LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 49 – Sunday, 3rd May

 

The enthusiasm for the outdoors early in the morning! 

     Well, the general enthusiasm had markedly diminished by the time I got onto the Paseo at just after 7 am!  The First Day zest had cooled as I rode down a sparsely populated sea front.  Don’t get me wrong, there were more people there than usual (I mean the usual of more than six weeks ago) but given the masses who were relishing their new found freedom yesterday, their staying power was something of a squib!

     I did my stint from the house to Port Ginesta beach that is at the far end of the gentle arc of the bay that ends with the train tunnels that eventually lead to Sitges.  This journey I saw nobody whom I knew and my trip was personally uneventful.

     What was interesting was the positioning of the police at the roundabout at the end of the Marina, guarding the road that leads into the beach part of Castelldefels.  This was obviously there as a deterrent to any ‘visitors’ to the beach, as we all should be exercising near or rather ‘near’ our homes.  The positioning of the police links up with what Toni told me yesterday when he noticed the police stationed on the part of the beach road that links Castelldefels with Gavà.  Toni also mentioned that the end of his walk was getting closer to the cut off time for our age group of 10 am, and the police are not hesitant in dishing out fines to those who break the regulations.

     I am just over five months away from being cast into another age group when my times for exercise will differ from those of Toni – but who really has the slightest inkling of what will really happen in those countries which have suffered (and go on suffering) the most from the virus in five long months.  Given the speed of the news cycle nowadays we may not be able to recognize the world as we knew it as having any real relationship with the way that we will be living then!

     The incubation period for the virus is two weeks or thereabouts, so we should be checking the infection statistics on May 16^th to see if the relaxation has had any numerical results.  I hope to god not, but given the way that people are responding to the fine weather and the new freedom, I fear the worst.

At the moment Toni’s family is having a joint ‘meal’ via the Internet to celebrate Mother’s Day.  Unfortunately Toni’s mum does not know how to join the videoconference and so she is present in thought only!  Though now she is being contacted by phone in the hope that it can be converted into some sort of joint effort.  I do not hold out any lively hopes.

     I suppose that what we are stuttering out way through at the moment could become the fabulous New Normal that everyone is talking about and no one knows how to make real practical sense of it.  If physical distancing continues for the foreseeable future and travel between towns is banned, then the videoconference is the only way of giving a form of immediacy with sound and vision.  Like so much else, what is now new and unusual will become the everyday.  Mobile phones and smart phones are a case in point, who now does not own one and, more importantly, know how to operate it at a level of sophistication that would shock the selves of just five years ago!

     If this does become more usual then I am sure that there will be something like a curated service that will guarantee HD quality sound and picture and give a firm electronic link – and there will be plenty of people who would be prepared to pay for something a few shades of sharpness better than that you get for grainy nothing!

After the 8pm clap for health workers I made my second bike ride of the day along the beach path to Gavà, and it was fairly full.  I only saw two illegal kids who should have been indoors at the time that I was there, but it was the other people who made me wonder about how this is going to turn out.  There was little evidence of physical distancing and, when I returned I went in the opposite direction on the Paseo towards Port Ginesta, there was even less.  As far as I could see, the people on the Paseo looked and behaved as if it was a normal Sunday evening.  And that is worrying!

My collection of poetry, Coasts of Memory, continues to frustrate.  I am satisfied with the general editing; it is more the practical production of a printed version that is causing me heartache!  The Brother printer that I have was bought specifically for its ability to print booklets.  I make problems for myself by adding colour photographs to the mix that have vast implications for the memory.  Even with cutting the size of the file it is too unwieldy to sent via email.  I therefore took the decision to reformat the colour photographs and ‘transform’ them into artistic black and white productions. 

     There were yet more printing difficulties and the photos had to be redone.  Again.  But, at last, I managed to get something printed with which I am almost satisfied.  I think that I will have to see if I can get a professional to give me a quotation for the printing of the chapbook in colour.  Otherwise, the black and white will have to do!  And I have to admit that the final product does look quite elegant.

     Now, on with my plan to distribute it via email and ask for a donation to the NHS charity of a country of choice!  Onward and upward!

