Monday 13 April

As we began this shutdown saga in Spain over a month ago - before legging it home to London - I'm interested to hear the Spanish government is daring to ease up the shutters.

While friends in Andalusia insist the personal restrictions are still stiflingly tight, the authorities have decided it's time to end their "extreme economic hibernation period".

Some non-essential businesses are being allowed back to work. The rest of Europe will watch with bated breath to see what impact it has in one of the countries worst hit by the virus.

Still in Spain, green-keepers have been spotted mowing our course for the first time. A glimmer of hope for my golfing buddies.

Such is their desperation to get back on the tee, the ï¬rst round back (whenever that is) will be something of a scramble and a shamble!

Meanwhile, good friends Olive and Bruce describe an unexpected brush with the law when they were pulled over by police for cycling in Richmond Park. It had all been okay the week before.

However, the Old Bill had grown tired of tightly packed pelotons of boy racers in tight Lycra cluttering the Easter roads and decided to ban all park bikers above the age of 12.

Our sedate pedalling pals just got caught unwittingly in the dragnet.

Tuesday 14 April

I see from my threadbare diary - now known as "this-is-what-you-should-have-had" - that I was due a haircut today.

To avoid looking like Tom Hanks in Cast Away, I message my hairdresser Lucy for some trimming tips. With delightful optimism, she re-books me for mid-May. It's my first new diary entry for weeks.

It's another sunny spring morning in south-west London - perfect for a good walk now the Easter numbers have thinned.

There's a new outdoor etiquette afoot as we do the "social distance dance" - two metres to the left, two metres to the right, hold your breath, smile, mumble hello, then hurry past.

An unspoken code of crossing in the park and parting on pavements as we observe the new parameters of pandemic.

Walking past the pitch at Hampton Hill, I muse on how cricket might look when it emerges from hibernation.

Under SD Rules - Social Distance now superseding Duckworth Lewis Rules - field placements will be a headache. You can have a wicket keeper, but only standing back.

The batters will have to run either side of the wicket. Bowlers will need to be extra careful with their follow-throughs.

Then there are the umpires. Where on earth do they stand?

Not cricket, but corona. "Anyone can catch it, anyone can spread it," is the latest government message on the radio.

It's a fair point. We know people of all ages who've been infected.

One good mate has just had his first beer after a miserable three weeks at home with the lurgy.

He tells me coronavirus knocked him sideways like nothing else he's ever had. He lost loads of weight, felt exhausted and couldn't move from his bed for nine days. And he's fit and in his 40s.

Wednesday 15 April

For a lot of folk we're in touch with, their greatest concern is for elderly relatives, especially those in care homes.

They feel the frail, separated from their loved ones, are more vulnerable than ever and their carers left short of defences and resources.

The other heartbreaking stories concern the very young. Friends talk emotionally about being unable to visit and cuddle their grandchildren.

As a distraction from such worries, friends in Chester have rediscovered the challenge of Monopoly. Though the only set they could buy online was a Leicester edition.

The family are now navigating such city landmarks as the King Richard III Visitor Centre, Leicester City FC, the cathedral and the National Space Centre.

On a more serious note, Derek, a shipping and transport expert, says he's been tracking global air traffic live on one of his apps.

While the skies over Europe show only sparse plane movement, the USA airways are still criss-crossed with thousands of ights a day.

And yet America has the highest death toll from coronavirus. Go ï¬gure.

Talking of flying, that reminds me to get on with my next task: trying to recoup cash already spent on a raft of trips this year.

In those pre-plague days, we booked 12 flights on three different continents.

Only one airline is showing signs of grudgingly giving a refund.

The rest are hanging on to our cash with limpet-like determination. You can re-book flight dates or ask for vouchers towards future travel. But you can't get your money back.

Thursday 16 April

We should have been flying to Vietnam today. On a new flight app, I even track the plane flying overhead on its way out of Heathrow, though I'm having my doubts that we'll ever make that trip.

The news that some schools are opening up again in Denmark, and Germany plans to follow suit, is already leading to renewed calls from parents in the UK for government to set a ï¬rm reopening date.

Their worries are two-fold: that their children are missing out on vital schooling and that their work options are restricted by having the kids at home all day.

Former news colleague Nicola reminds me a lot of educators are still hard at work. Her teacher daughter has been in school running holiday clubs for key workers' children and doing full days of virtual teaching online.

