LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 64 – Monday, 18th May

One of the key moments in the day is no more: our applause for the health and front line workers has now been terminated.  It changed the dynamic of the day, or at least the ‘start’ of the evening and, instead of departing immediately after the couple of minutes clap I set off a little later for my bike ride.

     The number of bikes seems to be increasing and we obviously outnumber the number of car drivers.  Who knows if this enthusiasm for the bike will last?  At the moment there is no real prospect for an early return to anything like normality, so the reign of the bike looks to continue for some months yet.

     As we are now in the majority it is easier to evaluate the behaviour of bike riders now that our numbers have increased so markedly.  Pedestrians are the worst road users by far and show a shocking lack of consideration, but cyclists are a close second.

     I suppose that the way in which cycles are ridden are functions of the fact that you do not need any licence to ride a bike and you have immediate access to busy roads with no training or knowledge – and it shows!

     ‘Professional’ bikers, i.e. those with the unflattering clothing, are the least likely to stop for pedestrians on zebra crossings or obey traffic lights if they think they can get away with it.

     But the key irritation is those bikers who ignore bike lanes, as though bike lanes are for the lesser breeds.  This is especially irritating when there are two bike lanes separated from a pedestrian path and yet some bike riders insist on weaving their way among the pedestrians.  Of course, the same thing is just as irritating when the pedestrians decide to invade the bike lanes!

     My pet peeve with cycles though, is the use of lights.  On cycling home this evening out of over 160 bikes that passed me, only 8 had lights on, whereas all the cars had their lights on.

There were only two Viral Assassins (kids) blatantly out of their time zone, but many more bike gangs of teenagers who must be desperate after weeks of isolation to get back to the usual social intercourse of youth!

     As far as I can understand the latest instructions of the government, many parts of the country will be advanced to Level 1 from Level Zero, but Barcelona will still stay at Level 0.  It is my understanding that it covers not only the city of Barcelona, but also the province of Barcelona, in which case my city of Castelldefels will also be included in the highest state of lockdown.

     The President is trying to get an extension of the State of Alarm for another month when this one comes to an end.  As is usual, the PP and the fascist party are trying to get it truncated.  It will be interesting to see what happens – though I am prepared to do my own sensible thing if I feel that my safety is not being considered (when has it ever) by government!

The Catalan video lesson was ok, with one or two problems with the picture freezing, but I was the only student in the class again.  I have told the other members of the class about these video lessons, but the response has not been there.  I have been given homework and the next lesson is next week.  Who knows how long this term is going to last?  But I think that the next lesson might well be the last.

     We shall see!

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 61 – Friday, 15th May

For once we were not woken up by the wreckers from next-door executing their usual early morning rendition of Concerto Number Umpteen-and-One for drill, hammer and cement mixer.  I set off on my bike ride in relative silence and with thin sunshine.

     I now no longer even make the attempt to cycle all the way along the sea front to the Marina at Port Ginesta, even if the police are not there to enforce the unobtrusive border between Castelldefels and that part of the jurisdiction of Sitges that arches over the hills to take possession of the end of the bay.

     At the other end of Castelldefels the border with Gavà is blocked off with police tape and, while walkers and joggers duck beneath it and ignore it, I deign to flaunt authority in such a blatant manner and I dutifully turn around and come back home.  I have to admit that it really is not much of a burden to obey our locality restrictions, as I am able to cycle the entire length of Castelldefels and so complete a jaunt of 10k.  Which is quite enough for me.  Though I do miss my swim.

As I am an avid devotee of crowd funding sites and am ever beguiled by new technology, I am happy to report that I am now the proud possessor of a ‘cleansebot’.  As opposed to many of my purchases from Indigogo and the like, this particular innovation might actually be regarded as somewhat timely.

     The ‘cleansebot’ is a small side plate sized circular thick Frisbee-like object that incorporates UV light and wheels and is designed to crawl about one’s bed destroying bacteria and other wildlife haunting the savannah of the mattress and the cover sheet.  It can also be used as a hand-held destroyer and can then be utilized to ravage pillow cases, TV remotes, laptop keyboards, kitchen surfaces, light switches, etc.  Given the present concern about cleanliness this little machine could not have arrived at a better time and, more importantly, this is the only purchase of mine from crowd funding about which Toni has expressed approval – rather than throwing his eyes to heaven in exasperation at my ‘waste of money’!

     I have now retrieved the cleansebot from the bed after its sub-blanketian traverse of our sleeping quarters.  I believe that it has made a difference, because there is no way of actually seeing what it has or has not done!  But the real point is that I have another robot to complicate life just a little more, but cleaner, hopefully cleaner.

As the rain held off (and continues to do so) I was able to go on my evening bike ride.  There is a distinct air of determination to the way that people are walking, running and cycling during our period of allowed activity from 8pm.  Given the fact that it was a Friday (thinking of the past days when that actually meant something) there were more people on the Paseo than usual, especially when the weather was as dull as it was.  There were four or five illegal Plague Kids out of their time, but the most illustrative aspect that I note were the growing numbers of young teenage kids in bike gangs which, if you think about it, is as a good way of meeting your friends as any.  And, as long as you don’t get off your bikes, it’s a good way of keeping the necessary physical distancing that we have been advised to maintain.

     Although I joke about the concept of Plague Kids, I really do feel that every young person is a potential viral assassin!  And that attitude is going to take a long time or a quick vaccine to get rid of.

     When we talk about the New Normal, distancing must become the attitude of choice and of necessity.  I wonder how long the attitudes will last though?

In the UK the government is trying to rewrite the narrative of neglect that characterised the situation of Care Homes, it is doing this via nauseating expressions of present concern and a determination to change the approach of government, conveniently forgetting which government has been in power for the last decade!

On a lighter note, our next Catalan lesson is on Monday.  With any reasonable luck there will be more people in our virtual classroom than my good lone self.  We have had to do some homework and presumably that will be the basis of conversation (!) in our next class – assuming that it works.   
     I love technology, as I have mentioned above, but when it is linked to teaching it has an almost inevitable fail factor built in to the whole enterprise.   
     But, as always, I live in hope and positive expectations!