Haven't we been here before?

HERE WE GO AGAIN: DAY 1, New ‘Lockdown’, FRIDAY.

 

 

 

It’s just as well that I went to the Opera on my birthday as I have just been informed via email that the next opera performance due on the 24^th of November, has been ‘postponed’ – as it is a concert performance of a juvenile Mozart opera composed when he was 14, I cannot say that I am devastated by the delay!  I am prepared to do some YouTube musical ‘homework’ to make its three-and-a-half hours of straight singing tolerable, as I find that even a slight acquaintanceship with the music of operas, I don’t know gives me a partial key to their enjoyment in performance! 

     At least there are always tunes in Mozart, and I do remember that I had a much-played record of music by Mozart written when he was in London at the age of 12, and that was intimidatingly excellent, so an opera composed after two long years of extra maturity from that music does demand attention! 

     After all, given Mozart’s short life, a Mozartian Year must be very different from those lived by mere musical mortals who tum-ti-tum along to the tunes!   

     The State of Emergency in Spain has been extended into next year in Parliament, so we are now in the ‘New new-normal’ as the restrictions get more and different.  At present we are under curfew (10pm-6am) with bars and restaurants closed.  As of today, those restrictions stay in place, but other closures have been added which include larger stores, shopping centres, places of entertainment like Opera Houses, and gymnasia, which includes my swimming pool.  There are further restrictions on movement with heightened restrictions during the weekend.

     This morning, for example, I could not go for my usual swim, but I was able to go for my normal bike ride which extends the length of the paso along the coast of Castelldefels.  At the southern limit of the city it actually extends into the jurisdiction of Sitges.  There was no problem about that today, but on Saturday and Sunday I will be restricted from completing the final length as Sitges will be out of bounds. 

     We also live on the ‘border’ with Gava to the north and tomorrow the stretch of the paseo along the Gava coast will also be out of bounds.  In the previous lockdowns there were police stationed at the invisible borders of our town to enforce the ban. 

     There will also be police on the approach roads to the beach part of Castelldefels as the weekends are usually the time when people from Barcelona city come to visit.  Gava and Castelldefels are the coastal resorts of choice for the city dwellers and the police are going to have their work cut out if they are going to try and stop all of the visitors that we are likely to have.

     Obviously, all this inconvenience is designed to stop the spread of the virus, but all of the measures are going to be pointless if the general population doesn’t get behind the restrictions.

     Since February we have been subject to a bewildering array of instructions, some of which seem to be ‘arbitrary’ to put it mildly.  We are constantly told that proximity is the most important factor in the spread of Covid and yet schools are still open.  Buses are still running, as is the Metro and the train system.  Shops have limits, but most shops now do not have dedicated assistants restricting entry. 

     The “if this, then why not that” approach to instructions is making following them difficult, and the shameful dinner of 150 politicians and the assorted Good and Great, is a calculated spit in the face of the ordinary joe trying to follow the rules where for us gatherings of more than 6, and closed bars and restaurants are the norm.  The Minister for Health was one of the attendees at this rule-breaking gathering, giving yet another example of “One rule for us another for them” approach to governing.  And yet, with breath-taking hypocrisy these discredited chancer politicians still appear on the TV and in Parliament giving voice to rules that they do not follow themselves.

 

I’ve now been told, or rather I’ve been “I thinked” by Toni that my bike ride tomorrow on Saturday is OK because I am going to adjoining municipality and that is allowed.  But certainty?  None.  I will try it out tomorrow and when I am stopped by the police, I will know the limits to my activity.

     As I didn’t have a swim this morning, I went out on a second bike ride taking the Gava paseo as my route.  It was pleasantly empty with only a few hardy walkers and riders.  One even hardier gentleman was sunbathing on the beach.  The sun is out, but there is a sea breeze that tells you that you are in the month of October, and towards the end of that month as well.  But ‘Bravo!’ for a stronger determination that even I have to keep summer alive – my continued wearing of T-shirt, shorts and sandals seems positively overdressed compared to the nakedness of the beach devotee!

 

The situation in the UK appears to be getting even worse than it is here.  The piecemeal tiered approach is more geared to commercial concerns than human ones; the projections for British deaths over the winter is horrific; the government is a sick joke.  But perhaps I am being unfair.  My country of Wales seems to have taken difficult but hopefully effective drastic measures, as have the other constituent nations of the UK, with the signal exception of England.  I fear that Johnson and his third-raters in the Conservative Party put politics and survival of their ‘brand’ above the human cost of failed policies.  And just to make my cynical misery complete the fiscal here in Spain has archived or shelved any criminal action against the ex-king in relation to his shady dealing and less than honest behaviour.  It makes you weep.  That same disgraced ex-king once famously proclaimed that, “Justice is the same for everybody!”  How hollow that sounds today as he skulks away in some undemocratic eastern kingdom.  What a shower of shits our ‘ruling’ classes are!

