LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - Day 101 . Wednesday 24th June

I continue to be frustrated by the Catalan approach to time.

     I have given up trying to work out exactly the logic behind the opening and closing of shops and the continuation of some restaurants in staying open in spite of their cavalier attitude towards economics is mystifying to say the least, but I did think that I had the opening times of my swimming pool securely in my mind.

     Obviously during the more severe stages of the lockdown the pool was not open, and in the transition period from when it was open to the relative freedom of Phase Whatever The Hell We Are In Now there was a certain ad hoc nature of the time when we were let in for our regulated swims.  But the time did settle down to 8 am – the time, in the Old Days BC (before Covid) for the weekend opening times, the normal weekday opening time being 7 am.

     When we reached the present phase the opening time reverted to 7 pm, the showers were available for use and things appeared to be shaping up to be an acceptable New Normal.  Until San Juan.  As a recognized festival, this meant that opening time would be later, delayed until the weekend opening i.e. 8 am.

     Today, therefore, I had the luxury of a lie-in, or at least I would have if my built-in clock had not demanded that I wake up at my accustomed time, and I organized myself by setting off the robots to do the cleaning, making my cup of tea and doing a few of the clues in the Guardian Quick Crossword.  I made good time on my bike and I was at the gate to the pool by just before 8 am.  Unlike everyone else.  I was alone.

    OK, I thought, I will give them a few minutes to open up on the hour by going off on a little bike ride, making sure this time that I remembered to tell my watch that I was doing part of my exercise.  Too often I set off without pressing the right buttons to inform my watch to check my progress.  A little jaunt down the road and back again.  And nobody.

     I therefore made the executive decision that the time-honoured time for festive opening had somehow been delayed by an hour and so I would do my post swim bike ride, pre.  Which I did and made good time to get back to the pool just before 9 am.

     And there was nobody there.

     But at least this time, the gate was open and there were a couple of people sitting around the outside tables of the café.  But there were no people in reception and the café was closed.

     Eventually the shutters of the café opened, and Mario emerged to inform us that the opening time was 10 am for the pool.

     As I had my phone and my notebook (and asked Mario to bring me a cup of tea) a wait of an hour was as nothing and I finished the crossword and wrote a number of pages of quotidian rubbish in my notebook.

     My swim over, I had a second cup of tea and wrote further pages in my notebook and felt well satisfied and smug.  I declined to go on a further bike ride as the battery level on my bike had progressed to the single digit red number and I had no intention of being caught far from home with only pedal power to get me back!

It has been a beautiful day with only the screaming children lessening its beauty.  I truly think that kids have become even more feral with their extended absence from the calming discipline of school to contain their vocal exuberance.  If it were possible for kids to converse in anything less than a scream and shout I think I could become inured to their existence, but as it is, their obstreperous assertion of simply being makes them something Not Wanted on the Voyage of Life.  I’m afraid.

Our communal pool has become its usual magnet for those freeloaders who are not actually people who live in the houses for whom the pool is intended.  Just as the swallows come back to Britain in the summer, so various foreign fixtures take up their positions around the pool.  Shameless!

Tomorrow Toni returns, and I wait to see if he has been able to find any mature Cheddar.  He might have forgotten that he mentioned that he might look out for some, but I most certainly have not!

There are still a few laggard explosions, but as a slept through the ‘Main Battle’ last night, a few bangs are not going to keep me awake.  So to speak.

A pair of rather fearsome black reusable masks have arrived that I ordered via the Internet oodles of time ago.  They are not entirely comfortable to wear, but they do look the business and they have a satisfying seriousness to them.  They look the sort of thing to wear during shopping jaunts.

     The everyday masks are those that are shoved into pockets, and brought out and used because they are obligatory in Reception and the Café.  I am not sure what power they still retain as they have been overused, but I maintain the force of the family wisdom of, “Anything is better than Nothing.” And so they act as a barrier, no matter how flimsy.

     Mask wearing is the only visible element in most people’s approach to the virus.  Yes, we do obey (usually) the strips placed on the floor and there is some attempt at physical distancing with people that you do not know, but the fear of the virus is very much “over there” where “there” is very definitely not anywhere near our here.

