Colin put his foot on the car-brake and indicated to the family they should cross. Loathe to waste his time sitting at home watching TV Hugh took up a new hobby. Spoon whittling!

The family was a mum, dad, little girl and a baby in a pram. Everyone except the baby waved as they crossed.

“Oh!” Colin’s wife Rea was sitting next to him. “I’m sure that little girl is a friend of our granddaughter. Which means...” He could see her joining the mental dots. “That woman’s mum’s sister-in-law put in a good word for me when I applied for my current job. I’m glad we stopped for them.” Colin had just thought he was being nice. It turned out he was returning a favour. “But it made me wonder,” he told me later. “How many of us are connected in ways we know and in ways we don’t know. Maybe all of us.” “Probably,” I agreed. And wouldn’t it be wonderful if we behaved like it, anyway?

He couldn’t have been gentler, nicer, more reassuring.

I was at a mobile Covid testing centre. People drove in and rolled down their windows. Attendants, standing in the pouring rain, explained the procedure. People being tested drove to a parking bay, took their own swabs, then flashed their lights. Attendants came back, made sure everything was done properly, then guided them on what happened next. Everyone was lovely and I commented on it. “Well,” my helper said, “my mother had it. I remember how terrified she was. But she’s better now. We’ve all had someone who has been affected.”

“Is that why you’re doing this?” I asked.

“No,” he replied with a smile. “But it affects how we do it.” Thankfully, the test was negative. But I’m glad I got it done – even if only to meet such inspirational people.

We’re following the old soldiers’ footsteps,

For we’re in a battle now, Their spirit courageous, Their mettle showed us how,

To look after each other, And not lose heart or the war will be lost,

For we’ll win, if we all pull together,

And the finishing line we’ve all crossed.

He learned that maple is a subtle wood, alder is prone to cracking unexpectedly, cedar is easy to work, and so on. He also crafted a special brace to hold the “blanks”, and the tools he was using at the end of a month weren’t the ones he started off with. “What are you going to do with the spoons?” I asked. “Probably give them as gifts,” he said. “But the things I learned – that different woods respond differently to the same efforts, like a little preparation saves me getting cut so often, and the fact that the tools I was sure would work often didn’t, but other tools

I was unfamiliar with actually did – I’m going to take those out into the world once we are allowed to meet people again.”