I understand, very well, that this current lockdown, here in Spain and most of Europe, may well be purgatory to many people. Especially to those having to entertain fractious children 24/7 or those with no hobbies or no access to the internet. For all those people, and many others, this enforced stay-at-home is probably a nightmare. For those trapped in the wrong place at the wrong time, when lockdown started, life can't be much fun either. All of those groups of people have my sympathy.
Personally, I find it more of a sanctuary, allowing me time to catch up on so many things that I've been meaning to do for ages: trying to progress from basic to intermediate Spanish, spending time developing and improving my Access databases and my web site (i.e re-learning VBA & HTML), keeping in touch with friends and relatives. Not to mention reading books, watching TV and DVDs.
Most importantly, inside my own little bubble, I'm away from that nasty virus that is particularly dangerous for older and vulnerable people (not that I'm in that category yet of course). We're allowed out to go shopping, but I try to restrict such expeditions to perhaps twice a week. I use my balcony, and sun lounger, to catch the sun and top up the Vitamin D. I use the stairs, in my block of flats, to walk up and down to get some exercise and stop muscles and internal organs from atrophying.
Using the stairs worked well - until yesterday. On my 2nd walk past floor 2 an elderly gentleman came out of his flat and started talking to me. I hope he was talking in Catalan, because if he was talking in Spanish I should be ashamed of myself at how little I understood. I did understand that he needed help so I followed him into his flat. There I saw an elderly lady, with tubes in her nose, sitting on the floor. It quickly became obvious that they needed help to get her back onto the settee. The man took one arm and I took the other and we soon had her back where she should be. I left and went back to my flat. As a precaution I not only washed my hands but had a shower and put all my clothes for wash. Overreacting? Probably, but better safe than sorry.
Too much talk. Coronavirus has shown that people still have a sense of humour. Here are just a few of the gems (gems, not germs) that I have come across in the last few days. You've probably seen some of them but not all. Mostly funny, I thought so anyway, the odd one simply wistful. Enjoy. More on request.
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Breaking news: Spain has just become the 4th country to register >1,000 deaths - after China, Italy & Iran.
This pandemic will end eventually. What we don’t yet know is when.
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