I have been a lucky bug this week, because I got three gifts. One, herbs from the hills, in deliciously labelled bottles. Two, a book my friend thought would comfort me. The third, a tin decorated with a blowsy rose, and my name in silver, holding beaded hoops, giving me a teenage I didn't have.

Our time of isolation is also a time of separation, from life's unexpected gifts—word play, random shared jokes, surprise visits and impulse outings, catharsis springing from meandering conversations. In separation, gifts are thrilling when they are unexpected, and become a way of touching each other, tokens of remembrance, or being memorised, when we are all at risk of drifting away into forgetting.