Ok, can I tell you some stories of things that have happened to/around me lately. I wrote them in my journal, but they're about connection, so I think they need to be shared...

One. I've been running every other day, to get me out of the house and for the endorphins I'm craving and a nice little bonus has been seeing other people, even in this weird context, from two metres away. I miss faces, see

So last week I was running. And Crystal Palace Park is mostly a big hill, with sets of stairs running up the middle, through the sports centre and where the actual palace used to be

And when I first moved here, with a tiny baby in a pushchair I learned the routes around the park that avoided the stairs. I can get anywhere in the park without having to drag a pushchair up those stairs, by picking the right path

So I run my long lazy downhill slalom and then I take the route up the stairs now, to warmdown, because it is direct and I don't have a pushchair anymore

And as I am approaching the stairs there is a mother, carrying her pushchair up the stairs, propping the buggy up every interval, then running back down the stairs to help her four year old, dragging his strider bike up them behind her. There are four sets of stairs on this route

So I ran over. 'Can I help you?' I ask. (I always ask that way, you're doing something by letting me help you, rather than 'do you need help?' where we're conditioned to say no, see)

I gestured towards the bike. The mother looked horrified, recoiled. I realise I'm standing too close. We're in a pandemic Charlotte, she thinks you're a risk to her and her kids. Oh. I told her the best route to go to avoid the stairs. She said she was grateful, I felt awful

Two. One of the days I can't be bothered to cook dinner. We order takeout, we do this lots. I try not to order direct from the restaurant websites where I can, so they don't pay a percentage to a middleman (it's an easy way to be a good consumer, please try it too)

You pay by card, but the websites often don't offer a space to add a tip. The delivery guy deserves a tip, especially in the current circumstances, right

So I clean some pound coins with a Dettol wipe, I don't know if this is too much? and I put them in an envelope

When the doorbell rings I open the door to see he has left the food on the doorstep and is jogging back to his car already. Makes sense I guess

'But wait. Your tip!' I called out to him. He stands between the doorstep and the car, you can see he is weighing up the risk. He jogs back. I give him the envelope. The fact he hesitated bugs me long after the food is eaten

(I emailed the restaurant to tell them, next time you update the website please ask if they can include a tip option. They don't reply)

Three. We go to the supermarket because we absolutely have to. I've been thinking a lot about what is essential lately. And realising just how little actually is

We stand in the queue outside, two metres between the people in front of us and the people behind us. It is eerily quiet. We're laughing and joking, my kid and me. I'm kind of... excited(?) at the novelty of being out, the strangeness of the situation

(This was our first trip to the supermarket, subsequent trips have stressed me the fuck out and I no longer find it exciting)

We're standing in the queue and I see a woman called Veronica. I don't know if she is homeless, or just an alcoholic. I used to see her lots outside the Wetherspoons. Obviously not now

I know her name because several times she's walked past our front door while I'm sitting on the doorstep so Vin can pogo outside. Every time she stops to watch him, calls over to me that he has made her day and waves

One time she stood at the end of the path and told me her name. She also told me she'd had a son who had died when he was my son's age. I understand now, why she drinks

She was walking up and down the Sainsburys queue asking for change. I have none, we've been told to pay contactless when we can, so I have stopped carrying money altogether

As she nears us my son whispers 'Mom. That's the lady from outside the house' I nod. Then he notices 'Mom. Look at her feet'. She's not wearing any shoes

I did not stare but I saw them. Her feet looks sore and dirty, her toenails looked gross and the soles were black. I don't know how long she'd been barefoot for but they looked uncomfortable. We shuffled forward into the shop.

Inside I am using the app where you scan stuff with your phone to pay, like virtual checkout job simulator. So I don't have to touch anything, see, or interact with a cashier. And I see on my app I have accumulated like £15 of loyalty points. So we head to the clothes aisle

I spend a long time looking at the shoes and slippers they have on offer. It's not much, this is only a small store. I'm trying to picture Veronica's painful looking feet and guess a size

I'm also wrestling with the feelings that come up when I want to do something good, but I feel resistance. Some of it is awkwardness, a desire to turn away, some of it is wondering if this is my place to intervene? is it condescending? should I give her cash instead?

What is the right thing to do? Should I do anything at all? I get this feeling a lot when I am trying to do good things. I'm trying to work through it anyway

So I'm standing there a few minutes. A man walks behind me in the aisle and mutters to his small child 'Looks like some people are not just shopping for the essentials, huh?' He makes me furious. I put some trainers and a packet of socks in my basket.

