Life must go on!

 

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

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

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

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

     We shall see.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

Blood should be on the inside!

 

When the event in your life that you are looking forward to is the inauguration of a new container for your daily pills, then I might suggest that your standard for a new experience is Lockdown Limited. 

     We have become used to accepting the more quotidian in place of the exceptional, because what we used to take for granted: visiting new places, meeting friends and family, eating out – all have become more problematical with the see-sawing restrictions that we have had to live with for the last eight months or so.

     But my day was about to become more eventful, though not intentionally so. 

I had to get a new supply of my pills from our local pharmacist and I incorporated that chore as the finale in my morning exercise.

     Having completed my morning swim, I emerged into the morning sunshine to find that the outside seating area of the café part of the pool had been converted into one large ‘crime scene’, with the striped plastic tape making sure that all the tables and chairs were out of commission. 

     The café is now a take-away establishment only and, as one regular said, “What am I supposed to do?  Buy a take-away coffee and walk around the block drinking it, before I get back into my car?”

     So, bereft of my bocadillo and cup of tea (a mixture of Earl Grey and English Breakfast, they know how I like it) I set out on my bike ride down to Port Ginesta intending to call in to the pharmacy near our house on my return.

     It was cold.  Although I am still wearing T-shirt and shorts with the essential sandals, I am getting to the stage where long sleeved shirts and gloves are going to be a necessity.

     I arrived at a fairly deserted pharmacy that is part of a commercial development that includes garage, shops and restaurants – that, given the new lockdown regulations, were not generally open.

     I attempted to dismount from my bike, but after a 15km ride (well, it’s a lot for me!) and what with the cold, I was a little stiff and I unbalanced and brought the bike down on myself.

     As I have previously had occasion to explain my bike is fat wheeled and heavy, so trapped by gravity and a solid metal frame I hurtled to the ground!

     I was more shocked than in pain – though there was pain as well – and, as there were no people around I sprawled on the ground, trapped by the bike and weighed down by my backpack and felt truly helpless!

     I eventually disengaged myself and dragged by bloody way into the pharmacy, bleeding from both knees, my left elbow and, oddly, right foot.  The pharmacist noticed nothing and so, somewhat shocked with bloody track lines streaking down my legs, I collected my pills.  And cycled home – easier than wheeling the bike.

     My arrival back in the house was dramatic as the amount of blood on legs and feet made the wounds look much more dramatic than they were.  Dabbing away the excess revealed the cuts’ actual extent and emergency treatment with TCP commenced at once.

     The impressive bruise on the side of my knee has now deflated and I am left with seeping and pain.  In my usual way of dealing with infirmity of any sort, I took to my bed for a few hours to allow my body to do whatever it is that it does in times of stress.  And now it is time for another cup of tea and some light reading.

     I have decided to give the pool a miss for the weekend to allow the scabs to form and, anyway, I think my fellow swimmers might be a little disconcerted in the time of a pandemic to see me wandering around with open wounds!  Well, open-ish, and more like cuts to be absolutely truthful, but I am prepared to milk whatever sympathy I can get.

      Meanwhile I fully intend to be ‘palely loitering’ for the duration of the weekend and emerge revivified on Monday!

    

Plans? What plans?

 

It did not occur to me yesterday when I was thinking about the lockdown restrictions that are going to be imposed at midnight tonight for the next fifteen days that they comprised yet another knock to my birthday celebrations.

     With the ‘rule of six’ and the suggestions that different households not mix the situation for anyone actually making it to the restaurant to participate in my birthday meal was problematic. 

     As many of the people who coming from Britain, the fact that flights had been cancelled was something of a disincentive to start the journey, let alone the fact that Spain and Catalonia are not on the corridor of acceptable countries and that there would have been a period of compulsory quarantine on their return!

     So, the Plan D for my birthday had shrunk down to Toni and I having tapas at lunchtime in one of our trusted restaurants.  Which are now closed.  So, not only no friends and relatives but now, no venue! 

     At the moment the Opera is still on, but that is in nine days time and these days that is the rough equivalent of the temporal distance of the end of the last Ice Age and twentieth U-turn of the Blond Buffoon passing himself off as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom!

