Today I took a break from seeking jobs and gazing into the fire to walk along the coast to Whitstable and back. The path was busy with dog walkers and cyclists, so I stuck to the shore line and stared at the egrets and oystercatchers.

Whitstable itself isn’t designed for cars, but is inundated with them. Quite how the local council haven’t pedestrianised Harbour Street in a global pandemic I’ll never know, but as things stand, locals hobble along narrow pavements, finding it impossible to socially distance because of the constant stream of motor vehicles.

I didn’t stay long, but had time for a lovely brunch on the beach, and a visit to the Oxford Bookshop – my first time in a non-food shop for quite some time.

I was the only customer among its rambling shelves, and I ended up with a lovely haul of two science fiction books (William Gibson and China Mieville); a pleasingly dated guide to the North Downs Way and the Pilgrims Way; and a modern history of Japan, written in the sixties by a historian who looks the most historian-y historian ever to historise. I look forward to reading them all.