Despite the laws, I am not social distancing.

Despite the threat of a virus and possible death, I am not social distancing.

Despite the fears we have, I am not social distancing.

Despite the threat of fines and jail time, I am not social distancing.

Before you have a hernia and unfollow me, and comment an attack about how irresponsible I'm being, please bear with me. It's frightening times, and we are all so darn scared of each other and what might happen.

But we don't need to social distance.

We need to physically distance.

Yesterday was VE day, the day that the war ended with Germany 75 years ago. It's a time of pride and memory. The media is busy drawing associations between national sacrifice then, and national sacrifice now. I even get tears in my eyes to think of people dancing on the streets in England many years ago.

Dancing on the Streets on VE Day

Yesterday we met friends on the towpath of the Bath and Avon canal near Avoncliff in the UK, as we are moving onto their barge for a while for some 'alone' time and to wait this crisis out a little. It has the added bonus of feeling like an adventure on a boat, though we won't be going anywhere. We also give my sister in law a break, though she's going to be a little lonely without us.

Our friend expressed real concern that this social distancing is going to create fear and wariness between people. It's hard to know who to trust or who is judging you for apparent 'transgressions'. Yesterday, driving to my mother in laws (a vulnerable person) for a socially distance backyard scones and cream under British flag bunting for VE day celebrations, both my husband, myself and her were in the car. We're all members of the same household, so legally, it's okay. But curtain twitchers and do gooders must look and wonder: are they breaking the rules of travelling in groups of two?

Was even our little party, sitting outside, two metres apart in the warm British sunshine, all members of one family who's been uber cautious, a huge transgression that onlookers might disapprove of?

We're lucky. The Mendips have only had 50 cases, and Somerset is a little haven with very few cases at all. It's easy to distance from others in the countryside. We shop once or twice a week, taking due caution with soap and water, and keep distance from others in the shops, which have a two in two out policy. And everyone around here is mostly friendly and smiling, almost as if to compensate for this terrible time when we're asked to be socially distant.

At those times though, we're not socially distant - we are physically distant. We still smile, and stop to chat over fences from a cautious distance. We stop in fields and chat about our dogs. We chat to the landlord of a pub when we pick up fish and chips, distant across a bar and lines of tape on the carpet. We pick up fruit and vege boxes in the car, and joke with the farmers through the car window. We chat on Facebook, Discord, phones. We smile through windows at children who wave. We nod at cyclists.

We are not socially distant.

Just physically.

And so I refuse to use the term socially distant, lest we feel more isolated than we already are.