LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEDFELS - DAY 85 - 9th May

Up at 7 am for my first swim in the local pool for months.

     It was well arranged.  At the desk we were met by a man with one of those hand-held thermometers that are pointed at your forehead.  We were allowed to use the changing rooms, but whole areas including the showers were taped off with what looked like police tape.

     In the pool itself, we were urged to wash our hands with the alcohol soap and shower.  We had to place our clothes that we had packed into our backpacks in the changing rooms, on plastic chairs spaced out along the side of the pool.

     There were five of us, one to a lane and we were told that we had fifty minutes until the next group of swimmers came in to take our places.

     I had previously been told by one of my swimming friends (the five of us were regulars) that the pool temperature was far too cold and that I should make a complaint about it – but when I jumped in I found the water pleasantly cool, just the right temperature for vigorous swimming.

     I did my 1.5k and a few hundred metres more because I stayed until the people to replace us arrived.

   We had to shower in the pool, so there was no soap used and then we had to exit the pool on a different route from the one we used to get in.  For the first time I used the stairs at the front of the pool that go down to the children’s’ changing rooms.  Obviously, there were no kids there so we had to change there and then use another exit door to leave.  All in all, it was a very professional exercise which kept us apart and obeyed the dictates of lockdown.

     The café is now open again and I was able to have my tea and bocadillo de tortilla francesa, as well as a welcome gossipy conversation with an ex-fellow student of a Spanish class of a year ago.  Apart from our masks and the fact that we bumped elbows and kept our distance, it was almost ‘normal’.

     By the time I got back, had another cup of tea and completed the Guardian Quick Crossword, it was time for my bike ride (this time with a waterproof coat backed into one of my many backpacks) down to the Sitges part of Castelldefels and back.  The new bike lane was further closed off as workmen were installing a version of our ill-fated ‘armadillos’ to separate the lane from the rest of the road.  They had coned-off the outside lane, so only the crappy gutter lane was available for bumpy riding.

     As the weather was not of the most congenial it was difficult to tell the composition of the people wandering around given that we have now passed into another phase of the loosening of lockdown.  Apart from the times reserved for our older citizens, we are now free (I think) to take exercise when we want.  I have not been into town to see how the reopening of various shops is going.

     One shop, a supermarket next to another (and better one) is in the process of liquidation with much of the stuff that was left on rapidly emptying shelves with 40% off.  My ‘discount’ at the end of my hurried shop (I was there at the tail end of the day and the last person to be served) was over 40 euros!  I panic bought pepper and Earl Grey tea because, you never know.  I actually went there for bottled water for Toni and came back with three bags full!  Some things are instinctive for a mother-trained shopper like myself!

     Tomorrow I have booked my place in the pool for another 8 am start.  Wednesday is more problematic as all the 8 am places are gone and it took me a while to find the other timed places in the app that we have to use to book our times, but this will become second nature in time.

     And talking of time, how much longer is all this going to continue?  How long is this system going to be in place?  I think that our original thoughts were that this would all be over sometime during the summer and, if things had been properly arranged then we would avoid a Second Spike in the autumn.  Who knows what is going to happen?  Our governments certainly do not!

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - Day 84, Sunday 8th June

There are, I have discovered the hard, wet way, no joys in riding a bike in a thunderstorm.

     In the way that these things happen, the storm waited until I was at the furthest distance from home before it broke, and so I made my rain-soaked way back looking at the sodden streets through raindrop heavy glasses.

     I must admit that I did stop at one point when the rain had become more that usually aggressive, cwtching in a bus shelter where the shelter was more notional than real.  The arrival of a drenched, faceguard wearing, mumbling female person of restricted growth encouraged me to brave the elements and splash my way towards the dry house.

     It took only a few minutes of torrential downpour to flood the gutters and soon I was riding though surprisingly warm floodwater with an aroma redolent of sewers.  The drainage system for your roads is woefully inadequate and any reasonable downpour overwhelms the drains’ ability to deal with the excess water.  Luckily I am ‘wise in the ways’ of our local road network and can anticipate the areas most likely to support puddles.

     Once or twice I felt the bike aquaplaning, that heart-racingly exciting moment when control seems to drift away and you suddenly realize your vulnerability perched on a contraption where only your velocity and delicate equilibrium keep you upright.  Those moments made me even more paranoid, searching the road ahead (as far as I could see it through my rain-compromised glasses) for tell-tale, glassy-pocked patches of slippery water.

     It eventually got to the stage that, as I couldn’t really get any wetter, I might as well ‘ignore’ the rain and press on to a shower (such irony) and a dry set of clothes.

     As I sloshed my way along, I passed and was passed by other sturdily masochistic cyclists, and saw on the pavement runners doggedly pursuing their sad sport.  I don’t think that I have ever seen a happy runner; I have seen determined runners, zombie runners, exhausted runners and glisteningly arrogant runners, but runners sporting a cheery smile?  No.  Never.  Cyclists often have irritatingly enthusiastic chats as they cycle, often ignoring the drivers backed up behind them- perhaps that is what makes them laugh and smile?

     The shower and shave when I returned (together with another brush of my teeth to keep a sense of occasion) was revivifying and I felt that my post-shower cup of tea was more than deserved.  I wonder if you get theoretical brownie points for cycling in the rain, my smartwatch should take such things into consideration, after all it does have access to my geographical location and the climactic conditions at the time, it would hardly be difficult for my phone and watch to combine and give a little bonus for battling the elements!

