Up at 7 am for my first swim in the local pool for months.
It was well arranged. At the desk we were met by a man with one of those hand-held thermometers that are pointed at your forehead. We were allowed to use the changing rooms, but whole areas including the showers were taped off with what looked like police tape.
In the pool itself, we were urged to wash our hands with the alcohol soap and shower. We had to place our clothes that we had packed into our backpacks in the changing rooms, on plastic chairs spaced out along the side of the pool.
There were five of us, one to a lane and we were told that we had fifty minutes until the next group of swimmers came in to take our places.
I had previously been told by one of my swimming friends (the five of us were regulars) that the pool temperature was far too cold and that I should make a complaint about it – but when I jumped in I found the water pleasantly cool, just the right temperature for vigorous swimming.
I did my 1.5k and a few hundred metres more because I stayed until the people to replace us arrived.
We had to shower in the pool, so there was no soap used and then we had to exit the pool on a different route from the one we used to get in. For the first time I used the stairs at the front of the pool that go down to the children’s’ changing rooms. Obviously, there were no kids there so we had to change there and then use another exit door to leave. All in all, it was a very professional exercise which kept us apart and obeyed the dictates of lockdown.
The café is now open again and I was able to have my tea and bocadillo de tortilla francesa, as well as a welcome gossipy conversation with an ex-fellow student of a Spanish class of a year ago. Apart from our masks and the fact that we bumped elbows and kept our distance, it was almost ‘normal’.
By the time I got back, had another cup of tea and completed the Guardian Quick Crossword, it was time for my bike ride (this time with a waterproof coat backed into one of my many backpacks) down to the Sitges part of Castelldefels and back. The new bike lane was further closed off as workmen were installing a version of our ill-fated ‘armadillos’ to separate the lane from the rest of the road. They had coned-off the outside lane, so only the crappy gutter lane was available for bumpy riding.
As the weather was not of the most congenial it was difficult to tell the composition of the people wandering around given that we have now passed into another phase of the loosening of lockdown. Apart from the times reserved for our older citizens, we are now free (I think) to take exercise when we want. I have not been into town to see how the reopening of various shops is going.
One shop, a supermarket next to another (and better one) is in the process of liquidation with much of the stuff that was left on rapidly emptying shelves with 40% off. My ‘discount’ at the end of my hurried shop (I was there at the tail end of the day and the last person to be served) was over 40 euros! I panic bought pepper and Earl Grey tea because, you never know. I actually went there for bottled water for Toni and came back with three bags full! Some things are instinctive for a mother-trained shopper like myself!
Tomorrow I have booked my place in the pool for another 8 am start. Wednesday is more problematic as all the 8 am places are gone and it took me a while to find the other timed places in the app that we have to use to book our times, but this will become second nature in time.
And talking of time, how much longer is all this going to continue? How long is this system going to be in place? I think that our original thoughts were that this would all be over sometime during the summer and, if things had been properly arranged then we would avoid a Second Spike in the autumn. Who knows what is going to happen? Our governments certainly do not!
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