 

Still, any day at the end of October in which anyone can even think about divesting themselves of clothing and sunbathing next to the Med, has to be positive. 

     Long live the sun!

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!

How to fill time when you are really trying

There was a time when, if I had to wait for something, I would have a book with me and I would read.  It’s not rocket science.  A simple activity with built in cultural kudos.  But now.  Now things are different.

Having forgotten about the service for my car once, I took extreme measures (well I set the alarm) to make sure that I took the thing this time.  A very discrete alarm did go off and I found myself up and doing with enough time not to complete the quick crossword in the Guardian.

And now, I am stuck in Gava for two and a half hours while my car is done.

Luckily, there is a major shopping centre within walking distance of the garage where my car is being done and you would have thought that somebody with the mother-shopping training that I have had would find it easy to wander around picking up spoons that I have not intention of buying and ogling the piece of technology that I have to stop myself buying.  But no, shops are not enough!

I never thought that the day would dawn when I said something like that last statement.  My mother must feel that all her schemes of getting me to like shopping as much as my father hated it – like always meeting me in the Wedgewood Room of Howells and then asking my opinion on various suites of glass and china – have come to nothing!  That a child of hers could possibly find shops boring, or at least inadequate!  The shame of it.

But I came prepared.  No books: but a smartphone, iPad and MacBook Air.  Now you might feel that there comes a point where one is a little over-technified for a wait which is of such a short duration.  But I have been sitting here for at least three hours and only 40 mins have gone by!  So I have decided to write.

I do feel a little ostentatious sitting in the walkway, promenade, paseo, concourse (I knew the word would come to me if I exhausted all the other synonyms) but not as ostentatious as I would have felt a few years ago.  After all, how long have portable computers, the laptop (an apt description at the moment because all I have is a chair and no table) been with us.  A frighteningly short period of time for the universal adoption.  Now it is an everyday sight to see people tapping away in all of the most odd places.  And so am I.

Yet more time has gone by and I am still more than an hour and a half away from the car being ready.  I know that I should be reading, but I feel like being a little more active and so I am typing.  Though whether this is a more productive activity is moot!

Talking of activity, I am now going through the oh-god-what-have-I-left-out-of-the-essayI-have-just-sent-in syndrome, which is normal and natural for all students of the Open University once the TMA has been thrown (electronically) at the tutor.

There is a sense of melancholy loss on the forums, where people who have been working at their degrees for umpteen years now realise that they have completed their last tutor essay and that in a matter of months their years of study will be at an end.  A degree certificate is poor recompense for the loss of the welcome stress that doing a degree at a distance gives you.  Rather than being gleeful that the end result is within reach, people are sad that one of the ways in which they have regulated their lives will be taken away.  As I have been ‘doing’ my degree since the 1970s (admittedly there is a thirty year gap in my study!) I am in a different sort of position, but I do agree that it is a very odd feeling.

And I have to start packing!

The day after tomorrow I am going to Cardiff.  An aunt of mine has died and I am going to the funeral.  It is a melancholy thought that, of all my uncles and aunts there is now only one left.  It does remind you that my generation is the next in line!  These occasions are virtually the only time that I get to see any members of my family – but that comes with living abroad.

I hate packing with a totally unreasonably high level of detestation.  This time I don’t even have to do that much, but, however small the effort – I resent it.  And the suit.  My all-purpose suit is not as smart as it once was and so as fitting, in all senses of the word.  I might attempt to buy a new suit when I am in the UK as clothing is usually cheaper there than it is here, but alas, I am no long an off-the-peg size and so I have to factor in adjustments and I’m sure that those can not be done in the limited time that I am there.  But, I have plans and it will be interesting to see if they come to anything like fruition! 

It’s at times like these that I think of Paul Squared who has probably already packed his case for his holiday in May.  Try as I might I can imagine no change to my essential character that would allow me even to consider doing something like that

There is now an hour to go before my car is supposed to be ready.  I wish I could believe that it will be waiting for me when I return to the garage, but past experience does not make me feel jocose.

Well time for a wander.  Tea, shops, lottery ticket and toilet.  That should take up some time!