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 CASTELLDEFLS - DAY 36 - Monday 20th April

It’s still raining!  This is the third day; I may as well be in the Britain – except I understand from resentful looking at the weather forecast for Cardiff that it has had the temerity to be fine in my native land!  What is the world coming to!

     I did manage to take my walk in a brief interlude of dryness between showers and then spent the rest of the day trying to edit my new chapbook, Coasts of Memory.

     Every time I read through the thing I find something else that I want to change.  I don’t mind the substantive editing where I am actually changing words, it’s the technical editing that always gets to me.

     I do have something approaching a final working draft, but I am nowhere near finished with the final product.

     The real problems have developed with the printing.  As I am trying to produce something in-house I am relying on one of the printers that we have to do my bidding.  This would be fairly straightforward, but I print out my chapbook poetry in A5 format, which means that I double side a page of A4 so that the final book is put together using multiples of 4 A5 pages to one double sided A4 sheet.

     The last time that I tried to print out a booklet I failed, but I failed with the expert help of technicians from Microsoft, Epson, Brother and Mac.  At one time I was getting on-line advice and help from three continents!  It was truly amazing how uselessly helpful true experts could be!  The end advice?  Buy another printer!  Honestly!

     The final resolution to the problem was to transfer all the files that had failed to my ever-trusty MacBook Air and print from that!  A solution that I am still using.  No matter that I have a state of the art printer in my study, it finds my up to date version of Word too difficult to work with!  Don’t ask!  I don’t understand either, but I do have a solution that works with a ‘vintage’ laptop and I am prepared to go with that.

     As I have added photographs to the chapbook, my current problem is that the printer refuses to print them in colour.  We have given up trying to get satisfactory solutions in the damp dark and I will wait for the bright morn to attack the recalcitrant printer.

     Toni has said that the reason the printer is not working is that I have bought a new Roberts Internet Radio to replace the white junk in the kitchen and the printer is sulking that I have a newer piece of gadgetry than  her!  Given my experience with insane pieces of electronics, I find that explanation for the non-colour printing of the document eminently sensible!

As you might be able to tell, I have embraced the problems with the printer as a way of thinking about something other than the Covid-19 crisis.  But alas, it has only partially worked.

     At the moment I am not convinced that any country in the world has actually got a convincing handle on how to deal with this situation.  I realize that we are in a dire situation: people are dying and are resenting social separation and while we are dealing with the medical crisis, the economic and social crises are gaining traction.  The story of the Great Depression is not an encouraging one, and neither is the long slog out of the Depression.  What is going to happen when the three months of government paying 80% of wages stops?  How far is this government prepared to go to ease the inevitable hardship that the complete dislocation of economic activity is going to continue to produce?

     The economy must be up and running as soon as possible, but at what cost?

Our Catalan class is stumbling towards some sort of new existence: I await developments with interest.

It looks as though it is going to be raining tomorrow as well!  I will have to lose myself in technical resolution.  So to speak.

     Tomorrow the colour many not be courtesy of the weather, thought I hope it will be courtesy of my printer!

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 35 – Sunday, 19th APRIL

It’s raining. 

     I am disinclined to go on my circuits of the communal swimming pool in the pouring rain. 

     I am further depressed by the reading in the Guardian about Goblin Gove’s typically mealy-mouthed, unconvincing response to a series of allegations in The Sunday Times that the Convalescing Clot missed five consecutive emergency meetings of COBRA in the build up to the Covid-19 crisis and that the government shipped PPE to China in February. 

     That would have covered the period when our part-time Prime Minister was hidden away in Chequers, a prime minister who notoriously “didn’t work weekends” according to an unnamed senior adviser!  Once Bullingdon Club always Bullingdon Club: the lazy sense of entitlement of the rich and the privileged; let the lesser breeds without the law do the hard graft while the Johnson jonson sets about adding another child to the unnumbered brood.

     I am more than prepared to believe that the lingering poison of Brexit mixed with the euphoria of the Conservative right wing after the crushing electoral victory led the ‘government’ fatally to mismanage a coherent approach to the Covid-10 crisis. 

