LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 55 – Saturday, 9th May

In one of those convoluted areas of jurisdiction that are more usual in Republican Party gerrymandering, part of Sitges curves over the hills outside the tunnels and engulfs the end of Castelldefels in the Port Ginesta area.  As this is a continuous part of Castelldefels most people actually forget that it is not part of our town.  The police, however, do know.  And this morning they were on the Paseo looking pained as all we people from Castelldefels were walking (or cycling) along the road.  Toni told me later (as he had gone for a walk in the opposite direction) that Gavá was also similarly policed and ‘isolated’.

     This is not something that happens on a regular daily basis and I think that it is confined to weekends when the ‘danger’ of outsiders infringing local boundaries is at its highest.  To be fair; it’s a fair cop.  We are, after all, supposed to be confined to our localities – however artificial they actually are.

     The news from the UK is not good in this area where six weeks of lockdown are facing what could be a sunny Bank Holiday weekend with police in London saying that they are losing the battle of the parks with people flocking to them to sunbathe and drink, and gather in groups not segregated by physical distancing.  As the weather here is not particularly sunny it will be interesting to see how many people are out and about this evening at 8pm when my age group is allowed to exercise.

On a more festive note, today is Toni’s birthday and I filmed him opening his presents (at a few minutes past midnight last night!) and put it online in the Family site so they could see the presents that they had only seen in photographs in Amazon!  It is a strange time with customs adapting to new circumstances.

     I hope that the chocolate cream birthday cake that I hid in the fridge has not yet been discovered so that it can make a suitable impression when it makes its flaming way into the living room!

     And it was delicious!

My evening bike ride was taken a little later than usual, in the dark rather than the twilight and it was, ironically, revealing.  Setting aside for a moment, my pet peeve of cyclists without lights, the most glaring element I observed was the grouping of teenagers in ‘bike gangs’.  Obviously they have their mobile phones to arrange the coordination of their exercise times and that gives them the opportunity to meet up.  As many of them use their bikes as seats there is a sort of built-in physical distancing, but they are more gang than individuals and there is little sense of viral threat.  Perhaps it is futile to expect teenagers to be constantly on their guard against a virus that they think will not single them out, but they must be made aware that they could easily be asymptomatic and therefore they could be a real threat to their parents and especially their grandparents.

     Perhaps I was looking for evidence of shirking the rules and therefore found it, but I do sense a feeling of relaxation that I think will be even stronger on Monday after a weekend of seeing television pictures of people exercising their ‘freedoms’.  It is something that concerns me.

     As it should!

Holiday end

Sequence

I have finished the last of the Poems in Holy Week, written an introduction and published a single copy as a chapbook!  It now exists electronically and in a single unique printed copy.  I used a rather abstract photograph I took from a hotel window of a wall, railings and frames which was the rather unlovely, but satisfyingly abstract view that I had.  Toni hated the picture and so I have replaced it with something which I think is more acceptably picturesque.

            If anyone would like an electronic copy of the poem sequence you only have to let me have your email address and I will send a copy to you.

            The poems, or versions of them are also available at http://smrnewpoems.blogspot.com.es and, as I always say, I welcome comments either on the site or to me via email.

            I am still not quite sure what to make of what I have written, and I think that the poems will be further revised in the next few months.

            I have found writing them challenging and stimulating – and they have kept me away from my essay on body art which has to be completed in the next couple of weeks!

Easter Day

Apart from writing the final poem, there has been nothing about this day which makes it more distinctive than any other.  I think that tomorrow stands more chance of being festive, as we are going to Terrassa for a family meal in which we will consume the traditional cake or mona de Pascua which I hope has been made by Toni’s sister.

            If you are foolish enough to buy one of these constructions in the shops it can cost you ridiculous sums of money.  One edifice, cake hardly described the fantasy in chocolate and frippery, cost over €80!  And that was in a local shop just waiting for a buyer, as if people just popped in off the street and handed over the money.  Which they did!

            Our version will be home made and almost certainly having a theme of Barça.  I will attempt to remember to take a photograph before the kids get stuck into it and then try the even greater task of getting the damn thing on the site and the almost impossible effort of getting it to stay there.

            Still, Toni’s mum is an ex-cook and her meals are always worth eating.  It is just unfortunate that the whole of Spain seems to be going somewhere on Easter Monday so the roads are likely to be nightmares.