     All in all, these next few weeks are shaping up to be eventful.

 

Here we go again!

From tomorrow evening all bars and restaurants in Catalonia will be closed until the end of the month.  The restaurants will be able to operate on a take-out basis but it is going to look awfully like the lockdown of the hard days of early spring.

     Gyms (and presumably swimming pools) will be open but capacity is cut to 30% - whatever that means.  At the moment swimming in our pool is restricted to pre-booking and ten swimmers per hour, so I am assuming that will stay the same.

     Although we have some information of the wider details of the restrictions, we are still not clear about what rules apply to transport, meeting people, shopping etc etc etc.

     At the height of the lockdown here in Catalonia we were not allowed out of our houses except for essential journeys to get food and medicines.  Exercise outside your home was only for those with dogs who were allowed to take them outside by no further than 100 metres or so.  I don’t want to go over any more of the restrictions because, with their severity, we thought we had done all that was necessary to get the virus under control.  Wishful thinking!

     From what we understand so far, in that foggy confusion that has become a staple of governmental information during this pandemic, we are going to have to go through a sort of lockdown-lite with only memories of our previous experiences to keep us happy that the restrictions are not that bad!

     The one great difference this time round is the date.  We were in lockdown in the spring and now it is autumn.  Last night it rained and this morning was dark and damp.  Admittedly, it did get somewhat better during the day and we had some sunshine but the immediate forecast is not encouraging and there is something dire about being restricted in drizzle!

     As far as I can tell I will be able to continue my bike rides each morning and, as my route takes me along the side of the beach I am able to see the horizon – and that is good for the soul. 

     And I think over the next few months we are going to have a pressing need to find things that feed our souls and keep us safe.

Something needs to be done! Now!

 

In my consumer relations with various retail outlets there comes a time in our negotiations to try and right the wrongs that I feel have been done to me, when I feel the need to silently hand over a small printed card with the following message on it: “I am middle class, literate and tenacious.  Give up now while you still have some self respect, because you WILL NOT WIN.”

      I hasten to assure you that I haven’t actually handed over such a card, let alone printed one out, but it would have saved my shop-related opponents a great deal of time and effort.

     I remember watching one film about an evil insurance company (are there any other types?) where the default position to ANY claim made was, in the first instance, to refuse it.  As insurance companies have impressive financial resources and equally striking headed notepaper for their official missives to the grasping customers who have the unheard of audacity to expect the companies to do what they were paid to do, i.e. pay up when loss is experienced, there is an element of intimidation used against the clients.

     My father had dealings with one buildings’ insurance company when he claimed for storm damage to a chimney and part of the roof.  The work to repair the faulty structure had to be carried out on an emergency basis and my father was claiming after the fact.  He eventually received a letter informing him that his claim had been processed; a cheque was enclosed, and would be please sign and return the enclosed form.

     Needless to say the cheque came nowhere near the amount claimed and my father rejected the proffered cheque with contempt and started a length letter battle with the company that eventually resulted in a meeting in which my father suggested an independent assessment and arbitration.  He had no idea whether that sort of thing was covered under his policy but it seemed like a good idea and it was the sort of thing that he was teaching in his Liberal Studies lectures and classes (ah, there is a subject title from the brave new world of 60s education!) and it ought to exist.  The difference in the meeting was immediate and it was admitted that he did indeed have recourse to such an approach, but “we needn’t let it get to that sort of level” moderated the previously intransigent attitude of the blood sucking vampiric officials and a mutually satisfactory solution to the problem was soon arrived at.

     What lesson my father drew from his experience was not the quality of his letter writing, though he did regale Mum and me with some of the more lurid passages, but rather the underhand tactics of an unprincipled company.  As he reasoned it, how many people would turn down an actual signed cheque?  They would assume from the ‘official’ documentation accompanying it that the cheque was the end of the matter.  Dad used to talk about the situation of some OAP living alone with little or no support system in place feeling obliged to accept the cheque and being grateful for it!

     Having spurned the cheque it prompted my father into further and higher forms of letter writing, which, as I mentioned was, eventually successful in this particular circumstance and was generally successful whenever he put pen to paper in the interests of personal commercial justice!