     The typical Tory inhumanity of the ‘herd immunity’ approach to dealing with the crisis, complacently accepting hefty deaths will be remembered, together with the astonishing U-Turn when it was suddenly abandoned in favour of approaches that more nearly matched virtually every other government in the world.

     The position of the Health Secretary is becoming more and more untenable – or at least it should be becoming more and more untenable as more and more avoidable deaths will be laid as a memorial to his incompetence.  Yes, efficient supply is difficult in times of crisis, especially in a cash and equipment and personnel starved institution like the NHS that is in its present state because of the cruel austerity practiced by the Tory government for the last decade. 

     The empty platitudes of support that Tory ministers mouth for Health Workers are cruelly ironic given their attitudes towards the NHS over the past years.  These are the same vile folk who cheered after a pay increase for Nurses was defeated in the House of Commons!  They disgust me.

     And, as I typed that last bitter sentence, the rain outside has grown appreciably heavier.  There is nothing like the Pathetic Fallacy to cement misery in place!

In an effort to escape the gnawing resentment contained in the paragraphs above, I have turned to something more creative.  My chapbook of poems written in Holy Week called Coasts of Memory.  I have been working on illustration and made a decision to use only photographs taken within the lockdown confines.  This means that the house, the garden, the communal pool and what I can see from the terrace and windows are all fair game for my camera!

     I spent yesterday evening playing around with the raw material that I had and started placing individual pictures in what I considered to be appropriate places in the chapbook.  I am constantly frustrated by petty mechanical problems with images and sometimes it is a case of printing what fits rather than fitting what I want to print!

     There is also the problem of he disappearing fonts.  I save what I do fairly religiously; I have been caught out too often and too painfully when documents develop a missing life of their own not to remember to save.  But I am often frustrated by the way in which complex documents do not always retain formatting. 

     The latest example of this concerns by choice of a fairly exotic fort used as a title.  This font did not transfer when I sent the document via email rather than copying it onto a memory stick - in spite of my avowal of the very latest in technology, I can be whimsically old-school from time to time!  The font is space greedy, so when it transfers as something altogether more prosaic it means that everything else on the page is out of place and that has a domino effect on all the pages afterwards.  As I was going to use that particular version of the book for detailed editing, it might turn out to be self-defeating if I have to redo everything with the ‘correct’ font in place in the final document.  Such things are sent to try me, and at least I can have a direct effect on what I do there, as opposed to whingeing on about what my government is doing or not doing in this crisis!

In the way in which the petty becomes important: Toni is going out to get bread!  An event for which he dresses up like an Inuit and wings the desolate abyss between our home and the bread shop that is a few streets away.  I enjoy the results of these little excursions as we usually have a little treat from the patisserie as well as mere bread – by which alone, one cannot live!

     This time, as well as the bread, Toni is going to attempt to get some chicken from the pollo a last, this will be our first ‘bought in’ meal since the lockin began.  However, if there is a queue, or there are too many people there then the meal will be called off and we will have to settle for the bread.  And treats.

There are increasing accounts in the media of the possibility of no vaccine being produced in the short term, or even ever.  We have the example of AIDS, where, in spite of extensive research over a number of years, we are still without a vaccine.  Treatment for the disease, yes; vaccine no.  That is a very sobering thought.  It means that we will be dealing with the virus as an ever-present threat well after this initial surge is over and it also means that for people in my age group the restrictions are going to last for the foreseeable future. 

     This is a more than depressing thought!

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 34 – Saturday, 18th APRIL

 After ‘Moppy’ had done her work; the Guardian Quick Crossword had been completed; my blend of Earl Grey and English Breakfast tea drunk, it was time for my walk, accompanied by the comforting fatuousness of ‘Saturday Live’ on BBC Radio 4.  I also had a purpose other than gentle exercise.  I was looking for raw material to serve as ‘illustration’ for my PIHW Chapbook, Coasts of Memory.

     As I have often bewailed in the past, I have little technical ability in drawing or painting and so I have to rely on photography to get me out of illustrative predicaments.  The situation is made somewhat worse because of the lockdown that obviously restricts my range of subject matter.  I have therefore taken the ‘pleasure in small things’ approach and told myself that I am perfectly capable of finding variety in restriction: from the terrace on the third floor to the far wall of the communal swimming pool, my area of activity might be limited, but it is (I tell myself) rich in illustrative possibilities.  I have therefore taken photos and they await my ruthless editing!

