432: Lockdown Week 4

Week 4, already the stay-at-home regime feels like the new "normal". What was life like before? Who can remember? I had my 69th birthday on Thursday of last week. Many of my friends on FB were kind enough to wish me Happy Birthday and some even visited me in "Des's virtual pub". It was nice to see, and talk to, some people I hadn't seen for years. Perversely, this lockdown is bringing us closer together - although no touching/hugging/kissing is allowed.

I have the utmost admiration and respect for those people who still have to go to work, to keep the world turning: nurses & doctors and all emergency services including the military, food shop staff & delivery people, care home workers, people working in public transport, postal workers and so on - the list of 'key' workers is long. Not all of them have the correct PPE (personal protective equipment), which is scandalous. Even with PPE they are putting themselves "in harm's way" and I applaud them all for that. I've heard that in UK people applaud key workers, especially NHS staff, every Thursday evening. Here in Spain, the applause rings out from the balconies every single night. 

I'm also very aware of those enduring lockdown with difficulty. This post, from a friend of mine on FB, seems to sum it up nicely. "My sobbing 6 year old daughter: 'Mummy, I just want a normal day'. So do I, my darling, so do I." 

We are allowed to go shopping and usually, and sensibly, I go to the closest supermarket - about 200 metres away. Yesterday I sneaked out early, shopping bag in hand, to venture a little further for my favourite bread. The streets were deserted but there was evidence that the rubbish containers, which are almost on every street corner, had been disinfected. More key workers. I did some 'panic buying' and bought three loaves. They went straight into the freezer and will last me for weeks saving me another trip to that particular shop.

Yesterday was Palm Sunday, the beginning of hol(ida)y week when Salou would normally be waking up from its long Winter hibernation and getting ready for an influx of rowdy tourists. It will have to sleep a while longer I'm afraid. 

Talking, briefly, about Religion, many (most?) Christians will believe that the corona virus is the work of God and He has chosen to inflict this on mankind at this time. For myself I wonder how closely He has chosen to micro-manage the spread of the virus or has he just thrown us a fast ball and is sitting back watching how we deal with it. Enough theology.

Have you noticed that after even a simple sneeze, or a single cough, the irrational part of your brain cuts in and says "oh-huh, this is it and I'm going to die!". Thankfully, logic prevails.

Pedro Sanchez, the Spanish prime minister, speaking at a press conference on Saturday, warned that an eventual return to normality would "not be easy" and that a new world awaited. "The world that is coming, in which we are already, will not be like yesterday, but even less will be like the day before yesterday." 

While we're looking forward to tomorrow, or perhaps the day after, here are a few more jokes/GIFs/Memes that I've come across on the internet and saved for your delectation. Enjoy. 

431: Lockdown Week 3

Just beginning week three of our lockdown here in Spain. I suspect that governments around the world were trying to break us in gently when they 'suggested' a 2-3 week lockdown. I'm beginning to think 2-3 months might be nearer the truth. Mustn't complain though as it's keeping us safe (I hope). 

The clocks went forward this morning (Spring forward, Fall back). Got up at my usual time of 6.30ish and realized that if I hadn't put the clocks forward it would only be 5:30ish. Early even for me.

I heard birds singing when I woke up and thought how lucky they were - they can fly about as they please! 

Two Skype video calls today, one with the members of the local bible study group, bolstered by the addition of cousin Raymond, and the other with my family in UK. Two secrets to making Skype video calls - you can wear what you want on the bottom half, or even nothing at all, unless you mess up the camera angle!, and you can put what you want in the coffee mug and nobody will know what you're really drinking. I've set up a group called 'Des's virtual pub' which I will activate on my birthday, Thursday 2nd April. I will put a link on Face Book, please feel free to dip in and out during the day to wish me happy birthday. You'll have to bring your own drinks I'm afraid, but you will get to meet a nice class of people. 😇

Went shopping yesterday. I used to go once every two or three days as then there wasn't so much to carry. Now I'm trying to shop only once a week and just put up with the longer arms I get from carrying heavier bags. Don't like to leave my little bubble unless I absolutely have to. The shelves were full in my local Bon Preu supermarket and I was invited to don some disposable gloves before I could start my shopping. It's quite funny doing the new self-distancing dance - a bit like magnets repelling each other as soon as they get close.

One of the only advantages in these crazy times (it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good) is that many companies are offering 'stuff' for free. The Bolshoi Theatre is streaming live opera and ballet. So far I've watched, and enjoyed, Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty. Next up will be the Tsar's Bride on Wednesday. A reminder to any of you may who have been watching - Russia no longer changes clocks for winter/summer so 19:00 Moscow will be different in your local time zone to what it was last week.  I'm slightly puzzled as to how the dancers and all the staff at the Bolshoi are immune to the effects of the virus currently sweeping the world.

