The new normal way of going for a walk/going shopping

I've been in lockdown at my parent's house, and I am the one in the household who goes out to get shopping done to safeguard my parents who are touching the 'at risk' age. We've been quite lucky with online food delivery but we still run out of things so today was a supermarket day. It's still weird to remember to have to keep a 2m distance while trying to locate things around the shop. I checked out at the self-checkout which had no queue, then realised when it was too late that touch screen checkout probably wasn't the wisest decision. When I took the shopping back to the car, I disinfected my hands and car keys/phone which I'd been carrying in the shop. Getting back home, I wiped the car handles/steering wheel/everything I'd touched so the car was ok if my parents used it.

Later on I went for a walk. I've been walking the same 5k country walk most days since I've been here. It's funny exploring the countryside that I grew up in and never appreciated beforehand - I've developed a whole new appreciation for nature. I encounter about 5/6 walkers/runners on the route today. Most other walkers and runners have been really good at social distancing on these walks, giving each other a wide berth or pulling in to let people pass. It's been tricky with some dog walkers, I've had a few friendly dogs come right up to me and as a dog lover it's incredibly hard not to pat them! I do think on pathways they should probably be kept on a lead at the moment. They obviously can’t comprehend the notion of social distancing!

The only other concern has been a small number of runners, who choose to run over the crop fields. The pathways are narrow in these fields, and some runners will either carry on running right at you or they'll give you wide berth by running into the crops and trampling them in the process. Being a Londoner for the past 10 years, I've never given a thought to the health of crops before but this has really started to annoy me! If I let someone pass in these fields I'll carefully choose a spot where it looks like I can avoid standing on a growing crop. I'm also a runner myself and if I've chosen the field routes to run I'm prepared to stop/slow down and accept I'm not going to get a good running time - wish these runners would do the same or just stick to the roads/pavements.

But on the whole people have been considerate and so I don't have much to worry about on my outings - the big behavioural distance is thinking about leaving this big distance around you and others on the way. Never really had to think about that before.