            One particular nightmare concerns our local motorway.  During periods of high volume, the police in this area have been known to cone off one lane on one side of the motorway and have traffic going against the flow of the other two lanes.

And yes, it is quite as horrific as it sounds!

            And the police will have been prised out of the bars that they frequent and will descend on roads main, side and motor to collect untold wealth in fines.  So one small glass of Cava is going to be my limit – with plenty of Earl Grey.

Exercise

I am not a great believer in exercise for the sake of exercise.  I quite enjoyed playing squash and badminton – but those were sports and competitive and therefore there was a point to them.  Swimming is OK because it uses a different medium and that makes the ‘exercise’ element a necessary part of an otherworldly experiment.  No, it’s the treadmill and gym stuff that I can’t stand.  And cycling.

            And therein lies the rub.  I have been cycling for the past few weeks because the car part in the leisure centre is being redone and is therefore closed.

            As it has gone from being a piece of tree shaded, gravel covered dirt to polished, drained concrete, you will appreciate that this is no afternoon with the lorries type of transformation.  The car park is out of commission for a month and since parking in the area is a nightmare the bike will have to do.

            But I have quite taken to it.  I have bought (always a good sign) a rather swish new helmet which is more comfortable, more adjustable and more stylish than the old one.  And, and this is the killer, it has a little red LED flashing light on the back as added protection against blind drivers in killer cars.  The dynamo on my bike has never really worked, as so I have bought a two-intensity front light and a cute red, programmable flashing LED light for the rear wheel.  I do not of course go out on the bike when it is dark or when it is raining, I am after all, no fanatic, but as the sun shines, so I ride.

            It seems more and more likely that, even when the car park reopens, I might continue to ride the bike.  As long as the sun shines.  And I feel so self-congratulatory as I lock the thing up after having navigated quite a nasty mountainous bridge over the motorway!

Exodus

Monday is a holiday and Tuesday should find most of the population of this country going back to work.  The Easter Holiday in Spain barely deserves the word as it is so short.  But on the positive side all of our visitors from Barcelona (which seems to come here en mass during any holiday) will go home and gather strength for the long haul of the summer.  And we have to prepare as well.

This and that

. . . and stretch!

If pain at the back of the legs indicates dedication to cycling, then I am dedicated.  I am beginning to think that all this much-vaunted belief in the positive power of exercise is much over rated.

            My knee joints, it must be admitted are not the finest articulating things in the world, but they did work without feeling as though someone has wrapped clumsy weights around them.  Now, after a week of cycling, this is not the case.  The pain, such as it is, is a ‘surround’ discomfort and I am working on the basis that this is merely muscle, rather like the alien I have just been watching in a most unsatisfactory film, suddenly called into action after a considerable time being quiescent. 

            Having been called into more stringent duty that they had heretofore been expected to complete, my muscles are rebelling.  And something must be done.

            I have therefore decided to revert to what I always (usually) [sometimes] did before playing squash or badminton – I will stretch my muscles before I put foot to pedal.  This will be, I am sure, the panacea and all manner of things will be well.

            And anyway, there are only a few more weeks to go and I will be able to sink behind the wheel once more!  At least just before and after I have my swim!

Rebellion!

There are some things you do because you have always done them.  Unthinkingly and with a sense that this is how life should be led.  They are the basics which make up the ethos that propels you through life.  Things that you can sink back on in times of trouble and feel that this, at least, is right.

            So it is troubling, to say the least, that I find myself – after a lifetime – going back on something which I have never even had cause to question.

            As far back as I can remember – and this I know because somewhere I still have evidence of my childish faith in books which I slavishly kept – I drank PG Tips.  It was the tea of choice, there was no other.

            In Spain, one of the first things that I did was search out a place where this need could find the raw material to be satisfied.  And I found it – albeit in a French supermarket chain, but I found a supply of tea bags with the requisite trademark.

            It has taken me some time, but I now realise that I have been denying the truth, the truth that I actually prefer Ty-phoo tea.  How can this have happened?

            I have rationalised it of course, it must, I have told myself be something to do with the quality of water.  I am used to the softness of Welsh water, whereas here in Catalonia, as I am fond of saying, I don’t know how something so full of calcium actually makes it out of the taps.  To say our water is hard is . . . and fit in simile or image of your choice . . . and to be frank it is the same for Ty-phoo as it is from PG Tips, but, there it is, after all these years a change of taste.

