny day. We also baked a cake. After watching Ben Fogles question time on instagram, we went for a family dog walk. Saw a few people in the distance other than that it was very quiet. I'm used to spending most of every day outdoors so I'm so thankful the weather is finally being kind to us even though the world has turned upside down!

I'm doing my visits to the yard early and late so I don't see many people. At the moment you can still leave the house to care for horses but the owner has asked us to keep our time there to a minimum.