What really makes sense nowadays?

 

 

 

 

Twelve days early morning swimming in the outdoor community pool!  Only two days to go before my local indoor pool reopens after the yearly fortnight maintenance closure.  Considering I was contemplating paying to use the Gavá pool, I’m quids in!  But it will be a relief to get back to my normal routine on Monday of next week

     In spite of the fact that I have given myself an extra hour or so in bed, to allow the sun to rise before I immerse myself in the chilly waters, I can’t say that I have benefited from the lie-in.  My body clock will not be denied, and I continue to wake up as if my swim was at 7 am, and any bedtime after my inexorable early rising time, is forced rather than easy and so, in the scheme of things, doesn’t really count.

     Apart from two startled Dutch strangers, I have swum alone since a week last Monday, and those interlopers were obviously just proving they had access to everything, as you do when you have just arrived for your holiday and feel that you must use all the facilities at once to get value for money!

     I would like to report that my lonely circling of the pool allowed my mind to drift into poetic reveries and that I, immediately on exiting the pool, rushed to my notebook, and wrote out my exquisite thoughts before they evaporated like the water on my skin.  Alas!  Not so! 

     The only time an image suggested itself was when, this morning, I (grudgingly) swum in the aftermath of a short, quasi, sun-shower, and the drips from the overarching pine trees produced little, short-lived bubbles on the surface of the pool.  Even then, when I did get out, writing in my notebook was not the first thing I did, and you might say that noting that omission is my way of encouraging myself to get on with it and at least jot down the phrases that (while swimming at least) seemed to have some poetic legs!

     I have also written nothing ‘poetic’ about the “collective hysteria” (one cousin) that has prompted actions like the laying of flowers (another cousin) to mark the death of QEII.

 

 

 

 

 

 

     The royal circus has now reached Wales, and there is a service in Llandaff Cathedral in Cardiff and then a meeting in the Senedd.  Welsh First Minister Drakeford has made it clear that protest by anti-royalists is something that must be allowed and has suggested that the South Wales Police will be appreciative of that right.  We’ll see how that goes.

     Memories of my first and only trip to Mexico came back to mind when hearing about The Queue – it surely deserves the capital letter as it has become a defining aspect of The British Character. 

     Our arrival in Mexico for holiday after a very long and excruciatingly uncomfortable sardine-flight was just the prelude to a series of what I can only describe as humiliations.  We had to queue to get inside the airport, then queue to join a queue for customs, and then further queue to get through the various obstacles that Mexican bureaucracy provided before we were finally allowed to enter the country. 

     Now, from the comfort of my own armchair in Catalonia, I can watch a similar queueing quandary as the Main Queue for the lying-in-state has been (allegedly) closed because the maximum length has been reached, but people undeterred by the eleven-hour wait, have taken it upon themselves to unofficially queue in a park to wait to join the official queue! This is tantamount to insanity.

 

 

 

 

 

     I am reminded also of a story I heard about The Festival of Britain in 1951.  Although the war ended in 1945, rationing would not end until 1954, so the futuristic architecture, plate glass and colour of The Festival of Britain was something extraordinary.  It was a very popular exhibition, a statement of determination and optimism in the somewhat dreary post-war years and intended to be a “Tonic to the Nation!”  In total over eight million people visited the main exhibition site on the South Bank of the Thames, and I have been told that people were employed to go around the site and break up queues that had formed spontaneously. 

     Giving rationing and the scarcity of so much just after the war, people were used to queueing, and once a queue formed, it developed its own integrity with the people at the head of the queue thinking that there must be something worth waiting for because there were people behind them, and the people behind them assuming the same things given the people in front!

     I would, of course, maintain that both the queue for the late Queen and also the phantom queues of The Festival of Britain are alike in having no ‘real’ end destination.  I know that there is the viewing of a coffin on a catafalque in an ancient hammer-beam roofed hall, and there is always an off-chance of seeing a prince or two or the changing of the guard to justify the wait, but essentially the whole thing is a nothing.  It is a celebration of absence, of a distant unknowable entity now gone.  It is a fantasy of historicism and of significance, it is an illusion tyring to pretend to be something real.  But it’s not, no matter how many people emote when they see the symbols and think that they are participating. They are as deluded as those people queuing for nothing on The South Bank in 1951, and ironically in 2022 they are back queueing on The South Bank again.