     I channel my father when I have contretemps with suppliers who don’t live up to their PAID promises and I OPEN A FILE – dread words indeed!

     The foregoing is not a self-indulgent meandering, it has been prompted by my latest satisfactory outcome.

     I dropped my mobile phone and the glass back of the thing shattered – so much for toughened glass etc.  It shattered.  It still worked and I continued to use it, but this was not a situation that seemed to me to have long-term viability, so I tried to get it repaired.  This is a long story, a very long story, but I intend to cut to the chase.

     The point is not that the shop failed to get the phone repaired, but that they also managed to ‘brick’ it, and told me (eventually) that the phone was beyond economic repair and they would, very kindly, refund the money that I had paid them to replace the back of the phone!

     To be fair to the shop, the repairs were not carried out on the premises, but each shop in the chain sent them to a central technical station in a large Barcelona store.  I was given contradictory, confusing information about what actually had been or had not been done to my phone and the weeks dragged on.  From what they had said to me it seemed reasonable to assume that their attempts to repair had destroyed the phone.  I wanted another.

     The key questions remained (as the shop had my phone and it was not two minutes away from my house) did the thing charge and work.  Yes, I knew the back was smashed, but did it actually work as it did when I handed it in to be repaired?

   This (eventually) resulted in a brief email, which made me wonder if they were actually talking about my phone at all.  They told me it was working, that they had replaced the screen as I had asked (I hadn’t and they hadn’t) but they would give me a new phone.  Not, I might add, a replacement of my expensive phone, but a signally cheaper one, but by the same maker!  And they would pay back any money I had given for work that they had not done.

     I know that I could have held out for a duplicate, but I decided to cut my losses and retire with honour: full refund and spare phone.  Result.

     Because I have bought another phone.  The attempts to repair this phone started months ago, I knew it was going to be a long slog and so I listened to advice from One Who Knows and paid less than a quarter of what I paid for the phone with the smashed back and it does as much and more than the other one did.

     I also have the old phone.  I am not convinced that it is ‘beyond economic repair’ – I think that the shop simply gave up and bought me off.  As I have me new cheap phone and a newer cheaper one (courtesy of the store) I am sufficiently phoned-up to start a length campaign to get me old phone up and running.  At the moment it is charging (just checked 99% charged) and when it is ready I will see what it is still able to do.  If it appears to be serviceable then further steps will be taken to bring it back into full use.

     This particular file is not yet closed!  Not yet a while.

 

Fiesta?

 

 

Today is a National Holiday in Spain (including Catalonia) to celebrate ‘Spanishness’.  As you can easily imagine, this goes down like a cup of cold sick in Catalonia where any celebrations are, to put it mildly, muted.  We do, however, accept the holiday.

I thought that I was being on the ball by assuming early this morning that my swim would be delayed by an hour as, during fiestas the opening time of the centre is delayed.  I checked my ‘reservations’ on the app (all swims now have to be booked in advance thanks to the virus) and saw that the normal opening times were operational.

Not.

I arrived on my bike to a closed centre and a marked lack of eager car driver gym users queueing for the barrier to be raised.  I returned home and set about making use of the ‘gained’ time by settling down with a good cup of tea and completing the Guardian Quick Crossword.  First things first!  I did also unload the washing machine and sort the clothes; set Moppy off to do the mopping as she had virtually completed the hoovering by the time I returned from my abortive swim.  I’ve also unloaded the dishwasher and consequently feel smug that I have been a dutiful householder and done more than the majority of my sleeping fellow citizens around me.  I have also set my ‘morose’ setting to ‘full’ as I have read the headlines and leading articles in The Guardian and feel the full weight of 2020’s depression that has been the default state of the year!

If this year had been ‘normal’ by this stage I would now have been looking forward to the celebrations for United Nations Day on the 24^th of October when, coincidentally, I have a ‘significant’ birthday.  My grandiose plans for the day have all been scuttled of course, and the gathering of friends and relatives has now been consigned to the ‘completion’ of my significant year on United Nations Day 2021.  I can wait.