Four. I want to use my points to pay for the shoes. (I'm poor, you see. I don't really have money to be buying kind gestures, I'm paying for fifteen extra meals a week while my kid is at home and his dad has given up paying maintenance - or even seeing him - at all)

There is a queue for the self-checkout machines and only one cashier working. His queue is full of little old ladies, maybe they don't want to use the machines. We queue for a while before we get to the till

By the time we get there he apologises 'Sorry you've been waiting so long'. 'Oh no, that's not your fault, don't apologise'. He shrugs and starts scanning

I ask him how's his day going, he tells me it's weird times. There's lots of his colleagues off, the shop is constantly busy. He hands me my receipt. 'Well, thank you for being here' I say

'I don't really have a choice' he shrugs. 'Well, it means a lot to us' I gesture to the old ladies in the queue behind me. 'Thank *you*' he says to me, 'No one has really spoken to me all day. Think they're scared of me'

I walk away realising we're all a risk to each other aren't we

Three (continued). Veronica is sitting on the ground by the cashpoint. It'd probably be an optimistic spot but there is hazard tape all over the machine. I hand her the shoes and socks, in a carrier bag with the receipt, in case she needs a different size

I apologise for not having any cash, her eyes are full of tears as she thanks me. I worry she might try to hug me so we back away. I feel guilty for that for a long time after

We saw Veronica a couple of days later, walking past the house with a bottle in a plastic bag. The trainers are black with spanking white soles and laces. They looked odd and clean and new against the rest of her little body

Five. Friday, we're out walking now. Well, I am walking and Vin is racing off on his bike. I round the corner by the dinosaur lake and there's a young lad, maybe eleven of twelve sat just off the path, up on the scrubby bit of grass next to his bike

He has his hands upturned like you do when it rains for the first time in ages, but his head is dropped. He has been crying, I think

Are you ok? I call from the path. He says no, he fell. His hands are bloody and dirty. Where's your grownup? I'm on my own. He's not much older than my kid

I walk up to him and ask him what happened. His mom is at work, she's told him he has to go get some exercise every day. He fell and scraped his hands on the path.

I'm getting my first aid kit out of my bag, I always had to carry one for work and the habit has always stuck.

Can I help, I ask him. He says his mom has told him to stay away from people. She's smart I say. Ok, I'm gonna put these here, an antiseptic wipe, some plasters, a bottle of water and some sanitiser. I put them on a rock and step away

He walks up to the rock. I talk him through rinsing the grit and dirt out of his cuts, now use the wipe to clean around the edges. He's wincing now and he looks so young. The cuts are not as bad as they looked once the dirt and blood has gone

Ok, take that plaster there and put it on. He looks confused. Have you ever put a plaster on yourself before? He shakes his head. My kid has never done this for himself either.

Ok cool. Pull your hood up and put your scarf over your mouth, I'll do the same. I sanitise my hands, put the plaster on his, standing as far away as I can. We both sanitise our hands again, him gingerly, around his wounds

You gonna be ok? He nods, tightlipped. Cool, go home and wash your hands again ok, throw that hoodie and scarf straight in the wash. Have a little bit of easter egg, the sugar will make you feel better

He asks me if I'm a nurse. I tell him no, putting plasters on is something you learn when you grow up. He's off, slowly on his bike. I have to find my kid who has been crashing around the bushes and up and down the trails on his

Six. Every day we go out for a walk. And we spot the rainbows people have been putting up in their windows. We see them in the houses of my son's friends, the kids I used to nanny for. 'That one was probably Ethan's' we say. Look that one is upside-down

It's nice, because we feel connected to them, without seeing them. One of the days we see a woman stopping at every house with a rainbow in the window. 'They're lovely aren't they?' I say as we pass. 'Yes, I love them' she tells me

We don't have a window to put a rainbow in. I live in a flat above a shop. So we chalk some on the pavement outside. One week I wrote a Harry Potter quote out there 'happiness exists even in the darkest of times, if one remembers to turn on the light'

My landlord tells me everyone walks past, skirting around the writing so as not to walk on it. He tells me every single person smiles. It makes me smile to know that

It rains that weekend and the chalk is washed away. So we go out and draw some more. This time I write 'When it rains look for rainbows, when it's dark look for stars'

A few days later I get an instagram notification. And then another and another. People have been taking photos of our little patch of pavement and my friends have seen it and recognised it and tagged me in the comments

My best friends dad has died from the virus. I can't hug her or comfort her and I'm dealing with my own sadness at not being there for her like I would like to be. She posted a photo of my doorstep on instagram

'I'm glad you saw my note' I text her. 'Thanks,' she replied 'I really needed to see that today'. We feel connected somehow

That's all I have. For now

I just noticed an error in the restaurant tweet godfuckingdammit