     Where are the people to break up this queue and say, “Move on, there’s nothing to see here!”

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 52 – Wednesday, 6th May

I am not, it must be said, a fan of the Blond Buffoon, so I probably did not come to the viewing of PMQs with an open heart and a forgiving attitude.  Be that as it may, I have to say that I have rarely seen a more cringe worthy performance than that of our Prime Minister (sic.) answering questions from the Leader of the Opposition.

     Johnson’s bumbling waffle was an embarrassment, and it was all the more telling because he was bereft of the usual Tory baying to cover up his lazy emptiness.  He is an indolent man, and his shallowness was on pitiful display in this exhibition of his fatuousness.  Starmer destroyed him with the sort of questions to which there is no answer, unless the proven liar changes the habits of a wasted lifetime and actually finds a modicum of veracity and admits guilt for the catastrophe of the management of the Covid crisis.

     It seems almost redundant to say that the number of deaths in the UK is now over 30,000.  30,000 lost lives.  30,000 people dead.  And we are told that we should not jump to international comparisons, even though the government itself produces those comparisons.  We  now have more deaths from Covid-19 than Italy.  We are paramount in Europe with the number of deaths.  Are we supposed to forget that we were told that “deaths under 20k would be a good result”, so we must assume that 30k deaths is a disgusting catastrophe.

     One can go on listing the disasters that this government has ‘managed’: the non-provision of PPE; the whole question of Care Homes; the provision, number, and quality of tests; the lies we have been told; the lack of transparency; the lack of an exit strategy; the slowness of the initial response; the criminal irresponsibility of Johnson in failing to take distancing seriously; the provision of masks for the general population and on, and on.

     It is obvious that we need an independent inquiry now so that this disaster is not repeated.  The process needs to be started immediately and the evidence needs to be gathered as a matter of urgency.  Thirty thousand people have died and it is inevitable that even more will follow them if we do not learn the lessons that can prevent the growth of fatalities.

     The UK is being reported in foreign newspapers with a mixture of astonishment and sorrow and Johnson is regarded as the wrong leader in the wrong place at the wrong time – a watered down version of Trump – and with a cabinet of inadequates: a perfect storm of negatives at the time when the crisis demands the very best.

I continue to go for my bike rides and am joined each time by a whole variety of people who have broken out bikes to take part in our daily Paseo.  There is a certain determination in the exercise that we are taking and few people look as though they are enjoying the experience!

     I miss my daily swim – it gives a shape to my day and it starts it ‘properly’ as I swim at 7 am, then my cup of tea and making notes.  It’s a good start.  I could start my bike ride at 6 am, as our time slot is from 6 to 10, but I am disinclined to do that.  There are limits to my desire to exercise!

Our Catalan lessons have developed, in so far as there is another lesson this Friday in the morning and via Google Meet.  I have not found this system to be one that I get on with, but I am going to try a change of computer and hope for the best for the next attempt!

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!

    

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 29 – Easter Monday, 13th APRIL

In the best traditions of British Bank Holiday Mondays, it is pouring with rain here in Catalonia.  The one difference, I have always maintained, is the lack of spitefulness in holiday weather in Catalonia so that there is always a possibility of seeing some sunshine during the day – it may not be much, but it will be there.

     Today is the damp calm before the invisible storm as the majority of the working population in designated but non-essential jobs are urged to go back to work, taking what ever microbes they have with them into the crowded metros and buses and trains as they commute. 

     The fatal proof of this economic pudding will be in a couple of weeks time when the mortality figures for Covid-19 will be examined to see whether this ill-thought out initiative has been as deadly as feared.

     It is a salutary experience to discover that in purely economic terms, we citizens are merely collateral damage, acceptable wastage, the angels’ share, surplus to requirements or any other mealy mouthed form of words to cover up the judicial execution that such a policy is going to mean.