     The virus news form around the world is uniformly depressing and there are spikes of infection in all countries.  I agree with Faucci (?) who said we should not look for second spikes of infection because we are still very much in the grip of the first spike.  I also agree with the director of the WHO who said that we are not safe until everyone is safe – and that means that we should all be very worried because there are too many leaders who are acting from economic and political standpoints and not human health standpoints.

I have written to my MP in Britain and urged him to consider aiding a movement to get Johnson and his cabinet charged with Corporate Manslaughter.

     I watched part of PMQs and was, yet again, ashamed by the way that Johnson failed to answer questions and became agitated when his failings were highlighted.  If he had a shred of common decency and humility and admitted the disastrous failures that his government has clearly owned, then I think he would have a certain amount of sympathy from the British people, and they would encourage the government to look at what has gone wrong and prepare for the worst in a more professional way than they have so far.  The government’s concern should be the welfare of the people and not how they look.  Each failure to acknowledge mistakes leads to further deaths.

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 43 – Monday, 27th APRIL

Why does it come as no shock whatsoever that the Conservative Government is going to release the figures for the total of tests at the end of the month not at the end of the month?  Can it be that the 100k total of tests on which Hancock staked his future are going to be more problematic than he thought when he thoughtlessly uttered the guarantee earlier in the crisis? 

     So, the ‘end of the month’ becomes something of a moveable feast for the Conservatives when it comes to protecting one of their own – never mind about the people who died as a result of their failure to boost testing when the WHO was urging countries to “Test! Test! Test!”

     If the 100k is going to be difficult to reach to save the hide of little Matt, then perhaps we should steel ourselves to any one of the following:

1.              The endless month of April, in the same way as MPs are used to some debates continuing on one particular named day even if that day has long since passed.

2.              The offering of the total number of tests available rather than the tests actually taken.

3.              ‘Discovering’ tests from previous days that have not been counted.

4.              Making up the results.

5.              Lying.

6.              Redefining the concept of 100k

7.              Redefining the idea of a ‘test’

8.              Lying.

9.              Sacrificing Rees-Mogg to placate, well, everyone up to and including Tories.

10.          Lying.

And let’s deal with the, “this is no time to be replacing a key minister when we are in a crisis” as we are in the crisis we are in because of the key ministers that we have had to put up with.

     

     It’s about time that our political masters began to accept responsibility, and with that end in mind, I am glad that Johnson seems better, and he should now resign after his disgraceful lack of responsibility in going out of his way to put himself in harm’s way by rejecting advice to social distance.  If Beckett fails to get his 100k he should resign: he made it a key pledge, he should live or die by it.  And if we are presented (eventually) with 100k, then I would like the figures scrutinized by an independent body!

With the allowing of kids out and about, there is a definite sense of ‘emergence’ from the lockdown – even though this has just included one parent with up to thee kids, the pictures of something approaching normality in the streets has produce a real feeling of achievement and hope that the end of the crisis is in sight!

     People are beginning to think of what summer could be like if social distancing is still generally in place.  What are the beaches going to be looking like?  At the moment we are regaled with film on TV of groups on the beaches being moved on.  Perhaps by July we will have the beach filled with tight camps of families jealously guarding their ‘safe’ space.  One shudders to think about it too closely!

     From queuing for pollo and bread and meds, I think that people will still go on socially isolating almost like second nature nowadays, but the continued isolation in-house is the more difficult to take.  Especially is there is an element of age discrimination added to the mix!

The Catalan lesson on line was an unmitigated disaster.  My basic problem comes form the fact that in Google Meet my computer stubbornly refuses to recognize that my in-built microphone works.  In other programs of a meeting nature it has no problems but with Google Meet, although it allows my camera to work it does not extend that courtesy to my mic.

     I attempted to rectify the mic. problem by using my mobile phone as the audio component and my Mac as the screen.  This was a bad thing to do not only because I could not read the screen within a screen within a screen on the mobile phone as it was tiny, but also because electronically having both devices on produced the most appalling caterwauling interference.

