LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 57 – Monday, 11th May

The weather forecast for today was totally wrong and I therefore took advantage of what I understood to be freakish sunshine and went for my morning bike ride.  This time, I did not attempt to go into the Marina at Port Ginesta, being a law-abiding citizen of Castelldefels and not of Sitges, so I turned around at the end of the cycle lane on the Paseo and came home.

     After my dutifully disturbing read of the Guardian, it was then time for the sojourn to the shops.  Masked, and latex gloved I drove to Caprabo to get the ant traps and I attempted to do the rest of my shop there.  Not going to happen, so I slipped along to Lidl to finish off.

     In spite of the fact that Lidl did not have the 15-month mature Cheddar, I willingly settled for the soapier stuff and thought that Lidl is basically a better store than the small Caprabo that I frequent.  But, and there is always a but, there were things that I could get in Caprabo that are never available in Lidl; Lidl is never a one stop store, and that is a real disadvantage: when in lockdown you really do not want to visit multiple shops – you never know when you may come across a Plague Child or three!

     At the end of the shop, I was well and truly knackered, and not finding a parking space outside the house because of the bloody workers next door parking their various vans in OUR spaces was the final, energy sapping straw!

     I gave cursory help in unloading the car when it was parked in the front garden space, and then the heavy lifting, and the meticulous cleaning and putting away was done by Toni while I, literally, put my feet up!  [Are there too many commas in that sentence? Ed.]

It is almost lunchtime and we should be back in rain, if not thunderstorms, according to the weather forecast.  I wonder what the weather is like in the UK, and I wonder how people have reacted to the Blond Buffoon’s clear as mud instructions, suggestions, fugitive thoughts or whatever his broadcast was supposed to be.  It comes to something that, even after a scripted talk by the Buffoon, ministers have to be deployed at once to explain what he might have meant.  For example, who would have know that when the Buffoon uses the word ‘Monday’ he actually means ‘Wednesday’ – perhaps our Prime Minister (sic) is working to an Old Etonian (or Estonian, as my spellchecker wanted it) calendar where there is a languorous two-day difference from the Proles’ week to allow for an elite cushion of prevarication and indolence?

     My British friends and relations are not all of a type, but they are united in their contempt for the leaders who fail to take responsibility, fail to lead, fail to be imaginative, fail to save lives, and then treat us with condescension assuming that we have memories of the same capacity as the much maligned goldfish!  We have not!

     On a Catalan television station that had academics commenting on the Covid-19 Crisis, I noted one subtitle on a part of the discussion had something about the “extreme recklessness” of one group of nations in their approach to the virus.  Four states were listed: Mexico, Brazil, the United States of America – and the UK!  What exalted, socially responsible company to be in!  With equally delightful leaders!  God help us all, what have the Conservatives reduced us to?

     The fall out from the Sunday burbling meander to the nation continues with reactions of bafflement, amazement and disgust now augmented with further negative abstract nous being applied to the muddy exposition that was supposed to enlighten us this afternoon.

     When, by the way the Blond Buffoon going to accept responsibility for being Prime Minister?  He has a duty to appear before the press and answer questions; he has a duty to appear in Parliament and respond, he has a duty to justify his actions in a democratic society.

     We know that he cannot be trusted live to answer questions without there being an extensive amount of damage limitation after he has waffled his way through questions.  He was too frightened to be questioned by Andrew Neil; he fled into a fridge rather than be questioned by a television reporter; he has still not appeared before the Parliamentary Liaison Committee; he has missed PMQs; he prefers pre-submitted questions on Facebook to hard questioning from trained reporters; how often has he actually been in parliament – the parliament that he has tried so hard to limit, either by proroguing it for ILLEGAL lengths of time or by simply ignoring it?  Illness, holidays and cowardice – anything other than facing up to what he has done and is planning (if that is not too strong a word) to do, anything other than public accountability.

     And, in spite of the second highest death rate from Covid-19 IN THE WORLD; in spite of the obvious U turns, the evasions, the missed targets, the criminal lack of preparedness, he still has a reasonable amount of public support!

