It's stating the obvious to say that these are unusual times, but they are and some things work very differently now.
With more people about, avoiding them has become my number one priority when thinking about a local route. I should make it clear that by 'avoiding', I mean staying much more than 2m away from anyone.
While not particularly desirable, a reliable place to walk is on a path like the one in the photo below - alongside a major road - because it's unlikely that anyone else would want to walk there. I did this twice today: this is a mile-long stretch I did later in my walk, but earlier I did about 2.5 miles on a similar path. I passed four people on the longer path and nobody on the shorter one.
Of the four people I passed, two were runners and two were cyclists. In each case, I judged that I would need to be the one to cross the grassy verge and walk in the road for a while before returning to the path. Not one of the people even acknowledged my obvious social distancing, let alone say 'thank you'. Some people do obviously care and I've even been pre-empted once or twice by someone making the move before I do, but I find that people ignoring my effort at distancing is far more likely.
I think about this a lot and my theory is that the further I am away from residential areas, the more likely people are to be considerate, possibly because they're 'real' walkers, runners and cyclists.
I took this photo on today's walk because I was predicting what would happen as I approached a couple of dog walkers. We were approaching each other, but I could see they would reach their steps down to the road before I would reach mine. And predictably they carried on towards me and I had to be the one to take avoiding action by going down to the road, passing them, and going up onto the sea wall again. Did they acknowledge my avoiding action? Of course not.
On my previous walk last Friday, I was a couple of miles from home on a lane I use a lot and that I've never seen anyone on in the years I've been walking it (as can happen nowadays). As a man and woman ran past me side-by-side from behind, the man shouted to the woman to move in. She didn't move in - and almost brushed past me, saying 'sorry' as she went by. I shouted a complaint and she called back: "I said sorry didn't I?".
I do try to be tolerant of the 'new' walkers and runners who don't seem to know which side of the road is safest for them. As they approach, I realise that I'm the one who'll need to cross the road from my safest side to the less safe side and cross back once we've passed.
And finally, I've taken to crossing the road to avoid cyclists coming towards me on the same side. I've found that while the considerate ones give me a wide berth, too many don't move out at all and get too close for comfort. So basically, I've stopped trusting cyclists and I'm disappointed by the lack of manners from most of the people I pass.
Rant over! (...or perhaps it's just me?)