One of the great things about writing a diary, so they say, is that at some future point you can look back and realise that things weren’t so bad after all.
In my heart of hearts I know this will be the case but there’s a nagging sense of doubt that things may never be quite the same again.
Last night our Prime Minister, who has been self-isolating for a week, went into hospital for “tests” because he can’t shake off the virus.
At about the same time our Queen broadcast to the nation – only the fifth time she has done this in her 68 years reign – trying her best to inspire a bit of wartime resolve.
These two events add to the growing sense that this is a crisis of unprecedented global proportions and one that we’re struggling to cope with here in the UK.
I rather like Boris Johnson and was looking forward to him, once again, leading the daily coronavirus press conferences. We need to be seeing the man in charge and a bit of his jovial demeanour wouldn’t go amiss right now.
How must he be feeling doing the job he dreamed of as a child having won a thumping majority just four months ago, what a long 116 days they’ve been.
With the exception of war there can be few prime ministers under more pressure than he’s facing responsible for thousands of lives and millions of livelihoods.
It would be enough having to deal with all this when you’re fit but doing it while you’re ill with a dangerous, unpredictable illness must be as much as anyone can cope with.
I think also of the tens of thousands of other people in hospitals, many in intensive care fighting for their lives and similar numbers living with the illness and the fear that goes with it.
Then there’s all those struggling to make a living during the lockdown, not just here but all over the world. In Morocco, where we were this time last month, many live in absolute poverty and it’s only hustling on the street that keeps them alive.
Also there’s the impositions of the lockdown having to stay indoors, not seeing loved ones, queuing to shop, restrictions on travel and all the other various basic freedoms we used to take for granted.
And finally there’s the sense of personal jeopardy, that you, I, anyone can get this thing and it seems a total lottery as to how you’ll fare, anything from no symptoms to an awful lonely death on a ventilator.
Maybe as early as June I’ll look back on this diary entry and realise that this was just a moment in time