Okay, so one swallow doesn’t make a summer, but nevertheless when I saw the swallows and house martins swooping around the farm buildings today, it really raised my spirits. I always keep a note of the date they arrive, and today is almost a complete replica of last year.

As a farmer, I’m lucky to live in the countryside, particularly during the current self-isolation restrictions.  In the last week I have seen primroses appearing on the riverbanks, butterflies starting to gorge themselves on the dandelions, and spring cereals starting to braird, in what would have been inconceivable conditions a month ago. We have cows and young calves out in fields, much earlier than normal, joining ewes and lambs in perfect conditions. I hesitate to mention rain — ouch — but neighbours are suggesting they could do with some.

As usual on the farm, our priority is caring for our animals and crops. However, with COVID 19, we have to manage everything differently, maintaining social distance but at the same time, enjoying seeing all members of the family contributing through their own skills.

With the grandchildren returned from school and university, no longer are they going “up the toon” for their enjoyment. Instead, they are organising ‘health workouts’ in their own garden, are on their bikes taking dogs for a run and even taking the house pony for a walk. Absolutely wonderful to see. We even joined our 19-year-old granddaughter’s birthday celebrations on FaceTime, then helped her cope with the inevitable hangover.

We wondered some years ago, if our grandson, who stays on the farm, was wasting his time playing a Farm Simulator on the computer. He’s 17 now, and when I recently asked him to reverse the quad bike and trailer back to the lambing shed — wearing an appropriate helmet of course — he did it first time, inch perfect.

How helpful my family has been, in helping me to use technology to work differently. Our daughter has done all the click and collect for us all and when she received some disapproving looks, this all changed when she said she was collecting for 6 families.

As well as the farming activities, I am also involved in various organisations and chair a few of them. Again, they are all now operating differently, and I have had to adapt accordingly. I have always been one for just lifting the phone, as I did when I worked in banking and had teleconferences with Australia, North America and New Zealand or arranging face-to-face meetings with colleagues.

I am now learning how to use technology to chair and join virtual meetings using Zoom and Skype on my desktop with the help of my family.  A webcam is on its way, so that I can join Teams meetings too, and it has made me realise how slow I have been in getting to grips with all this rather useful technology.

What I have found is the importance of establishing a discipline to these meetings so that we keep to time, don’t overrun and make sure everyone gets an opportunity to contribute. Such discipline is going to be increasingly important in our everyday lives, as at some point, we move carefully out of lockdown.

Self-isolation has been relatively easy for us on the farm during lambing time, as you rarely see the outside world for 3-4 weeks anyway. Farming requires us to regularly modify our behaviour and approach, applying care and discipline, until the unfamiliar becomes the norm.

At the moment, we feel relatively safe, but this will all change when we move slowly out of lockdown. Many things will be different, hence the need again for discipline in what we do.  The discipline of social distancing, home working, reconfiguration of schools and places of work, different shift working to assist travel concerns, one-way pavements, to name just a few, will all be essential and will feel terribly different at first.

However, we can take some comfort from the familiar changes we can observe in nature. The differences that remain the same: how wonderful that the swallows have returned from their winter adventures, the geese have migrated north to save our grass fields, and hopefully there will be no late frosts to ruin the fruit buds that are appearing.

Mother Nature has been kind to us this spring, making it easier to cope with everything else that is different.