     I understand that, in times of crisis, there is an understandable “rallying around the flag” effect, to go with the authority that one knows to work together and get through this all, sort of thing – but with him and the motely crew that he has gathered about himself?  Really?  What, in any aspect of his past life, would encourage anyone to trust or rely on this proven liar and opportunist?

The rain-filled day has not materialized and so I will be able to go for my evening bike ride as well, making the culmination of an excitement-filled day – you have to take your pleasures where you find them in lockdown!

     But just to make sure that I do not become complacent in my joy, my computer upstairs has decided to half start.  I get the Apple logo and the little line underneath that gradually fills up to the half way point, and then it blacks out.  With all my years of experience of the wayward ways of computers (I will not frighten you with the nomenclature of the early version of Windows that made me the gibbering technological wretch that I am today) I have turned the computer off and will hope that turning it on again will make all things well.

     As far as computers are concerned, I am a simple, trusting, peasant soul when things go wrong.  And I comfort myself with the fact that I have two laptop computers (at least) that will keep me typing!

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 45 – Wednesday, 29th APRIL

The Great Adventure! Or going to Lidl’s.  Such as the delights when you are in lockdown, you take your pleasures where you can define them!

     There are many more people around in Castelldefels, though as I passed over the motorway bridge the amount of traffic was small for the time of the day.

     Lidl was relatively full, though I didn’t have to wait before I entered the store to wash my hands in liquid alcohol and start shopping.  Most, but not all people inside the store were wearing masks, and I think that it is becoming a generational thing with the older shoppers being much more likely to be masked up rather than the young.

     As people are supposed to be alone when shopping, it does mean that there is a self regulating holdup when it comes to the checkout, and an infuriating lack of urgency by most when it comes to putting purchases inside bags to take away.

     I have to say that my trip to the shop was uneventful.  People were generally good in their distancing and there didn’t seem to be any shortages – apart form my 15 month mature Cheddar – luckily I stocked up during the last shop and so I still have a chunk left.

     I came back via the sea front to check on how people are working with the new regulations allowing a parent with up to three children to go for walks of less than 1km.  That was what most appeared to be doing as far as I could see, and there seemed to be fewer people on the beach, most were walking on the paseo.  It is still an oddly quiet and lonely activity to drive along the beach road, especially when the weather is encouraging people to come out and walk.

     As the weather steadily improves, it is going to be more and more difficult to keep people in their homes and I can’t help feeling that the government’s intention to allow adults to walk for exercise from this weekend is little more than following the feelings of the population rather than following the science.

     We do not have adequate testing in place in Catalonia and without testing then any successful and safe loosening of the restrictions is going to be a matter of luck rather than confident, evidence backed steps back to normality.  It is my fear that the increasing zest to get back to free movement is going to lead to an inevitable spike in infections and deaths in the autumn.

     For me, a sober assessment of my position would suggest that I fit a few of the criteria for ‘at-risk’ and I think that the onus of my continued existence is going to be squarely on what I think is an adequate approach to my own personal safety rather than going with the flow of governmental encouragement back to normality.

     There is much talk of the ‘new normality’, but too much of it is predicated on the basis that mere talk will make it true.  I do not think that many people have really come to terms with the length of time that there might realistically be before anything approaching previous levels of ordinary domestic intimacy will be back with us.  The double kiss of meeting is very much a thing of the past.  At the moment.  But old habits die hard and it doesn’t need much for people to forget that there was ever an interruption.

     Because we cannot see the virus, it takes an effort of the imagination to take danger seriously.  And it takes a steely determination to be constantly on guard; it is too easy to let your defences down momentarily, and that is all the virus needs to infect and threaten.

