26 March 2020. When I opened the curtains this morning the first thing to catch my eye was a child’s drawing of a rainbow in the window of the house across the road. Walking the dog I spotted more and more about town. Now searching the house for some coloured pencils to add our rainbow to the nationwide symbol of hope. Think I’ll put it in the front door to cheer up the postman.

A lot of time trawling Twitter. Too much time really. But sometimes there are gems. Today spotted a tweet by a school who are sending their science department’s unused masks and goggles to their local hospital. Retweeted it to our own biology, chemistry and physics depts, who replied that they are already on the case. Thought they would be.

And in the evening sitting at dinner suddenly whooping, cheering and clapping all along the street. Abandoned dinner, threw open our window and joined in. Everywhere across the country people stopped, opened their doors and windows, stood outside and just cheered. Cheered the NHS. A tweet from E Social Tutor – standing on his doorstep clapping and cheering though no one could hear. F Social Tutor responding. A message from someone out in the country ‘we clapped as loud as we could and then, in the distance, we heard someone cheering.’ A film from a sheep farmer, just him and 500 ewes in the lambing shed, all baa-ing for the NHS. And here, at the end of it, just the church bells ringing out.

© Clare Sargent