The one shining light of Trump’s ‘Presidency’ is that he is terrified of being a ‘one term’ holder of that office; every other thinking person’s terror is that he should be anything else, after all it is going to be difficult enough to sort out the human, reputational, financial, moral, institutional, legislative, aesthetic and political morass that he will have left after a single term, let alone the horror of his being allowed to play with the USA for an extra four years!

     It is obvious that Trump has decided to stop at absolutely nothing in his aim to retain power and the latest horrific indication of the depths to which he is prepared to sink is evidenced by his encouraging demonstrations against some states’ lockdown restrictions. 

     Trump’s base ‘base’ is essentially rural rather than urban and with his encouragement of the grouping of extreme right sets opposing health and science predicated lockdown, he is hoping for a conflict that he thinks might show him to be the champion of the voice of freedom against those (Democratic) governors who are seeking to repress the true liberties of right thinking Americans to court death and carry guns – and you can scatter as many quotation marks around in that last sentence as your liberal sensibilities dictate!

     That in a time of a catastrophic pandemic the Presidential Egoist can think of fostering something like Civil Disobedience if not Civil War would be unbelievable if it were not Trump.

     On an incidental note: if (please god) Trump is a one-term President, can you see him attending the inauguration of the new Democratic President?  Can you see him visibly handing over power?  What excuse will he make not to attend?  How will he even be able to get through the transition period when he should meet his successor?  If you think back to the intensely embarrassing meetings with Obama when he looked like a naughty schoolboy with a stupidly long tie, what are the ones going to be like with the person who beat him?  My mind finds it difficult to place Trump in any meetings that emphasise his failure to hold on to office.  How can anyone as thinly narcissistic as he bare it?  The thought is something that keeps me warm at nights!

     Talking of narcissists, how long is it going to be that our airwaves are going to be free of the bumbling banter of the virus courter?  He has signally failed to resign because of his dereliction of duty in wilfully becoming infected and I dread to think of the fawning adulation of the gutter press when he bumbles into view, bravely leading our country to destitution and ignominy, after the searing affliction of his virtually self-inflicted illness.

     Meanwhile we have the political chancer, Matt Beckett, the ethic-free (give us a job!) pitiful holder of the Secretary of State for Health portfolio refusing to give straight answers to the almost criminal shortages of PPE for our front line health workers, or indeed anything else of crucial interest to the remaining virus free part of the population of the UK.  I wonder how he is going to convince us that there are 100K tests by the end of the month?  We can dispense with truth, that has never bothered him in the past as he has changed his principles as often as his underwear, so how is he going to square the circle so that he can keep his comfy job.  His past record shows that he is capable of the most egregious U-turns, so I await his contortions.  Resignation will never come easy to one who has swallowed so many of his scruples to get where he is at present.  In some ways it could almost be funny to watch his antics, but people will die because of his incompetence, so smiles will be inappropriate.  Perhaps they might be allowed as long as they are sardonic!

After a fairly glum start to the day there are brief periods now when sunshine is squeezing out from behind the clouds.  There are distinct patches of blue and that bodes well for a sunny later afternoon.  I live in hope.

The PPE situation now seems desperate in the UK.  The weekend is the time when certain medical institutions will run out.  This is an utter disgrace and if it does happen then the Health Minister must resign immediately and the rest of the tossers in the so-called bloody government.  And the fact that worthless trash like IDS and the unutterable David Davis are pontificating about the present crisis after their assiduous cheerleading into the last one over Brexit is more than depressing.

     I am very well aware that trying to get anything like efficiency and normality in a crisis situation is difficult and there has to be leeway for the unexpected, but the necessity for basic supplies is fundamental and that is where this so-called government has failed so signally.  Why are our deaths so high?  Why did we wait so long before instituting the lockdown?  Why are basic materials in short supply?  So many questions to which our political leaders have no real answers.

     Why do we tolerate them?

