Jeremy Thompson is a former Sky News presenter in his 70s. He is documenting how the coronavirus lockdown is impacting his everyday life in a personal diary.

Monday 11th May

We've seen the government's roadmap. We ask friends for their assessment. Overall they say a lot of routes remain closed, it doesn't appear to be very well signposted and it's still going nowhere very fast.

So what about our own self-isolation satnav. As before, it guides us to the outer walls of our apartment, the local parks, paths and streets.

Now we can add routes to the golf course, tennis courts, garden centres and possibly meets with other households in "bubbles", preferably outside, as long as we all wear masks.

We might get some live sport broadcast from empty stadiums in a month or so. Our cleaner can come back to work. And the child-minder. But still no haircuts, meals out or hand-pulled pints at the pub - at least until July at the earliest.

So two steps forward, one step back. Maybe I should ask our cleaner to learn hairdressing. That would kill two bugs with one stone.

Just in case you are thinking of going back to work, you may recall that old slogan "Go to work on an egg"? It goes back 60 years to a campaign by the Egg Marketing Board to build up sales.

Every eggshell was stamped with a lion. Right now it should be re-branded "Stay at home on an egg".

Apparently the great British eggy brekkie is booming in lockdown. One small problem - there's now an egg shortage because, believe it or not, hens are having their very own virus crisis - an outbreak of avian flu. What an irony.

It's interesting how food has become one of the joys of isolation.

As an animated Wallace once said to Gromit: "I love a bit of Wensleydale." And the other day we found a wonderful Wensleydale at our local cheese shop.

It even had a name - Richard III Wensleydale, royally made by Suzanne Stirke at her Fortmayne dairy farm at Bedale in North Yorkshire.

A proper provenance. It took us right back to happy days spent walking the Dales, eating cheese and supping pints. On my big weekly walk, I stop for a takeaway coffee at an Italian in Twickenham.

The restaurant itself is dark and closed. I sympathise with the owner over the lack of business.

Charmingly she waves her hand and declares: "It's not about the money. It's about the quality of life. And we're alive. The sky is blue, the air is clean. The kids are fine. And now I'm home every evening to cook them good Italian food. That's all that matters."

Good for her.

Tuesday 12th May

Our Swedish friends Karin and Peter were anxious enough about flying back from Los Angeles to London to check out the flat they bought days before COVID struck.

Then, just as they were checking in online, a good old Californian earthquake rattled their high rise condo, their confidence and their nerves. The flight was weirder, Peter tells me. LAX - the world's third busiest airport - was empty.

The lounges were shut, no lines at check-in or security. Only 30 people on a BA 787 built for 290 passengers. And lunch in brown paper bags. Luxury with a lockdown twist.

Discussing the idea of air travel with my mate Tony we agree that we won't be taking a flight anytime soon unless they agree to open all the windows and let us use the outside toilet. Adam and Fi reckon they're better off in Vietnam than the UK during the crisis.

Two main reasons - the tough government restrictions have averted any virus deaths and, as Adam tells me, Ho Chi Minh City has the best takeaway delivery network anywhere, thanks to Grab mopeds, the local version of Uber.

So they were never in danger of going hungry. Then there's temperature testing at every shop, office and apartment block. It's enabled them to go back to work. Bars and restaurants are open.

Adam says they're socialising for the first time in six weeks. They even took in a trip to an outdoor cinema and guess what movie was playing - Shaun of the Dead, with a brief appearance from Dad! Small world.

Meanwhile in Norfolk, Graham tells me his horizons stretch no further than the local council tip - and that dream day when he'll finally be able to dump his garden waste there. Then, of course, there's his guinea pig problem.

But I'll save that for another time.

Wednesday 13th May

There may never be a vaccine we're told. So is it back to herd immunity as the best way to combat COVID? I remember a conversation from my early childhood.

My mum was asking our local GP whether she should wash field mushrooms gathered on our walks before cooking them for me.

Dr Nixon, a dashing former WW2 air ace, who rocked up in a bomber jacket and a flashy Jaguar sports car, replied: "No Mrs Thompson, don't fuss over him. Just feed the lad everything, dirt, bugs and all. Otherwise his body will never figure out how to deal all the stuff the world's going to throw at it." The basics of immunity.

All well and good, says my doctor friend Saul. But this virus is disturbing the immune system so violently it's struggling to cope.

And the "infectivity is higher than most respiratory viruses", he says, "so without social distancing hospitals would be overwhelmed".

He told me of a clinic in Johannesburg where a woman patient arrived in the maternity ward unaware she had coronavirus.

Within days of her delivery all 90 staff were infected. The unit had to be closed and fumigated. Like the old saying that crooks are always one step ahead of the law, it seems this virus is mutating two metres ahead of the medics. Another snapshot from South Africa.

Pearlie has just learned that Barangwanath in Soweto, Africa's largest hospital, has seen an increase in children with severe malnutrition for the first time in 20 years. Not a good sign.

In Spain, our golfing chums are going "loco" over a more first world problem - the opening of their course, which has been put back another week. They can walk the fairways, but still can't play them.

In the UK, golf is back today. Though the rush to the first tee by a legion of locked-down hackers is an unattractive thought. I might leave it a week or so. I wonder about the state of the courses.

My mate Dominic tells me his little lad Josh is loving the bunkers on my local track in Home Park. And he's not alone. There are so many families on the course each kid has its own bunker to play in.

