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!
