Everything has changed, except for the things that haven't, and the collision of old and new reality is producing all sorts of unexpected challenges. When the lockdown was first announced, my partner, R, and I felt fairly calm about the prospect, reflecting that we have been in inadvertent training for just such an outlandish event for some time.

I have been working from home for decades, and a few years ago R also set up an office in our living-room. Since then we have become adept at sharing the space in a moderately sized apartment; but the intensity of this new confinement has turned an exposing spotlight on differences that once seemed trivial, or of which we were only dimly aware.

A couple of weeks ago, our dishwasher broke down: a very minor problem, or so it seemed. I grew up in a household with an austere minimum of labour-saving appliances - just an unwieldy upright vacuum cleaner and an ancient twintub washing machine - so analogue washing-up holds no terrors for me. R gamely volunteered to take his turn at the sink - at which point the first cracks in our domestic unity began to appear.

While I follow the dishwashing protocols I learnt at my mother's knee - glasses first, then cutlery, then china, then saucepans, with a good deal of pre- and post-wash rinsing - R approaches the task in a style that presumably evolved during his student years. He heaves everything into the sink at the same time, swilling plates and frying pans indiscriminately in a liquid that gradually comes to resemble a nourishing soup, with odd bits of whatever we had for dinner floating in a murky greyish emulsion. If the virus doesn't get us, I reflect, botulism probably will. But I'm reluctant to undermine the admirable principle of housework-sharing, so the thought remains, for now, unspoken.