 

My menial task list now includes light hoovering on the third floor with the newly repaired and ‘relegated to the upper regions’ actual battery-operated Hoover (capital aitch) which should give some sense of cleanly order to the cluttered squalor in which I ‘work’. 

The Third Floor is really the equivalent of an attic and so it has a fair number of pieces of furniture and other impedimenta that simply don’t fit anywhere else and the jumble looks somewhat incongruous and hinders my access to the inevitable bookshelves with which I surround myself!

The saving grace of the third floor (apart from its existence) is the terrace which is spacious and south facing.  Toni’s ruthless cleaning of the kitchen has allowed a rather neat Perspex tray to resurface and I used that to make a pot of tea and take it upstairs for refreshment and to accompany tentative sunbathing.  The sun is out and, as long as there is no breeze at all, it is perfectly possible to ignore the month in the calendar and luxuriate in warm beams.

This is fine and dandy as far as it goes, but I have set myself a few more culturally improving tasks to complete today which require a little more than the ability to fill and empty a machine or push another one around a bit!

And lunch.  Lunch is going to be a culinary creation using whatever looks interesting in the freezer.  Some sort of fish casserole looks a possibility, so I’m off to create.

Autumn exercise

 

 

Not only was I able to have a pot of tea on the terrace of the third floor, but I was also able to have it stripped to the half, luxuriating in the sunshine and even feeling that slight skin-prickle that suggests that you might be overdoing the exposure!  And that after a night of quite unnecessarily demonstrative rain.

Our rain water drainage in Castelldefels is woefully inadequate and so we have to navigate (a quite apt word) sudden finger lakes stretching the length of gutters.  Other low-lying areas have more considerable expanses of water, but a regular cyclist with well worn routes, I know the danger areas and I am more than prepared and now that I have (at long, long last) my throttle attachment for my bike I am able to whisk my way to relative dryness while avoiding on-coming cars.

The only real problem is the section of the cycle lane along the front that is technically in Sitges.  Given the rather odd geography of the Sitges region it does mean that the ostensible ‘end’ of Castelldefels to the south is not actually in Castelldefels, but administratively it is in Sitges which is, in reality about twenty-minute drive away through tunnels.  Anyway, for cyclists who want a level surface and a view of the sea Castelldefels allows us to cycle along the Paseo next to the beach, until at the end of one section of the resort, the Paseo moves out to run parallel with the Maritime road.  On this particular section of the Paseo we cyclists have a dedicated cycle lane.

Having a dedicated cycle lane does not mean that all cyclists use it and keep the paseo free for pedestrians.  I must admit that when I am cycling (in the dedicated cycling lane) I share the irritation of pedestrians who have to put up with sometimes recklessly rapid cyclists weaving their way through people rather than using a relatively empty cycle lane.  This particular section of the cycle lane is in Castelldefels and is smooth and well maintained.

When you get to ‘Sitges’ the story is rather different.  During the full lockdown of the earlier part of the year the number of cyclists expanded exponentially.  Cars were infrequent and cyclists came into their own.  The dedicated cycle lane ran out at the end section of Castelldefels/Sitges and so you were forced on to the Paseo until you got to Port Ginester and the end of the bay.

The municipal solution was to create a cycle lane by using the car parking strip on the left side of the road next to the paseo as a sudden bike lane.  This was done by putting a line of rubber bumps on the outside of the lane, painting a middle line for two-way traffic and cementing the gutter area to make it sort-of level.  This means that the part of the lane next to the Paseo is ‘a bit bumpy’ to put it mildly and, although a few drains have been left in situ they are woefully inadequate and they form disconcerting obstacles.  This means, of course, that after rain there are thin gutter lakes to negotiate.  What this means in practice is that everyone uses the outside lane next to the traffic and only veers into the gutter lane if they absolutely have to.

Sometimes it takes very steady nerves and a firm belief in your right, to maintain your position when one of those so-called professional bike riders comes hurtling towards you in ‘your’ lane.  You are relying on their ability to swerve into rectitude and regain their proper lane before they hit you.