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 30 – Tuesday, 14th APRIL

We may be in uncharted territory now, where the rigid restrictions on lockdown have been eased for certain businesses to open even though we are still in the crisis with significant deaths and increases in the numbers of the infected.  How this policy is meant to work in curbing the virus’ spread I do not understand.

     The Government maintains that the lockdown is still in operation; but businesses are open today: how are these two compatible?  How are they going to explain the increase in deaths?  Sanchez, the Spanish President, does not have the mindlessly fanatical following of the Orange Outrage in the US.  Sanchez has a minority government, his so-called Socialist party bolstered by other minority left wing parties – who are going to be electorally tainted by participation in what is an unfolding disaster – and he cannot afford to act without a weather eye on the threat of yet another election in our chronically divided country.

     In a frightening development in the US in an even more jaw-droppingly awful public performance, Trump has claimed Absolute Authority – perhaps the logical extension for an unfixed populist demagogue.  Virtually everything that Trump has done has pushed at the limits of what The Founders feared when they wrote the Constitution.  The very federalist foundations of the US state are being tested and we know which way Trump would have voted when the title of ‘King’ was considered for the leader of the new American state!

     The fascist roots of the “America First” slogan are revealing and limiting; just as the petty-minded Brexiteers with their “Britain First” ideology underpinning their xenophobic, nationalistic, narrow-mindedness have led to Britain not participating in an EU led attempt to use their clout to purchase PPE at advantageous rates.  Virus does not respect national boundaries, I would much rather be part of the widest effort supra-nationally to combat a common danger than to be apart and weaker.  How many times must it be reiterated that nationalism and narrow, insular politics will lead to unnecessary death?

My second trip to the shop.  Singular, it is only one, we don’t go to a few, just the one and then home.  What isn’t there we don’t have.  Simple.

     I truly hate wearing the masks and the wearing of glasses seems to add to the irritation of the experience.  In deference to Toni’s stern strictures of not touching the face once one is out of the safety of the house, I was considering some form of elastication to keep them from slipping down my nose, but then I remembered lenses.  So, for the first time for a long time, I put my lenses in.  I do like the range of focus that lenses give as opposed to glasses, but I have bifocal needs for my eyes and therefore I need reading glasses with lenses – though I can usually make do if the print is not too small.  I am used to living in a variously out of focus world, so I can accept clarity that is approximate for most of the time!

     Given the fact of Sanchez’ loosening of the lockdown, though he claims he hasn’t - in the face of the facts, there was appreciably more traffic on the way to Lidl and more I could see when the road crossed over the motorway.  But still, markedly down on a normal (whatever that means nowadays) Tuesday.

     Lidl’s too was fuller than on my last visit, but that might have been because I was later in the morning than my previous jaunt.  Most people were wearing masks, and I have to say that those who were not were, how shall I put it, obviously noticed by the other people in the shop.  People are, quite clearly, wary of each other.

     Social distancing, where possible, was observed, though passing in aisles was sometimes more intimate than one would have liked.  The Checkouts were well done with distances pasted on the floor to keep us a reasonable distance apart.

     Most of the stuff that we wanted was there, though this time I didn’t even look for radishes, so who knows if they are now back on the shelves.

     Most importantly for me, the 15 month matured Cheddar cheese was there and so I bought a few extra to freeze.  I know that defrosted cheese is not quite the same as the natural type, but it is a bloody sight better than nothing.

     In the way that irony happens, as soon as I got home and Toni started unpacking and wiping the purchases before putting them away, there was a buzz on the doorbell and the 2kg of award-winning local cheese was deposited on the wall for me to collect.  Well, as I, though indubitably not Toni, would say, one cannot have too much cheese!

     So, apart from fresh bread, we are now set for another week of isolation.  At least today, the depressing rain of yesterday has vanished (though not entirely evaporated) and the sun is shining down.

My ‘Poems in Holy Week’ chapbook, now entitled Coasts of Memory, is taking shape, with a number of fairly substantial edits in the drafts that you can find on my poetry blog: smrnewpoems.blogspot.com   

     As usual, the technical layout aspects taking up an inordinate amount of time, but as Toni says, “You love it!” and there is something deeply satisfying is seeing a book (albeit a fairly short one) take professional shape.  Or at least as professional a shape as I can make it!