            Something I will have to learn to live with as I spit my traitorous cuppa!

Open-ended

The writing of the pro forma for the outline of the work that I intend to do for the end of course module which takes the place of the examination in the Open University for my art course is proving to be a damn sight more tricky that I thought it would be.

            Some things, like my bibliography, seem to have taken on a monstrous life of their own, but the actual title and the fiddly little details are tantalizingly out of reach.

            They will have to come to reach in the next 24 hours as the thing has to be handed in and I have to go to Barcelona on Wednesday.  So, the whip is being metaphorically applied and, as usual, in spite of moaning, I will probably manage to get something winging its electronic way.

            This is a real opportunity for my tutor to come up trumps.  She does know much more than I, and she can make or break my long essay by her suggestions.  She seems to be ‘fairly’ on board at the moment and I only hope that the sense of fellow travelling will extend itself to fairly concrete suggestions for the ‘bits’ in my proposal that I have somewhat glossed over!

            In a strange sort of way I am looking forward to this project becoming reality and words actually making it to the screen, because I am interested to see what the end result will be.  Because I don’t have a clear idea at the moment.  And that, I think, is a good thing.  I hope.

Editing

I am at the stage in my book where I am thinking of the order in which the poems should be published.  Thinking is not doing, and I am justifying my laziness by telling myself that I have more pressing academic problems.  How easy it is to write about problems rather than doing something about them.  It was ever thus and, as I have made that a way of life, don’t knock it!

Work has to be done!

A working lunch

The Puritan Work Ethic, which is supposed to buried deeply in such northern Protestant (atheist) capitalist people like my good self, means that something you have worked for must have that added extra that easy-come never gives you.  Which is my way of saying that lunch should have tasted better because I cycled all the way to the take away after having completed my swim (to which I also cycled) without once getting off the bike and walking it!

            The result of such exercise is that my knees feel as if someone has packed them full of slightly blunted tacks.  So much for exercise!

            To my continuing concern, the workmen who slaughtered the twenty trees have done nothing further to the sandy waste that they have created.  Where are the preparations for the laying of the cement – and, more importantly, the re-opening of the car park?  Where indeed!

            If the Fates think that they are changing my way of life by extending the cycling duties that I am grudgingly undertaking until they become second nature and I cycle through my own free will – then I warm them never to let it rain again.  The first sign of atmospheric moisture and I will be back behind the wheel and roaming though the residential areas like an Urban Flying Dutchman looking for a parking space.  And it if ain’t there I ain’t swimming!  Perhaps it’s the atheist bit of me that denies the full working potential of the old ethic!

            I have to admit that I do feel a sense of achievement about the effort that I am now making and my appearance on a sit up and beg, ‘S’ frame, basket carrying cycle has not gone unremarked – and I have not even written a poem about it!

Private faces in public places

The reality of having to make something of my whimsical choice of swimming pool paintings by Alvaro Guevara and David Hockney is becoming a little more problematic now that I am having to turn my whim into something academic.

            I have thoroughly enjoyed hunting around the Internet to try and discover the whereabouts of Guevara paintings and am thoroughly satisfied that I have found a location (that I will visit in a couple of months time) where someone has very kindly allowed me to book a visit to photograph and study the paintings he has!

            My tutor has suggested that I try and contact Hockney, as he is still very much with us, unlike Alvaro who died in the 50s.  But I am not sure that Mr Hockney actually talks to mere mortals any more.  It may well be worth making the effort to find out though as honourable failure is also an achievement!

            The details on the pro-forma that we have to submit giving an outline of what we intend to write about are coming together and my bibliography looks very impressive.  And that, after all, is the main thing!

            It is very difficult at the level of the course that we are studying, to add anything new and indeed, ‘real’ research is not a requirement of the enterprise.  As this piece of work is taking the place of an examination, there is a requirement that we use the scope of the course in the written work that we produce.  So, as the basis of what we are currently studying is Modernism, its development, critical basis and reactions to it, as well as the ‘rejection’ of it as a way of thinking about the more modern manifestations of art, our choices should allow some discussion of this.  That is the difficult bit, on which I am still working!

Politics and Big Brother

It is difficult for me to work out which I have more contempt for: the politics of our present Spanish government which has just promoted a hit-and-run hag as their preferred candidate for the leadership of the government of Madrid, or the Spanish version of VIP Big Brother.  The characters in both ‘drama’ are, to my mind, equally contemptible – though at least the ‘who the hell are they’ celebrities are at least openly doing it for the money!