I am not a confident bike rider.  I am, I think quite reasonably, apprehensive when on the road.  I am acutely aware that all it takes is the slightest touch from a larger vehicle to unsettle me and then you discover just how unprotected the normal bike rider is.  Obviously, I wear a helmet and I am punctilious about using lights when necessary, but riding is precarious and I have a lively understanding of what might happen if another road user is unwary.  I also, as a car user, know just how loathed we bike riders are.

The first question asked in the old Highway Code was, “For whom is the Highway Code written?” to which the answer was, “For all road users, motorists, cyclists, pedestrians etc.”  The worst road users are, without doubt, pedestrians.  They are reckless, inconsiderate, suicidal, idiotic and most of the time they don’t actually realize that they are road users at all.  Then in descending order of awfulness come electric scooters, motor scooters, motorbikes and bicycles.  Everyone hates skateboards.  And rightly so.

There are, of course, different types of cyclists.  I am one of the sit-up-and-beg cyclists, back straight looking like a superannuated clergy man from the 1950s.  I wear a T-shirt when the weather is hot and a wind cheater with hood when it isn’t.  My bike is a MATE X 250, and is coloured what they describe as ‘burn orange’ and I describe as red.  It is electric and has ‘fat’ wheels, eight gears and hydraulic brakes.  It looks impressive and, in spite of MATE’s god-awful customer service, I like it.  I travel at a sedate power-assisted rate and thoroughly enjoy my daily 11 kilometers or so along pleasantly level and fairly safe routes.  I am not a ‘real’ cyclist.

‘Real’ cyclists are inconsiderate bastards.  They wear wildly inappropriate, unflattering clothing as if none of them have significant others to tell them that Lycra does nothing for them.  They also look diseased as they affect those skin-tight shirts with various hidden pockets where they can secrete the impedimenta necessary for their progress on their thin, thin wheels.  They also wear ‘serious’ helmets which make them look as though they have inexplicably attached a row of sausages to their heads in the name of safety.

And talking of safety, these ‘professional’ riders scorn the word.  They weave in and out at high speed insinuating their way into spaces that don’t exist to the ‘unprofessional’ eye.  They ignore traffic lights, ‘no entry’ signs and ‘one way’ prohibitions, they over-take or under-take with no warning and with no indication that they might be followed by hundreds of other bikes.  They pass too close and far too quickly, their lane discipline is non-existent and they assume that no other traffic exists.

I know that the preceding is grotesque generalization and the majority of riders are considerate and fair.  But that is not how it seems when you are actually cycling.  It is only in the calm after the ride that reason takes over again!

So, back to the gutter-lakes.

The ‘Sitges’ section of the bike lane is long and straight, you can see a long way ahead and plan accordingly.  When I am making my way back home from Port Ginester (in the wrong part of the lane because of the bumpy concrete apology of a surface) I can see any cyclists making towards me, I can check the proximity of gutter-lakes and plan my speed to avoid splashing my way through.  Normally, this works out fairly well a gentle increase or decrease in speed means that the passing is without incident.  Not everyone has my consideration and I have experienced those who think that the onus in on me to get out of the way in my lane to give more space to the cyclists who think that they have a god given right to pull out, when what they should actually do is stop.

As motorists, you will also have experienced this: motorists pulling out behind stopped buses and gong into the other lane in spite of the fact that they can see you approaching in the other direction.  They should just bloody well wait!  What are they doing that is so important that it requires them to risk injury to gain a few seconds that they will lose at the next set of traffic lights?  But then logic has never been the driving feature of, well, driving!

Part of my problem, of course, is that the sedate speed that I adopt allows me time to observe my surroundings and my fellow road users and, let’s face it, observation is often condemnation.  At least for me it is!

 

I finished off the Suzanne Collins prequel to The Hunger Games and I think that it will make an excellent film - surely it was written with that in mind?  The ending was clever and allowed the reader of The Hunger Games to tick a few more boxes of the pre-knowledge details that makes any prequel engaging.  I would recommend The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.  I think that the actual ending of the novel might divide opinion, but I thought it was an interesting and appropriate culmination of what is a very long novel.  And don’t we always, sometimes secretly, like the baddies in literature rather than the heroes and heroines?  And Snow has legs, and Collins make the most of them!