 

In the UK traction seems to be growing for the establishment of an Inquiry into the management of the Covid Disaster to try and ensure that the results can inform the second spike of infection if (!) we have one.   Johnson (Cummings’ mouthpiece) has nothing to fear with his majority of 80; however damming the final report is, he will be able to carry on unless his mindless pack of Brexiteers have Collective Lemming Syndrome.

     It is significant that even after the accumulating disasters of this risible administration, its lies and ineptitude, the Conservatives are still ahead of the Labour Party in the polls!  Not by much and the rating of Johnson are abysmally low, but he has years (dear god!) ahead and that bloody majority, so he will be well able to bumble his fatal way along, destroying ‘ere he steps!

 

Here in Catalonia we move into the next stage of the relaxation of lockdown, though how it can be very much more relaxed than the present behaviour of the majority of the population already I find hard to imagine.

     We are following the guidelines for appropriate behaviour but, just like driving a car, one’s safety is not entirely dependant on one’s own careful driving, but rather on the sense and reasonableness of others.  In that case, we are well and truly flummoxed.  Which was not the first word that came to mind.

     My concern for Monday is to find somewhere that can repair my expensively dropped expensive mobile phone.  The back has shattered, though it is holding together, but the back plate has lifted away from the body of the phone leaving a sort of gaping wound.  The phone cost far too much to be junked and, no, I do not have insurance; and, yes, it was in its protective cover when I dropped it.  Hey ho, so it goes!

 

I did try and go out for my evening bike ride, the last of this particular level of lockdown, but there was rain in the wind and I wimped my way back home to the dry, with the only wet thing a rewarding cup of tea by way of compensation.

     On an even more positive note, I have checked my swim bag to make sure that everything that should be there is there.

     At least tomorrow will give me a clear idea of how they are going to organize a swim in the New Normal!

 

 

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - Day 83 - Saturday 7th June

Evening, early June, Castelldefels. 

     There should perhaps have been a fourth part to that opening sentence, something like, “during a Covid-19 pandemic”, but there again, why should I add that? 

     From what I could see as I cycled along, it was a normal, a perfectly normal Saturday evening in a seaside resort. Traffic jams with parking spaces all filled.  The early days of lockdown where the air quality took on a surrealistically pure smell and look is now a thing of the past.  All the old aggression of an overcrowded resort surfaced, even down to drivers losing patience at being held in a queue and abruptly turning off the main road in a savage breakaway from the barely moving line of cars and neatly knocking down a pedestrian on a crossing.  How to ruin a Saturday night!

     I would estimate that about 5% of the people I saw were wearing masks and there was little obvious physical distancing.  There was no observance of the timed slots for different age groups, they were all there metaphorically (and in some cases literally) rubbing shoulders with each other.

     What this attitude does suggest is that the dreaded “Second Wave” of the virus is almost certain to strike, and the social, political and moral fall-out is going to be severe the second time around.

     The USA at present shows what happens when you are hit by a pandemic and, in the middle of that you are faced by a fully justified howl of outrage at yet another killing of a black individual at the hands of the police – and all while you have a person who is supremely unfitted to be the President in the time of crisis.  From the black (if you will pardon the use of the word) farce of his inaugural speech, through the first lies (of the 18,000 or so that have been noted so far in his ‘presidency’) about the size of his crowds to his appalling references to George Floyd, Trump has made me search for new ways to describe the depths that he has plumbed in his degradation of the office of the presidency: however low our expectations, he manages to fall to depths previously unexpected or indeed dreaded.

     I now look back at my fears about Barry Goldwater running for the presidency in 1964, as little more than hysterical scaremongering on the part of my fourteen-year-old self!  Compared to Trump, Goldwater was a bloody statesman and I feel slightly ashamed that I was scared about the prospect of his winning.  Look at the terrible reality of 2020 and the unfeeling charlatan who now holds the office!

     Still there is some evidence that even parts of Trump's fanatical base are now responding to the reality of his complete mismanagement of virtually everything and the sobering fact that with his response to the virus and how to treat it, he is in a very real sense, trying to kill them off!

     The same goes for the imitation Trump that we have as our prime minister.  A friend phoned me today and said, “One of things that I don’t understand is why the wearing of face masks on public transport is going to be made compulsory on the 15^th of this month!  Why not now, if it is a necessary measure?”  And that, is unanswerable, like so many of the normal, sensible questions that government ministers are asked every day.  Unanswerable.  And people continue to die and be infected.

     The one sensible thing that I read today is that the Inquiry into the management of the crisis should be completed as quickly as possible so that we are prepared if there should be a second wave.  We do not want to make the same mistakes again.  Not with over 40,000 dead – so far.  And the ‘real’ number is well over 50,000, and counting!

     In the same telephone conversation with my friend, I mentioned again that there should be a charge of Corporate Manslaughter against Johnson and his cabinet over their mishandling of the crisis, to which my friend replied, “No!  A charge of murder.  Pure and simple.  Murder!”  And I tend to agree.

    

I am looking forward to my first swim in months with almost child-like enthusiasm.  I am sure that my legs are in fairly good order with all the cycling that I have done, but my arms have not had the same workout and, having booked for an hour, it would be shameful to stop before my allotted time!

     I usually take about 40 minutes to do my 1,500m or sixty lengths of the pool.  We will have to see if my performance is still up to standard.  Monday will tell.