"Many brought buckets and spades," reports Dominic. "So you may see sandcastles when you next tee off!"

As if bunkers weren't hard enough.

Thursday 14th May

We attend our first virtual funeral today. It was Lynn's godmother, Audrey Barnes, born and bred in Bolton.

Thankfully she isn't a COVID statistic. Just a nice old lady whose time had come.

She and Jack loved dancing, so the family played The Blue Danube and the Skaters' Waltz, between touching eulogies from her daughters, Judith and Carolyn and one of her granddaughters. Lynn shed a tear or two.

It's just so strange when most family and friends can only watch from afar via video link, while Audrey's daughters can't even hug each other in grief for their mum.

In Copenhagen, Lisa, the daughter of a couple we know, video streamed her baby shower. Human contact is sadly in limbo.

The Bells ventured out for dinner for the first time in Hua Hin and were the only diners at their favourite restaurant.

"The food was excellent as always, but nil atmosphere and no alcohol allowed. Soulless," says Paul. "What a shame for the owner and staff."

As Paul's been telling me tourism in Thailand is in dire straits. Apparently a few restaurants have been getting round the booze ban prohibition-style by serving alcohol out of teapots.

I get a chance to sharpen up my old journo skills helping my niece's daughter, Bea, with an online school project - making a TV news report. Right up my street. The subject is natural disasters. Bea's opted for Aussie bushfires. That's my girl. Plenty of heat, action and human drama. It certainly takes your mind off a pandemic.

Friday 15th May

Proxemics is an interesting new word for me, pointed out by pal Al. It's the study of human use of space and the effects that population density has on behaviour, communication, and social interaction.

It sounds to me like the science of social distancing. It got me thinking about that old Cole Porter song So Near and Yet So Far. A lyric tinged with sadness.

I wonder how long we will have to stay apart from friends and loved ones. It's a hell of a sacrifice. A fair few friends admit to already feeling institutionalised, comfortable in their cocoon, unwilling to chance a breakout anytime soon.

Some seniors see risking too much social contact as little better than playing Russian Roulette with a bug-sized bullet. I suspect the government is already fretting over how on earth it's going to coax citizens back out into the "new normal" world.

The fact that the new designer face mask Lynn bought for me online is called forget-me-not seems rather fitting - perhaps a plaintive call from the lost world of lockdown. The more adventurous types are plotting how best to get back to some sort of normality.

Lynn's sister Angela and husband David joke that the only way they can get together with their children and grandchildren is to pose as a cleaner and a childminder. While Emma and Ryan are considering calling their home a "garden centre" so friends can call in.

Angela's daughter Laura calls to tell us she's expecting a baby girl this autumn. Wonderful news. So life really does go on, despite reports to the contrary.

Saturday 16th May

Our great photo project has turned out to be much more than simply a tidying up exercise. Digitising several thousand old prints has not only freed up loads of cupboard space, it's allowed us to relive highlights of 40 years together.

#Nostalgia is trending. And, as we're unlikely to be travelling anywhere exotic in the foreseeable future, we're now enjoying photos of old holidays.

We're off to Buenos Aires later today, followed by a lobster crawl up the coast of Maine, then maybe a safari in the Okavango Delta. I'm calling them Pications. You've heard of photo-bombing. Now comes zoom-crashing - a phenomenon of the lockdown era.

One mate describes how, through some inexplicable tech tangle, he inadvertently bursts in on a group of women having a good old girlie gossip.

After some embarrassed harrumphing, he makes his apologies and zooms out. My American chapter are getting increasingly antsy over the handling of the crisis on their side of the "Pond".

"It doesn't help when the leadership appears to have a serious aversion to face masks," says Peter in Miami.

Allen in DC describes his weekly shopping run as a "scene from Mortal Combat, full mask, rubber gloves, large tub of sanitiser in the car". Back home he and Eva enter through the basement door, isolate the non-perishables, chuck all their clothes in the washer and hit the shower.

Allen sums it up: "It's like you survived a scene from (the Danny Boyle apocalypse movie) 28 Days Later."

Jeffrey in New York City is less stressed having discovered a "delightful corner" of Central Park with its own "wildlife, hills, rivulets, waterfalls and forest-like vegetation",

A hand-written sign on the railings of the Jacqueline Kennedy Reservoir reads: "Happy days will come again." But he goes early to avoid the "yuppy joggers and cycling crowd".

Lockdown has lulled Jeffrey into growing a Logan Roy-style goatee. He even toyed with a fancy walking stick and a tam o' shanter. But he thinks he's now grown out of his Succession phase.

Sunday 17th May

Daughter-in-law Lisa is the latest in our circle to be furloughed. She's philosophical, but frustrated. At least the government says it's going to keep paying out until the end of October. But at what cost.

With 7.5 million workers - nearly a quarter of the UK workforce - now on the scheme, it's costing the public purse £14bn a month. Talk about Money Heist. We could soon clear the Bank of England vaults without a robber in sight.

I am surprised to discover I know very few people who went back to work this week, which suggests most of my friends are employed in non-essential work and, therefore, still working from home.

Or maybe they're just unemployed or unemployable. Or, like me, retired and relieved to be out of all this.

On the job front, Lynn may consider a bit of acting after a starring role as a destitute Aussie housewife, named Alice Springs, whose home was burned to the ground in the bushfires featuring in Bea's TV news school project.

Funny what you end up doing in lockdown. Ever thought you might be going ever so slightly nuts in May.