The pdf file for my chapbook, Coasts of Memory, is far too large to send via a simple email, and I have been looking to find ways to reduce the quality of the photos that are the major space takers.  I had thought that I would have to alter each of the photographic illustrations individually in some way or other, and then re-insert them into the document.  I tired to use one or two ideas and failed until I noticed that there was an option actually called ‘Reduce file size’ on the ‘File’ menu.  I wonder how many times I have opened that menu and simply not noticed that particularly helpful option!  I suppose it is better to have found it now rather than carry on with a series of futile half-arsed attempts at uninformed self-help!

     I have sent two copies of the file to Irene.  The first was a failure and there was no way that she was able to open it, I have sent the second and I have great hopes for that one.  I wait with trepidation!

     If the file is openable then I intend to send it out and ask recipients, if they feel so inclined, to contribute to NHS charities in their respective countries as payment. 

     This is an on-going enterprise!

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 22 – Monday in Holy Week, 6th APRIL

Escape!

     My first physical emergence into the wider world!  Well, I drove to Lidl a couple of kilometres from my home for our weekly shop and then drove back again.  As Toni has done this previously, I have to admit that I was mildly excited by the prospect of finally getting out of the house and environs for the first time in three weeks!

     The reality of my journey was, of course, an anti-climax.  I drove along virtually empty roads to a virtually empty Lidl car park, just as I used to find each day as I cycled to the pool for my early morning swim in the ‘old days’ of just under a month ago!

     Gloved and masked I marched towards the shopping trollies to find out that I had no change – when was the last time that I used money as cash?  Luckily there was a Lidl employee at the entrance and she went to a till and found me a plastic token and emphasised that I could keep it, and it is now safely lodged in my wallet where I will probably forget that I have it the next time I find myself without change, but still, a little gesture makes all the difference to a shopping expedition!

     At the entry to Lidl was a person who demanded that all shoppers first use the hand sanitizer and then glove-up before they were allowed to go in.  As I was already wearing gloves I had to sanitize and the liquid stayed damp on the plastic for a damn sight longer that it did on flesh.  But, who could quarrel with this basic form of hygiene and it did emphasise a level of concern that one could only hope was carried on into the store itself by the shoppers.

     People did keep their distance and there was an obvious wariness about Others, as the best form of protection is to assume that everyone you meet and see is positive for the virus.

     To my utter horror there was no Cheddar cheese in the dairy section.  I specifically went to Lidl because they have a 15-month matured Cheddar at a cost that matches that in Britain and without the premium that decent Cheddar has elsewhere in Catalonia – if you can get it.  I was able to compensate with a few other cheeses, but Gouda and Emmental hardly match Cheddar for taste, texture and versatility.   How I suffer.

     The other main reason for my going to Lidl is their range of nuts and the prices they charge.  I did not trust Toni to understand the quantity and variety of nuts that I demand for everyday use and rather than explain and justify it was so much easier to go myself!

     I got virtually everything that we had decided was essential and the only things that I failed to find were radishes and soya sprouts – no great loss, either of those.

     On the more than positive side, for the first time in Lidl I found sugar free ice creams and sugar free biscuits – and for the sake of my sanity, I understand ‘no added sugars’ to be synonymous with ‘sugar free’ because, yes.

     We are now set for the next week with only fresh bread for Toni being an on-going concern.  We do have a bakery near us and Toni goes there every couple of days and brings back a little treat with the baguettes.

Going shopping did not push my steps up to the minimum that my unrelenting smart watch demands, and by the time that we had put everything that I bought away.  We were both exhausted.  Let me explain.  Toni is a stickler for the correct procedures so we therefore wiped each and every item before we put it away.  As it was a ‘major’ shop, it took a lot of time, with my being accused of being slip shod in my wiping.  God give me strength!  Anyway, at the end of the putting away, going for a walk to make up my steps lost out badly to having a decent cup of tea and then one thing led to another and suddenly it was night, and therefore time for me to work on the poem ideas for PIHW Poem 2.

     And that is what I need to get on with now.  PIHW Poem 1 is on smrnewpoems.blogspot.com and by tomorrow morning I hope that it will be joined by Poem 2.

     Work to do!