            I am convinced that Toni only watches the interminable broadcasts of this awful programme in the same way that Wittgenstein used to sit in the front row in cinemas and watch Westerns – it was one way to stop him thinking about what he was doing.  Toni is so immersed in the complexities of installing and working virtual computers inside his computer (don’t ask!) and then making them work and speak to each other, that he sometimes, wild-eyed, needs some relief from the computer screen!

            I always feel a bit of a fraud when I think about my own use of computers.  I am, after all, an early personal computer adopter, but I have rarely used it as anything more than a glorified typewriter!

            This is not stopping me from exploring the possibility of turning away from Apple and embracing the Dark Side and reverting to Windows and PCs.  Even I, a dyed in the wool Mac user, have become disgusted at the single minded, dedicated pursuit of money at the expense of their customers.  The cost of the new version of the iPhone is little short of criminal extortion and has finally opened my eyes to just how callous Apple are/is – for they are legion!

            You can get so much more for your money for a PC rather than a beautiful looking Mac.  I am thinking.  And taking photographs of alluring machines with 1TB or even 1.5TBs of storage.  I know that everything should be in the cloud nowadays but I trust that thing as I would a rabid dog.  In the same way I still buy CDs – which I know appears to be absurdly quaint to those technophiles amongst whom I used to count myself.  But, I know what I know and there are machines that are tempting and yet do not have a logo that lights up on the cover!  Who would have thought it!

Now a little more on my Art course and then bed.  Deserved, I think.

It's all in what you mean

Week 1 of cycling – complete!

If progress is cycling both to and from the swimming pool without walking the bike up either of the two ‘hills’, then I have progressed.  I am rapidly developing contempt for pedestrians who will walk in cycle lanes, and a surprising respect for the majority of car drivers who actually do stop when I am waiting at a zebra crossing to get to the next part of the cycle pathway.

            However, let’s not get carried away, as soon as the car park is back in commission – I will be driving!

The loneliness of the 30 min swimmer

Cycling may make you a little more tired by the time you get to the pool for a swim, but there is nothing like an empty pool to reinvigorate you.

            When you want to swim, you do not want splashing people getting in the way, you want to concentrate on the rhythm of your stroke and have as efficient a time as possible.  Or at least I do, and having someone else in your lane lessens the pleasure.

            So it was with considerable delight that the only person who was in the pool when I arrived left it just as I was getting in!

            These pleasures never last, of course and soon – although later rather than sooner – other people selfishly intruded on my isolation.  However, by the time they arrived my swim was almost over and I therefore count myself as having had a good experience and an efficient work out.

            The composition of my post-swim tea appears to have regularized itself into a mixture that I like and I was able to drink and consider in sunshine which was unseasonably warm.

            The notes that I made in my Little Book are already the draft of a poem at http://smrnewpoems.blogspot.com.es/ and, as ever, I welcome readers!

Bargain salmon

Lunch was in one of the few places in Castelldefels that doesn’t hike its prices over the weekend for a menu del dia.  Unfortunately my main dish will not be appearing in Toni’s blog because I was halfway through it before I remembered about the camera.  My starter of Caesar Salad was photographed and was delicious.

            We were very lucky to get a table and it was only because our timing was immaculate that we were able to segue our way into a table that became vacant as we walked in through the door.  We were also recognised by the owner and as reasonably good customers it was in his interest to see us seated.  An excellent meal.

Open season!

The forums in the Open University are beginning to become a little more strident as the range and quantity of work that is being asked of us increases.

            The End of Module Assessment is causing various levels of hysteria, especially as we are nearing the cut off date for the submission of a very detailed pro forma outlining what we intend to do.  This pro forma is not given a mark, but if you don’t complete it you fail the course!  That concentrates minds I can tell you.

            My choice of paintings and artist is a little off centre and the choice of critical documents that I have to use it a little difficult.  However, I am encouraged by recent comments by my tutor who seems to be fairly flexible in an approach will might see me subvert (a favourite word in this particular course) one piece which is feminist in tone and re-imagine it as a representative piece of Queer Theory polemic.  Gender criticism is amenable to twisting.  At least I hope it is.  Because that is what I am going to do.  And soon!