There are many similar tales. That's encouraging.

My sister Diana, in Kent's delightful Elham Valley, tells me her church choir is still practising, but now they're harmonising via Zoom.

Her daughter, Emma (my niece), has a different sort of musical challenge in her corner of north London.

A bagpiper has started playing from his front garden in the next street at a "spectacular" volume. He's even sent out lyrics on the local WhatsApp group encouraging everyone to sing Amazing Grace during Thursday's clap for carers.

The rest of the activities in her street are less rowdy, but speak of the heartening community spirit emerging throughout the UK.

People exchanging food and garden plants, cooking for each other, helping elderly neighbours and offering their skills to tutor each other's children.

I upgrade to a saucepan this week. More noise, more appreciation. #saucepansupport

Friday 17 April

Some good news. Son Adam, who we should have been staying with in Ho Chi Minh City from today, has ï¬nally been allowed out.

He says there are still no fatalities from the virus in Vietnam. No new cases for over a week and fewer than 300 cases all told.

Extraordinary figures, probably down to the rigidly enforced lockdown imposed by the state.

So Adam and wife Fi are finally liberated from their small apartment for the first time in a month and allowed out to the shops and for walks. What a relief.

In conversation with Pearlie on her sunset rooftop perch in Cape Town, she explains that the government ban on the sale of booze seems to have led to a positive drop in the murder rate and road accident fatalities.

On the down side, domestic abuse is rising and South Africa's unemployment rate, already unofficially around 40%, is growing fast, with homeless shelters springing up in most cities.

It's Friday - our now regular dinner date. For a moment I think of making it a black tie do.

But I've never really liked DJs. So we settle for smart casual. Chef Alex's takeaway is as good as ever.

That brings me on to a romantic story of long distance lovers.

A journalist mate tells me about his video link date night. He and his girlfriend chat while cooking separate dinners-for-one - him in London, her in Switzerland.

They eat the mals infront of their respective laptops and then sit down to watch the same movie - 1000km apart.

Distance makes the heart grow fonder, as the old saying almost goes.

Saturday 18 April

I'll say one thing for this enforced lockdown - I haven't felt this fit in years.

We're sticking at pilates twice a day and I'm slowly getting better at it.

Though I'm still more of a "clunkclick" man, despite the gentle online exhortations of Katja or Kelly to "melt and ow".

But then my bones have seen seven decades of action.

As well as exercising, I've been devouring more books than ever. A couple I read this month touched on the 1961 testing of the Soviet Union's notorious Tsar Bomba, the most powerful nuclear weapon ever created.

It could so easily have turned the Cold War into a red hot war. I was still at school then - too young to cover that story.

But it made me think about the many threats to humanity I have reported on over the past 50 years.

The Cold War and its conclusion, the fall of the Berlin Wall. Tiananmen Square and the uprising of 1989.

Two Gulf Wars, the Balkan conflict, civil wars in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

Apartheid.

The genocide in Rwanda and 9/11, followed by two decades of global terror.

And a host of natural disasters - tsunamis, floods, famines, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

But I admit I have never covered anything as universally threatening as coronavirus.

An insidious, invisible enemy which gives a whole new meaning to asymmetric warfare.

Sunday 19 April

The limbo of lockdown goes on.

It's intriguing to see what effect this enforced isolation is having on friends.

Graham, one of England's best-known cricket photographers, has spent a working lifetime capturing great sporting moments around the world without once, that I can recall, commenting on the turf they were playing on.

Since being locked down in rural Norfolk, he's had a Damascene moment and been converted to gardening and all things green.

Graham admits he can now be found tending his beds by floodlight and watering flowers for two hours at a time.

He spoke to us with almost religious fervour about the joys of a newly found weeding tool.

Bob in Melbourne reports back that life on their street has never been more socially together, while physically apart. Neighbours are swapping fun videos, helping each other out and enrolling in classes from art to yoga.

So we end this week looking forward to another three weeks of lockdown at the very least.

Perhaps after that, some pandemic "prisoners" may be eligible for parole. Though I'm starting to think of us oldies as "lifers".

If Ant and Dec are at a loose end, maybe they'd like to front a new reality show. They could call it "I'm a Corona Captive Get Me Out of Here!"