LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 6

There is something almost poignant in cancelling an mobile phone alarm that had previously got me up at 6.10 am each day to get read for my early morning swim at 7.00 am in the local pool.  With the closure of the pool due to the virus the need to rise early was gone, but the continued sound of the 6.15 alarm was a reminder of my normality.  The cancelling was a delayed gesture and an acceptance of the situation as it is now, rather than the situation as it was then.  The new reality finally finding a sonic place in my daily routine!

     Today was the first silent awakening and I duly had a ‘real’ lie-in and didn’t get up until 9.45 am!  Three and a half hours later than usual!  I must admit that I felt thoroughly guilty by the time I staggered into the bathroom and started to get ready for the day.

     As I showered and shaved I wondered why I was bothering – not about the showering, personal hygiene is something that becomes even more important during a pandemic than in ordinary times, but rather in shaving and going through the rituals that structure a ‘normal’ day.

     There is a Somerset Maugham short story set in the Far East which centres on two colonial Englishmen, one a stickler for what he see as civilized English standards of correct behaviour and the other who considers such an attitude absurd when placed in the strange and foreign surroundings of a country totally unlike England.  One aspect of the Stickler’s behaviour I always remember: even though his copies of The Times were delivered in a batch to his remote location, he would only read them one a day in sequence in arrears, even if he was desperate to find out what had happened.  He would wait and steel himself to be patient!  The other man was not so patient and when the bundle arrived, he ripped it open and read the most recent first.  The story does not end well.

     Ritual can be comforting and give a pleasant sense of structure, but it can also be negative as those who have lived by ritual and structure find when these elements of scaffolding are taken away. 

     OK, I know that I started talking about cancelling an early alarm, and it’s only been a week since we have been in lockdown, but this lockdown is likely to last for a damn sight longer than the end of this month and small things in enclosed environments are likely to become more significant.  So, small changes can have disproportionate effects.  Perhaps writing about such things is a way of noting the variables and coping with them!

     And, I might add, I do not intend to stay in bed until quarter to ten each day during this crisis!  One has one’s standards!

I am getting progressively more worried about the attitude of people in the UK about how to react in this crisis.  People say that they know that it is serious, but then they say things that show that they are not fully conversant with the fatal seriousness of what might happen if their precautions are inadequate.

     As far as I can see, the attitude of the Generalitat in Catalonia is the right one: a lockdown, which really means lockdown.  We have increasing reports of the police stopping people who are two to a car and asking them why they are flouting the instruction that says that only one person is allowed outside the house at a time.  We have been told of people being warned about taking their dogs (a vaild reason for leaving the home) too far from the home itself.  They are supposed to be no more than a couple of hundred yards away.  People next door to us are making daily visits to continue the reformation, something which is simply stupid and dangerous.  People are still going for walks and runs and one friend has told me that something like 30,000 fines have been issued to people breaking the rules.

     As we saw from the guy who went to Italy then France and ended up in Britain, all it takes is one person to spread the virus with disastrous consequences.  And what Britain is allowing with this selective lockdown does not prevent the virus spreading.  The lackadaisical approach shown by the so-called government and the bumbling blond buffoon must translate itself into a similar attitude from the general population – and that mean more death.

     I simply do not believe that my fellow countrymen are hand-washing with the sort of manic intensity that we are in Catalonia.  I am not convinced that people are properly afraid, and are taking the seemingly neurotic precautions that are necessary to stem the advance of the virus.  And if they don’t then they are making a fatal mistake.  And they do not realize just how big and bad this pandemic can still get.  Easily.

I have been making some use of the third floor terrace.  There have been one or two days when you could kid yourself that it was sun-bathing weather.  And it doesn’t take a great deal to convince me of that.  We are lucky that we have a terrace that is big enough for a couple of loungers and a table and chairs, we have small gardens front and rear, and a communal pool. 

     What about those people who live in a small flat in the centre of Barcelona or another city?  Most Catalans live in compact flats, and if you have a couple of kids, then you soon begin to see why a great deal of normal life is conducted outside the home!

A friend has sent me a list of MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) about Art History and I am strangely drawn to trying one of them; especially as they are all free as well!

Always something to do!

And, if you want something else to read, might I suggest my new poetry blog at smrnewpoems.blogspot.com