     ‘Mean’ is a key word for something linked to the crisis that I hope is fake news, but have been told is actual fact.  In Catalan history the year 1714 is a key one.  On the 11^th of September 1714 Catalonia surrendered to the Bourbon King Philip V after supporting the Hapsburg Charles in the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714): Catalonia lost its distinctive independence as it was subsumed into the Bourbon Crown; Catalan was demoted as the language of government; the walls of Barcelona were destroyed; Catalan territories over the Pyrenees were lost.  And all round disaster; but, in the typically Catalan way, 11^th September became the National Day of Catalonia and 1714 a date which is constantly seen, I have a hoodie with the year on the back and the Catalan flag on the front!

     It is therefore pushing coincidences a little that the National Government of Spain sent Catalonia exactly 1,714 thousand masks to be used in the present Crisis!

     There is no love lost between Madrid and Barcelona and the measures that are going to come into place tomorrow have met with stiff opposition from Catalonia and the Basque Country, with the Catalan President asking Sanchez, the Spanish Prime Minister, to send him the documentation of the scientific advice on which he based the decision to allow people to return to work.  Catalonia is in favour of a continuation of the strict lockdown, and I have to say that I think that is the more persuasive approach.

     Politicians should be increasingly nervous about the inevitable Public Inquiries that are going to take place when this crisis is over.  Their mismanagement is killing people and they should be held responsible.  And please, do not accuse me of pre-judging: hospitals without equipment are a simple fact; hospitals continuing to be poorly supplied with PPE are a simple fact; people dying are a simple fact.  The Conservatives have been in power for a decade: the fault lies with them – and they must pay.

The Poems In Holy Week (PIHW) period is now over and I have managed to write drafts of poems for each of the days, all of which can be found at smrnewpoems.blogspot.com  This year has been obviously different as we have been under strict lockdown and the ‘holiday’ aspect of the period has been a little ‘abstract’ to say the least.  It is a continuingly odd time as we are surrounded by literally deadly danger, yet continue to lead ordinary, safe, if isolated lives.  It is not like the Second World War where even my childhood home in Cathays in Cardiff was graced so I was told, with one (unexploded) German bomb: something tangible from the air raids.  But for us in Catalonia, at least where we are, it is like a continuing Phoney War; we go on with our restricted lives, and the medical horror is taking place elsewhere, out of sight, though vividly alive on television screens.  I think the unreality of it all is what is most obvious.  Yes, I know that the virus is real and the deaths and illness are actual, but our direct experience is limited to our own little inconveniences, not to a mortal struggle.  It’s odd and, as I’ve said, something where the actuality is difficult to take in.

     I have now printed out a draft booklet of the Poems in Holy Week and have done a few edits to get me going on the revision that they all have to undergo before publication.

     I have not yet decided on a title, but I’m working on it!  The most difficult part, I find, is writing an introduction for the collection – it forces me to look at the collection as an entity and write something that makes sense of the totality rather than individual poems.

     I also have to think about illustrations and that is always challenging.  Still, if nothing else, I do have time to consider these challenges!

The police in Spain have said that the ‘return to work’ for non-essential workers when off normally.  An interesting choice of word for anything but normal times where, surely, normality is not the way to respond to the extraordinary!

My faith in Catalonia took a knock today.  The poor weather lasted the entire day and I was not graced with even a moment of proper sunshine.  I am prepared to extend my faith to tomorrow – but anything after that and I will slip into heresy!

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 27 – Holy Saturday in Holy Week, 11th APRIL

We are waiting to hear what the traffic flow is like.  Spain and the UK have both emphasised that no one (except of course for Conservative Ministers) should travel during the Easter weekend.  We should all stay at home.  So far a large number of fines have been imposed on those who attempted to make the journey to second homes or to the beach.  The story of a group of people form the UK attempting to go on holiday to France via private jet both shocks and also doesn’t surprise: the rich assuming that rules are only for the poor.  Again.

     As I keep saying, I do realise that I am in a fortunate position being in a spacious home with access to a communal pool for my solitary walk – though today there was an entire family of parents and little girl in the tennis court next to our pool: on parent walking while the other played with the kid.  We even said, ¡Hola! to each other.  At a safe distance.  Such is community: you best show community spirit by shunning it!