     Then there was the attempt for all two of us in the class (sic) to try and open the pages that would give us the work that we had to complete before Friday.  We couldn’t find the bit to click on and eventually, after what could only be described as a painful attempt to get us all on the same page, we were sent a new link to get to the page.  That failed.  We were then sent via email the page in question with space for us to complete our homework.  That failed.

      I have done my homework, but I sent it as a separate file via email.  We will have to see how this develops!  At least we have a week to prepare for our next on line lesson.

     It will not be time enough!

Guessing the time

 

The clocks have changed and so my schedule or my itinerary or my sequence of what I do in the morning has been changed too.  The timings are the same, but the circumstances different.  To be specific – it’s the sun.  As I am now swimming an hour ‘later’ than I was last week I can no longer time myself by sunshine.

I have a needlessly complicated way of swimming.  Not my stroke, that was, is and shall be (if I say so myself) a reasonably elegant crawl – though that looks like an oxymoron, now that I’ve written it.  Anyway, owing to the evils of capitalism one of the apps on my Pebble watch has ceased to be supported.  Pebble is by far the best value of smartwatches, with the longest battery life and an always-on screen.  But, alas, the tense in that last sentence is non-operable as the whole enterprise of Pebble was sold to Fitbit and they seem to have supressed the make in favour of their own productions.  Not one of which, I might add, matches the value of the Pebble!

So, my Pebble, that used to count the lengths of my swim and give various other pieces of information that I never used, is now non-operational.  I therefore rely on time.  Even if I am swimming with little enthusiasm, I manage to get my 1,500m or metric mile done in a few minutes under 40, so to swim for 40 minutes ensures that I complete the full length.  I do not, however, like looking at my watch to see how much I have completed.  Instead I use my internal clock and make a laboured game of guessing when the 40 minutes is up.

What I do is set a point that I choose when my body tells me that the time is almost up and, from that point, I swim an extra six lengths.  In the penultimate length of that six, I evaluate how well and fluently I have swum, judge my physical well being, respond to the tell-tale aches and stitches that suggest whether I have exerted myself enough or not.

 

In the last of the six lengths I try and estimate the time – having noted the time at the start of my swim.  So, I add on the 40 minutes to get the time I should finish and then I guestimate the actual time.  Well, you have to understand that swimming is not the most intellectually stimulating form of exercise and you have to find interest where you can!

The number of times that I have been spot on with my guestimate is very limited, but I count it a success if I am within five minutes of the actual finishing time.  I tell myself that I should be able to work out time from experience and from those physical indications that I (as the body’s owner) should know.  Sometimes, I am woefully out in my estimates and that just goes to show that the state of a person’s body is in a constant state of flux.

Sometimes after a rare day’s absence, or an even rarer two-day absence, I can tell that I have been lazing rather than exercising as the effort needed is appreciably more than if I had been more diligent in my exercise.  But, oddly, after a period of time not swimming I sometimes swim with an ease and fluidity that seems to benefit from abstinence!  Bodies are complex things, god wot!

Getting up at the ungodly hour of 6.10 am, in darkness, I at least had the experience of swimming into daylight which, when the light was strong, I knew that my swim was over.  Now, my swim begins as the light is dawning – my body or brain is now forced to find other indicators (apart from the watch on my wrist) to guess the end of my swim.  This uncertainty adds a certain something to what is, after all, a tedious form of exercise.

I am still coming to terms with my ‘extended’ day, and in that rush of activity concentrated into the first three hours of waking, I find that I have done my household chores before the shops are open!  I then feel vaguely guilty if I am not up and doing for the rest of the day!

My poetry is languishing.  I have notebooks full of ideas but they are waiting for me to make something of them.  There are two books that need to be prepared for publication and extra pieces of writing that are stubbornly not flowing out via the computer keys.

I am still using the inexplicable non-issuing of permission (indeed the complete lack of response from the requisite authorities) to use reproductions of paintings in MNAC as a reason to delay the whole book that should have been published by now.  This is not satisfactory and I know (and I am telling myself here!) that I should simply plough ahead and take the consequences!

And that is good advice!

Reality will bite!

The twenty-somethingth of this month is going to be significant for me.  On that date I will have to take an examination in Spanish for which I am supremely unprepared.

