'Stock up on the experiences of the beautiful Northamptonshire countryside...we don't know what lies ahead'

So, how are you doing with the so-called ‘Rule of 6’ which arrived this week?

The details of what we can – and can’t – now do are detailed perfectly well elsewhere.

Suffice to say that once more we are entering into a period of uncertainty over our own safety from Covid-19 and our freedoms to share our time with each other. There may be more of the same coming.

I’ve written here more than once during the past six months about wellbeing – personally I find it constructive to do so.

For some though, it is still a taboo subject, one to be almost denied, which I find not only surprising, but lamentable.

Why, in this day and age, and particularly in this chapter of our history, should we not be sharing those things with which we find mental or emotional relief?

Formula 1 world champion Lewis Hamilton has been widely criticised for his increasingly political statements within a sporting sphere, but has been lauded far more so. Is freedom of expression being confused with a right of opinion?

I certainly understand my own feelings of repression – of constraint – which Covid has brought us all this year.

Earlier this week, we took a few days away in Devon, staying in a small cottage on a farm overlooking a valley almost devoid of traffic interruption.

The sound of nature was almost deafening... and blissfully so. The aromas of countryside seasonings caused a sensory explosion of their own and in my case took me back to the days of my childhood on my uncle’s small farm. I find the smell of cow slurry almost comforting!

We found ourselves getting up with the sun, sitting out with a coffee and quite literally watching the day begin.

Swifts darted around the house, cows moo-ed in the distance and at night an owl in a small copse behind us provided his or her own accompaniment.

It’s the first time we’ve been away from home for anything like a holiday since mid-October last year, and I can honestly say that I had forgotten how it felt. The tranquillity of our surroundings made a huge impression on me and as the sun came up I could almost feel the toxicity of the pandemic and everything that it has brought us beginning to dilute.

We had arrived in the area a little early on Monday, the day of Boris’s new rules coming into force.

Instead of kicking our heels we headed for a small seaside town for lunch. The adjacent shingle beach was being well used, but responsibly so, and I can report that we saw no huge parties of people gathered. Masks were being worn where applicable and the waitress at our café wore a visor, letting it be known that in other circumstances she would be working the transatlantic cruise liners out of the east coast of the US. Her cheerful performance was a tonic in its own right.

I had forgotten the effects of the colour green. Our entire view from the cottage was full of it. Why is it a calming colour? We were blessed with beautiful weather, birdsong, bees buzzing and more of those farmyard sounds. It was truly transformative.

Our county has all of this too – our equivalent coastline being the lake shore, canal or riverside towpath. We have green in abundance and, if you know where to find it, areas of similar tranquillity. Summer is almost gone and shorter days are already here. Now is the time to stock up on the kind of experiences that will carry us through whatever is coming.