The number of deaths reported in the UK continues to horrify and I have little faith in the ability of the government to organize themselves with sufficient efficacy to limit the growth in the numbers.  The distribution of masks and other PPE seems limited and the testing is little short of scandalous.

     In Catalonia we are entitled to a free mask, allegedly waiting for us in our local pharmacy, with the option to buy another mask.  Toni will have to find out if this is true by calling in to the pharmacy when he gets fresh bread.  It will at least be a small step in the right direction in coming to terms with the reality of the virus.

     Some firms in Spain are asking their workers to come back to work after the Easter Bank Holiday.  This is essential for the recovery of the economy, but I do not see how this can be done with any real degree of safety without adequate testing in place.  Some workplaces are simply not conducive to social separation and, with the best will in the world, people forget to be paranoid all the time and allow recently learned essential behaviour to slip.  Wearing a facemask is unpleasant and wearing it with glasses is clumsy and therefore all too likely to be pushed down or up rather than used constantly.

     You can sense, even in isolation, that people have a natural wish to ‘return to normality’ but if that totally understandable wish is allowed too soon, the end results will be deadly.  And, why should we expect or even want previous ‘normality’? 

     This virus and its progress and particularly the way that it has been dealt with by the politicians would seem to me to indicate in a blazingly obvious way that things must not be the same after this crisis.  The measures, financial, social and political that have been brought into play to cope with the crisis illustrate as clearly as possible the inadequacy of the previous financial, social and political measures.  Why should we return to proven, failed ways of life?

     You think of measures like guaranteeing a working wage; of housing the homeless; of supporting the NHS; of protecting people with disabilities – all the things that our austerity government previously said were unaffordable: now funded.  Failing railways renationalized; small businesses supported – no Socialist idea rejected!  If it can be done now, it could have been done then.  If it can be done now, it can go on being done.  If we pay money to keep airlines alive, then we own them.  We have already had the obscenity of Tesco receiving a governmental emergency handout and then paying a dividend to their shareowners.  How long do we go on encouraging with our money (and though I live in Catalonia I pay British taxes too) those who boost the inequalities in our society, giving ever more money to those who already have?  It seems to me that the message of one of the badges that I used to wear god knows how many years ago of “Eat the rich!” is more relevant now than it was then!  And what a condemnation of our political ‘progress’ that is.

     We cannot allow the billionaires and the big companies to pretend that they have nothing to do with the situation in which we find ourselves, not obviously in the making of the virus (though in my more paranoid conspiracy theory moments, I have my doubts!) but in the way that the government was equipped to deal with it.  Private Enterprise does not, essentially, care for us.  It is driven by profit and not by concern.  In times of crisis, it fails and allows government to ride to the rescue, and then, when things are better, it goes back to doing what it does best: exploit!

There is cloud cover, but intermittent sunshine – I’m not sure what this encourages on a population that really wants to get out and about.  Perhaps if it was blazing sunshine it would be more of a temptation, this neither one thing nor the other encourages people to go back indoors and watch something else on Netflix.  Probably.

Well, back to my daily poem.  I have an idea, its now just the working it up to be something that I can call a draft.  Check out what I have already written this Holy Week on smrnewpoems.blogspot.com

    

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 25 – Maundy Thursday in Holy Week, 9th APRIL

Yesterday I was shown disturbing pictures of the build up of traffic in Madrid suggesting that numbers of people were taking advantage (how appropriate that word now sounds) of the ‘holiday’ period to escape from the city to the coast and to second homes.  While I can fully understand the need to find something more congenial than the cramped inside of a city during a pandemic, as someone living in a costal resort, exactly the sort of place that city dwellers target during holidays, I have to pray that Barcelona does not follow the lead of Madrid!

     To be fair, Barcelona does not appear to have followed other parts of Spain, and the indications of traffic flow are markedly lower in Catalonia than in other parts of the country.  But tomorrow, with the Bank Holiday of Good Friday and the whole Easter weekend and Easter Monday, the temptation to get out and take the sun in the freedom of a coastal resort might be too much to resist.  I sincerely hope that Barcelona has not looked at the slackness of Madrid and thought what the hell, what’s good for the goose etc. and determined to come and visit us tomorrow.