It was not really my choice to ‘go on’ to the next level in the language at the start of the year, but my (vicious?) teacher encouraged me to progress with comforting words of specious consolation.  I had not, to be fair, ‘nailed’ the last examination – though I got a pass and a certificate that (I think) is the minimum basic level of Spanish competence that will get me nationality – as long as I pass the accompanying examinations on my knowledge of Spanish culture, politics, administration, Real Madrid and the King.

That examination I am not too worried about.  The knowledge needed is factual (though partial) and I know that I can cram for that with no problems.  The problems come with the reality of what Spanish nationality can mean.  As far as I can see, Britain and Spain do not recognize dual nationality.  Indeed, at the moment, what is the point of dual nationality when we are both part of the same EU?  But, thanks to the “lower than vermin” Conservatives and the idiot Brexit voters, that is all about to change.

In a few years time I will be effectively disenfranchised.  After 15 years residence in a foreign country I will no longer be allowed to vote in British elections.  As I am not a Spanish citizen I cannot vote in national elections in this country and, when we leave the EU, I will not be allowed to vote in local elections.  I will then be in the situation where I am taxed in both countries and allowed to exercise my democratic rights in neither.  My freedom of movement will be curtailed and, although it appears that I will have the right to stay on in Spain, I may have to apply for residence and I will certainly lose my present rights to move to and settle in any country in the EU.

After the well documented economic effects of the Brexit self-harm become a reality, it is highly likely that my pension will be further reduced.  The value of the pound has fallen since the announcement of Brexit and I expect it to fall further when Brexit becomes real.  My pension is paid in pounds sterling and is taxed at source and then transferred to my Spanish bank where the total has bought fewer and fewer euros as the disastrous chasm draws nearer.

The present state of my health necessitates regular visits to hospital for check-ups and controls.  I see my doctor regularly and I have a scheduled series of tests stretching into the summer.  I take daily medication for which I pay a token amount.  All of this could change.  At present, although I do not pay it, the real cost of my medical treatment is printed on the information that I am sent.  The treatment of EU national resident in Britain has been scandalously heartless.  The reputation of The Home Office has been comprehensively shredded as more and more examples of callous administrative indifference or active antagonism come to light.  Why shouldn’t EU countries reciprocate? 

Our Prime Minister is the shameless architect of the “hostile environment” and she is presiding over a country where voiced xenophobia is becoming mainstream.  She, and her riven, minority government are disgraceful and in no way reflect my attitudes and ethos, but she and her squabbling rabble are the public faces that the EU sees and I, and people like me, are likely to be the collateral damage from an ideology-driven Brexit that serves (some of) the Conservative Party and ignores those likely to be worst affected by it.

Which brings me back to the solution to my Brexit problems (well, at least some of them) – becoming a Spanish citizen.  As I have no intention of returning to the UK except as a visitor, it makes sense to link myself more closely to my chosen country.  We will leave to one side the question of Catalan independence, and concentrate on what is, at present, on offer.

I have zero intention of giving up my British citizenship.  Though I may be thoroughly depressed at what I observe of the present Daily Mail encouraged right wing exclusivity in the country, I take some comfort from the “This Too Will Pass” school of philosophical tranquillity and fondly believe that sense will eventually prevail and all manner of things will be well.  However, the immediate future demands action and Spanish citizenship seems one realistic way of combating some of the fall-out from the Brexit collapse.

No matter how much rumination I indulge in, there is no alternative but to cough up the readies and buy in some legal advice.  We are now in the tax return season and I do have someone who has done my tax returns and in my next meeting I will start making serious enquiries about the practicalities of citizenship and will-making and all the other little bits and pieces that make for a quiet life in a foreign country!

The necessity for speed has been emphasised by the breathlessness that I experienced on returning from a shopping visit to Aldi to get the necessary stuff for Toni’s birthday meal.  I was glad that I wasn’t alone and that the fetching and carrying was shared, but I still felt exhausted on our return.  This is not good, and such exhaustion concentrates the mind wonderfully. 

Whether that leads to action, well, that’s another question entirely!