Baby steps to almost safety!

 

Well, it’s a step forward.

     Today I had an SMS from the health authorities informing me that I am part of one of the groups called to be vaccinated against Covid-19 and urging me to request my appointment to get vaccinated.  Which I of course did, except (isn’t there always an ‘except’?) in all the centres that I selected I was told that there were no appointments available.

     So.  How am I supposed to take this? 

     I have previously been told that I will be ‘called up’ in exactly the same way that I have been when I get my winter flu jab in, or under the supervision of my local CAP (Health Centre), through the receipt of an SMS.  Perhaps this pro-active approach is just to keep us quiet as we try (and fail) to get an appointment, but to make us think that “at least we are on the system, and that is a good first step, eh?”

     Let it pass that ALL my friends of a similar age in the UK (and those a damn sight younger) have ALL had their first jabs, and I do not even have a firm date for my vaccination. 

     Still, the centres’ vaccine availability is updated weekly, so first thing on Monday morning (after my swim and cup of tea) I will be re-entering all my information to try my luck at another round of Vaccine Jackpot!

     In a nice reversal of blame, it now becomes my fault that I have not been vaccinated, as the onus has been placed on me to find a centre.  To be fair, I have only tried those centres that are within a reasonable (however you define that word in relation to a pandemic) distance from my home.  And you could always argue that were I to be truly serious about getting vaccinated, then I wouldn’t be so parochial and I would willingly venture into parts of Catalonia that I have only heretofore seen on maps!

     Or I could wait for my CAP to call me.  I think that will allow another week of querulous prevarication!

     And at least I am on the system, and that has to be positive, doesn’t it?

 

 

 

While I had my swim (and cup of tea) Toni was able to meet up with his sisters and his two nephews.  This meeting took place at our almost-local Outlet, full of logo heavy shops selling still overpriced items to an ever-credulous public.  In which of course I place myself.  But, as I was occupied in ploughing my watery way up and down the 25-metre lane of the swimming pool, I was unable to join them.

     I am not averse to visiting the Outlet, in spite of the fact that it does not have a Wedgewood Shop – but, there again, where does nowadays – where I can vicariously indulge my mother-inspired love of china, glass and cutlery.  But there are limits to the shopping masochism to which I will willingly lend myself: to go to an Outlet with one determined woman shopper might be regarded as foolhardy, to go with two smacks of the sort of extremism that destroys empires!  And two adolescent boys! 

     Anyway, I didn’t go and given my lack of a vaccine (see above) I am sort-of relieved.  Both the boys and their mother have had Covid – and I’m not sure if that makes them more or less worrying for an unvaccinated person.  As with so many impulses during this pandemic, isolationism and a sturdy stance of anti-society isolationism is the better bet!

     But we have now had more than a year where the normal interaction in the family has been stopped, the celebrations of Name Days and Birthdays have been via Zoom and, I have to admit, thoroughly unsatisfactory.  The joint visits to the beach have not taken place during the last summer and, given the rate of vaccination in Catalonia it looks more than likely that they will not take place during this summer (when we finally get to it) as well.

     Spain has said that they are thinking of delaying the second jab follow up to the AZ vaccine to 16 weeks after the first jab: that means 4 months.  Given that tomorrow is May Day, that means that given the delay and the time necessary for the two jabs to come to full strength, it is going to be well into September until this tranche of people is fully vaccinated. 

     I am in Group 5C and it is only today that I had the invitation (not an appointment) to try for the vaccine – so, if I had the injection tomorrow on May Day, it would the beginning of August before I was fully vaccinated.  And I am not getting the vaccine tomorrow!

     The projected timetable for full (70%) vaccination for herd immunity here in Catalonia looks ever more optimistic!  And are we seriously going to be welcoming tourists into our Covid hot spots during the summer?   

     Commerce is driving out sense!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Life must go on!

 

My second day of unaccustomed lie-ins, and frankly, I’ve had enough.  The idea of getting up early is so engrained in me that any lingering in bed is effort not easement.  So, I will be up and about by 6.15 am tomorrow and be getting ready for my swim.

     Assuming that it is not raining, I will be using my bike to get to the pool.  Apart from immediately after the spill, the only bike ride I have had was this morning when I went out in bright sunshine to have an exploratory jaunt – not geographically (my route is set) but to see how my legs held out.

     I have already sort-of forgotten the pain of the original accident and I am more concentrated on the sharp reminders that come every time I get up and start walking, when the scab-mending skin on my knees stretches.

     It is easy to imagine while cycling that the tugging irritation of the scabs is going to result in cracks and on your return, you will have to mop up the rivulets of blood from opened wounds.  There was nothing like that, and so I am going to assume that the repairs to my epidermis are progressing well, and certainly well enough to take a little light swimming tomorrow morning.

     We shall see.

