Started at 7 with Sunday, R4.  Lovely spring  morning and we cannot seem to sleep late.  8.10 Archbishop Welby in his kitchen. A good address focusing on the resurrection as a symbol of hope. Expressed as if literally true.  The gospel texts are so powerfully dramatic and visualisable. He also said there should be no going back to the way we have been before the virus spread and that the economic consequences could be devastating without considerable change.  Our interdependence is now so clear.  No attempt was made to say the pandemic is the work of a punishing God or perhaps more plausibly a result of the accumulated cravings for more by mankind.  No questioning of it being within the power of a loving God to stop it either.  Still a warm appreciation of the humanity, compassion and heroism so many are showing .

Andrew Marr followed where Welby was again interviewed.  He came across very well, un-churchy, relaxed and good humoured while being very serious.

With care I cooked us a late lunch which we had with wine in the garden.  Steak pan grilled strips of breast of lamb, carefully browned onion and roast potatoes, courgettes, red pepper and sun-dried tomato with a lamb gravy.  Yes food takes on an added importance as we take it in turns to cook for each other.  Good face talks with Paul and Jo in Oxford and the whole Bond family in London.  All seem in good health and spirits with Sam cooking the Bond evening meal.  Inevitably, certainly for Elizabeth and me there is this unspoken  – is this our last week, our last meal, our last night together, the last time we will talk to friends and family members.  I remember the day in 2006 when Elizabeth and I had lunch together before I went into the BRI for my triple bypass. (see  Take Heart)  I am not being morbid. Such thoughts are simply inevitable, and we both really enjoyed the lunch, the wine and the sun.

This evening the newsreader said we reached 10,000 plus deaths today.  The population of Wincanton is 5,400.  The news also recounted the lives of doctors, nurses, bus-drivers, care home helpers and supermarket staff who continued working, knowing their lives were at risk caring for and supporting others.  Is their kindness and unselfish consideration, which Boris described tonight as their love, something which is for them and for us a true “resurrection” of the human qualities which in the face of, through, and despite suffering, the virus fails to conquer. The figures for Somerset and the SW remain very low however.  Our time, we must expect, will come. How to face it.

As alluded Boris also came home tonight (to Chequers!) loudly proclaiming that the NHS had saved his life and mentioning two nurses, one from New Zealand, one from Portugal who had been on duty right through the night when his condition was at its most critical.

For TV Escapism the BBC series THE NEST kept us completely gripped for an hour.  The human brain it seems, desperately needs such things.