     I read this morning that the head of the National Trust in Britain has issued a statement reinforcing the advice of not visiting either the buildings in the Trust or the open spaces.  I wait to see if this advice will be followed.

     Again, I do know that we are privileged in terms of space: Toni can be working on his remote distance learning course on the computer in the living room, whereas I can be working on my computer on the third floor- two distinct spheres of influence!  How many other couples are so fortunate!  The lure of the coast and the sea is strong, and it is tantalizingly near, I can see a scrap of sea (if I try hard) from the terrace, but has been resisted – but we are not cramped together in a small flat.

     I know that for some people the addition of danger adds a piquancy to experience and the idea that something is forbidden adds a kick of anti-establishment adrenaline, but going against the Covid-19 restrictions is more surely akin to drunk driving: you put yourself in danger but you also endanger others.  Like the tag line on the safety belt adverts in cars, “You know it makes sense!”  And, it isn’t for ever.

     But just how long will it be for people of my age?  We Baby Boomers have been speculating how long our isolation may reasonably last and the general consensus is that we will be well into the summer before restrictions are relaxed.  That is a more than sobering thought.

     In a town like Castelldefels, where our USP is a long beach, bars, restaurants and hotels, to lose Easter and a chunk or even the whole of the summer is disastrous.  I wonder just how many restaurants will re-open when they are allowed to reopen.  A few had well established take-away services before the crisis, but the rest will have had to think on their feet and find customers at a time when advertising is difficult.  Even in the best of times, the ownership of restaurants is, to put it mildly, fluid; in times of crisis?  Who knows?

     Our major shopping centre Anec Blau, was undergoing a major restructuring of a mystifying thoroughness.  Most of the shops had had to close causing economic chaos.  Construction has been postponed, the centre is not ready to reopen any time soon and the crisis must have added complications that we can only guess at.

     Castelldefels is not poor.  We have inhabitants who are very, very rich and some who are world famous e.g. Messi – but reconstruction of a thriving seaside resort will take time, effort and imagination.  And money.  Lots of money.  I shudder to think how all of that is going to be managed.

     Still, one has to be optimistic.  The most positive element in this crisis is the way that we have all rallied round the efforts of the services that are working to keep us going and to keep us healthy.  It would be a disaster beyond the crisis if that fellowship is squandered in the remaking of normality after the crisis is over.  Though, it would be wise to remember never to underestimate the stupid selfishness that a population is capable of – just look at the political trash that have been elected!

Today is National Theatre Premiere Day, or rather evening.  This evening the NT At Home is showing their production of Jane Eyre https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/whats-on at 7.00pm UK time and 8.00pm for us and it will be available for the next week, until the next production to be aired.

     I am really looking forward to this production because it seems to be in the tradition of Nicholas Nickleby that I saw in a RSC production in London: an ensemble production which used clever theatrical devices, that only work in the theatre.  It will be interesting to gauge my reaction to genre specific techniques in another media type.  I remember a production of Macbeth with McKellen and Dench which transferred from The Other Place to the much larger venue of the Main Theatre in Stratford: it didn’t work, it needed the intimacy of a smaller venue.  But when the acclaimed production was televised, it worked again because the closeness of the camera restored the lost intimacy.

 The production was excellent, theatrical in the best sense of the word.  A small musical ensemble and a versatile company utilizing the open multi-level simple staging.  The best thing you can say about a theatrical production of a novel is, at the end of the performance, you feel like reading the novel itself.  I urge you to go to the website and see the production for yourself.  And don’t forget to leave a donation at the end of the performance if you have enjoyed it!

Today’s poem is in a half finished state, but what I have was ‘easier’ than the poem yesterday which I cant help feeling is going to be hacked around in the next stage of editing!  But that is half the fun.  If I manage to get something on the poetry blog tonight then it will be on smrnewpoems.blogspot.com

Tomorrow, Good Friday, when in all past years I have made my annual visit to a church.  Not this year.  This year is indeed, different.  So different.