     Our Sunday lunch usually comes from the local pollo a last and today was no exception.  The only difference was that I went to get the food at midday because we reasoned, with the lack of food outlets open thanks to the new lockdown regulations, other people would be thinking of the quality take-away that is normally popular in less trying times.

     In the PC (Pre-Covid) days, you had to take a printed number and wait your turn.  That process has been dispensed with and now we have to queue, in masks with social distancing.  When I got there, very early for lunch, there were only three people ahead of me.  By the time I left the queue was considerably longer.  I had arrived at the tipping point of the queue and just made it before the masses descended!

     Given the fact that we have been in some sort of lockdown for eight or nine months we have to think about what used to be ‘normal’ when we go about our daily lives.  We do not expect to go out as much, to meet as many people to do the ordinary things that used to be part of a way of life.

     It is easy to live near the sea in what is a seaside town and see people doing what they have always done.  People walk and cycle and take the dog out.  Over the weekends, in spite of forceful recommendations, we know that we have many more than the locals walking along the paseo by the side of the beach and the sea.  We have the runners and the walkers and the families.  Many of them are local, I recognize them daily as I go on my bike ride along the paseo the length of Castelldefels, but many are strangers who have come (as they have always come) to one of the visitor friendly beach resorts near Barcelona.

     I am still shocked at the number of people who, walking along the paseo, don’t wear masks or wear them under their noses.  Some wear them on their elbows on hold them in a hand and some show no evidence of any mask at all.  It is at this point that I wonder about what these people think is happening around them, what do they think the word ‘pandemic’ means?  What do they think that their individual place in society demands?  As it is all I do is mutter “Covidiota!” under my breath and cycle on.

     Tomorrow, Monday, is the first day that the new restrictions will hit home, with parts of Castelldefels being fairly desolate places without the people and movement that come with thriving (even at 30% - 50% occupancy) of bars and restaurants.

     Tomorrow is the Name Day of Toni’s sister.  We would normally make the trip up to Terrassa for an evening meal and the distribution of presents.  Now everything has to be put on hold as I have no intention of moving outside my little Castelldefels bubble, and that disinclination has state approval.

     It does make me wonder about the sense of going to the opera.  On the one hand I do want to support the arts and t has been a long time since I was last in the Opera House in Barcelona – the last season was delayed and then cancelled.  My birthday is the date of the first opera of the new season.  But how can such a gathering be justified when bars and restaurants are closed?  How can the Liceu do better than small, more easily managed venues?  I have to admit that I am still in two minds about the safety of the forthcoming experience.

     We have been told that tickets for the performance will be sent to us via email; it is now six days away and I have had nothing.  I assume that Monday will be the day that we get final information about where we are sitting and our allotted seats have been changed in the interests of safety.  This is one experience that I am still debating taking.

 

Although my birthday celebrations have shrunk somewhat, I am already looking forward to greeting guests to the celebrations for the Completion of My Seventieth Year in October 2021.  DV.

CASTELLDEFELS LOCKDOWN - Day 94 - Wednesday 17th June

Today, this evening, our first trip outside Castelldefels proper for months – to Terrassa (still in the province area of Barcelona and therefore legal) for the Name Day of one of Toni’s nephews.

     We have been on one of the motorways to the local superstores but they are within a couple of minutes of where we live.  This will be well outside our usual routes.  Not, of course, that the journey is not something that we haven’t done many, many times – but the experience will be different this time.

     Just a quick note before we go, perhaps I’ll add to it later.

We don't actually know where, specifically, we are going as the restaurants in Terrassa are not taking bookings and so I am not entirely sure how our final location is going to be worked out.  Adds to the excitement of the journey. 
     And the weather looks threatening.  After an indifferent start to the day, it gradually brightened up and, apart from a fairly still breeze, the day was one during which you could have gone to the beach and expected to tan - the sort of day, in short that inexperienced visitors from duller shores such as Britain would assume would be an ideal 'starter day' to work on the tan.  And they would have been flayed by the time of their evening shower.  Though, there again, as one of my friends used to say, "If your first shower after sunbathing doesn't hurt, you haven't been sunbathing properly." [N.B. This advice and comment does not meet the requirements for safe sunning and should not be taken as a recommendation.]
     I suppose that it is often true that, depending on the direction in which you are looking, you could make radically different predictions about the weather.  I have often noted in Castelldefels that observing the climactic conditions from the cardinal points of the compass gives one views which are often diametrically opposed - whereas, in Britain one was often surrounded by a unity of weather in which ever direction you cared to glance!

