During coronavirus, we can discover unexpected places, and find out more about ourselves

In the latest in his series of reflections about place and pathway Will Gore finds that, despite the lockdown, he is struggling to get his children to leave the house

An hour or so on foot does everyone the power of good (Getty)

I love my children. And in some ways, this peculiar opportunity to spend more time with them is a boon – even when my son is following me around with a step so he can find a better angle from which to hit me with a cardboard tube.

But, my goodness, the strain of getting them out for their daily exercise! Their preference, if it really must be done, is a 200-yard meander down the hill to a nearby school car park, where they scoot or cycle about in a rather desultory fashion – assuming indeed that nobody else has got there first, in which case they have to make do with toing and froing along a tarmacked path. We, their adoring parents spectate, walk in circles of ever-increasing frustration.

There are no winners from all of this. The children don’t expend the energy that is so painfully and obviously pent up inside them: instead it emerges in tantrums (mostly from the 5-year-old) and a failure to go to sleep at a decent hour (mostly by the 10-year-old). I end up with a perpetual, low-grade sense of irritation, which even half an hour of star jumps and burpees can’t shift.