The trip to Terrassa had an odd feel to it as this was, for us, a major jaunt - the furthest that we have travelled from our house in months.  We thought that there was less traffic than usual, but we were driving after 8 pm so the usual rush hour traffic (whatever that term means nowadays) had died down.
     There was a sense of freedom, or at least of some sort of normality about our trip that was satisfying . as though another part of Old Normality was adding to whatever New Normality is going to be.
     The Name Day celebrations were held in a restaurant chain called Viena (sic) which is a take on a fast food burger place, but with a slightly higher quality of food.  The design and uniform of the staff has an odd dirdle vibe with some odd Austrian Tyrol embroidery thrown in for what appears to be no good reason! 
     My 'meal' was chicken fillets with some strange and messy sauce whose selling point was that it was supposedly picant - perhaps for the Catalans, not really for me, but the end result was messily delicious - as opposed to the '0% alcohol' beer which was disgusting, do not drink Heineken alcohol-free beer in cans!
     Because of faulty crossed-lines of communication, we ended up walking far too far to the eventual restaurant and I tripled my steps target for the day.  Even linking that to swimming 1,500m and going on two bike rides of over 20k, my smart watch still rated my 'exercise capacity' as 'Low' for the day!  What else do I have to do!

The excesses and corruption of the Bourbon de Bourbon family i.e. the so-called royal family of Spain, are being splashed across the newspapers in the European press - not so much in the Spanish press.  The debased political parties of PSOE and PP have joined together to kill-off any attempt by the authorities in this country to investigate the mounting evidence of theft and corruption of the family.
     In spite of the fact that the thief-in-chief (aka the so-called king emerito, the one who was forced to abdicate to try and control the mounting rumours and overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing; the one who went on television to vaunt the 'fact' in Spain that, "Justice is the same for everyone" but obviously did not include himself or his family in the category of "everyone" and has, so far, escaped judicial punishment while the powers-that-be here have ignored the evidence of his skimming-off contracts to boost his finances.
     One of the latest exposés is in the Times, in one of their supplements entitled, "Sex, lies and Swiss bank accounts"!  You can read that here:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sex-lies-and-swiss-bank-accounts-the-allegations-against-spains-ex-king-that-are-rocking-his-sons-reign-0sgw99c2b

because you can't read it in Spain!

My next swim is at 12 mid day tomorrow.  My slots get worse and worse!

The sweet smell of 'failure'

Sometimes it is an achievement to know that you cannot succeed in your stated aim.  It does save time and emotion to find out that the situation is not resolvable.  An example of this happened this morning.

The present for the Name Day needs to be in hand for the meal this evening.  We did have an idea of the present that would be acceptable: a particular perfume in a gaudy bottle.  We couldn’t find this perfume in our go-to perfume store (I have, for some reason that I do not fully comprehend, a loyalty card for this store!) or in our second and third choice of emporium.

The end result was that it was left to me to ‘sort it out’ by this evening.  My first plan of retail attack was to shop my way along the motorway and call in the various supermarkets enticingly scattered along the margins of the road.  This would have been a very expensive approach as, very much like my mother, I find it very difficult to go to shops and not buy something.  Anything.

Plan B was to go to El Corte Ingles, the shop that I passed on my way to The School on the Hill each day in a display of restraint that still astonishes!  This is a true one-stop store and each time I go there (in whatever location it is found) I feel as if I am back in Cardiff in Howell’s, as it has some of the old-world charm of that august institution.  I also knew that their perfume department was vast and if anywhere would have the elusive bottle then it would be there.

When I got there, relatively early, after my even earlier swim it was relatively empty.  And that applied to the various counters too.  When I eventually found one occupied by a lady of a certain age (my favourite choice of assistant) I had the sort of experience that, if it was general throughout shops in the area would empty my wallet!

The cheerful, chatty, informed help that I got at the Boss/Calvin Klein counter was exemplary. And it also follows that I spent much, much more than I intended, but what the hell, it’s a present and I am sure that it will be appreciated, and that is the main thing.  Isn’t it?  And it looks good in the box too!

It is possibly a sign of the times that I feel the need to praise what is, in effect, an example of competent, professional selling.  This should be the norm and not the notable exception.  It brings to mind the legendary experience I had one Saturday morning in town in Cardiff where every shop I went into provided service of the highest possible standard.  I was so overcome with delight that I started going into shops at random and making spurious enquiries to test whether the magic of the shopping experience could be extended.  And it was, wherever I went I was gifted polite, concerned, attention.  It was wonderful and it left me a little breathless and disbelieving.  I was so shocked that I spent nothing, just revelled in the ‘rightness’ of it all. 

But that shock would have worn off and the serious business of spending would have come upon me like a madness.  Except.  Except, of course, the next week, things were back to normal with morose unhelpfulness the norm, with the only exceptions being in those shops where I personally knew the assistants or owners.

In the course of persuading me to buy more than I thought that I would, the lady assistant’s conversation ranged pretty widely taking in politics, geography, food, foreigners, Brexit, Holland, and the composition of The United Kingdom.  My whining about price must have had some effect as she also game me handfuls of samples to lessen the financial blow!

Now, well, almost now, out to lunch as the start of the weekend!