It's Sunday today so a day off from on-line fitness training. Time for a self-isolation party. All three of us will be attending:

430: Lockdown week 2

Last night they sprang a surprise on us. Because we'd all been doing so well under 'house arrest' they rewarded us with another two weeks. Until (at least) 11th April. I have already cancelled my March trip back to UK, now the April one is looking a bit 'iffy'. Too early to decide one way or the other and I will review the situation nearer the time.

Lst night, during the night, I heard a neighbour coughing for what seemed like several minutes. Oh dear, persistent coughing is one of the symptoms of the dreaded virus. Poor guy, I hope he hasn't got it. I shall pray for him. I'm quite pleased that the virus doesn't permeate through walls.

With no longer being allowed to walk outside, other than the short distance to the nearest shops, I was faced with a decision. In order not to pile on the pounds I had to either eat less or, somehow, exercise more. I've already cut out chocolate biscuits and cakes, and, let me tell you, that wasn't easy! The next step was to reduce the size of the portions or even, heaven forbid, cut out or cut down alcohol. In order to avoid either of those 'drastic' 😁steps, I searched You Tube for free workouts to do at home. There are hundreds of them. I chose this one. How could I not: "30 minute, low-impact, fat-burning workout for beginners". I enjoyed it, although I was sweating a bit by the end. Only the scales will tell if it has made a difference and, of course, I mustn't expect miracles after only one session. Nowhere near as powerful as my fellow Spanish student Inesa is doing. I've seen a video of her doing planks and all sorts of other exercises with her 3-year old son is sitting on her stomach or her back. спортсменка!

Here are some more jokes & memes about coronavirus and shortages in the shops. Luckily, at the moment anyway, we don't have shortages in the shops here. Perhaps Spanish people are more responsible than Brits? 

429: Lockdown - purgatory or sanctuary?

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.

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.

428: A lovely day in Tongue

Tongue is a small village (population 560) in the far North West of Scotland. A friend of mine was going to visit a client in Skerray, a bit further North, and he kindly invited me along for the ride. We stopped in Tongue for coffee and a bite to eat in the delightful Tongue Deli and Post Office. What a lovely little shop - used by locals and tourists alike. You must drop in if ever you're in the area.

Alisdair left me there, and collected me later, while he went off to visit his client. 

What a lovely day it was. The temperature gauge in the car, showing the outside temperature, varied between -7 to and +2. A crisp frost in many places. The road, once it gets North of Lairg, is single track with passing places. On the way we startled 3 magnificent stags but they stopped long enough to have their picture taken. I had an hour or so to myself in Tongue and enjoyed a walk around the village, heading out towards the long-abandoned Castle Varrich. Had I had a bit more time I would have walked the extra mile or so to reach the castle. 

On the way back we planned to stop at the Crask Inn, an isolated 'outpost' in the middle of nowhere, for some warming soup but it turns out it was closed, and will be until 7th Feb. We drove on to Lairg and found a pub that was open and the bearded bus driver therein gave me permission to take a photograph of him with his beard decorated ready for Christmas. Here are a few pictures of the day.

They tell me Christmas is just around the corner. I always know that Christmas is close when I hear Jona Lewie singing  'Stop the Cavalry'

427: Is life preordained?

Sometimes, more and more often as I get older, I wonder if life has already been mapped out for each of us, as if each of us has our own jigsaw of life and the individual pieces of the jigsaw fit into that larger picture as and when the time is right for them to fit in.

Sometimes I feel that I'm in the driving seat of the entity that is Des but perhaps the route I'm taking has already been mapped out. Even if I occasionally turn off from that pre-planned route I always seem to end up back on it, going in the right direction. 

Russians have a phrase for it, от судьбы не уйти, which means you can't get away from fate. It may indeed be fate, or perhaps God himself is steering us individually in the right direction. Whichever view you subscribe to, and I confess I'm leaning more towards the latter these days, it could well explain why I'm sitting typing this blog at 6 o'clock on a Sunday morning in a 2* hotel in Tortosa in Spain.

I've mentioned before, on social media, that I quite fancy walking the Camino de Santiago. There are several different routes and I had been considering what is known as 'the English route' from Ferrol down to Santiago de Compostela, a route of perhaps 120km. I've had a bit of time on my hands this week and have started to think about going to Ferrol, on Spain's NW coast to recce the start point (time spent on reconnaissance is never wasted!). It's easy to forget that Spain is a big country. Salou to Ferrol is a distance of more than 1,000 km: 9 hours by car, 13 hours by train, or less than 2 hours (but more than £100) by plane from Barcelona to A Coruna.

Why it popped into my head I shall never know but suddenly I thought about visiting Tortosa. One hour on the train from Salou at a cost of just over 4 Euros with my 'senior rail card', and 30 Euros for B&B for 1 night. It's only a single room with no room to bring in a cat, never mind swing it, but the bed is larger than a standard single and the room is perfectly adequate. I shall see later what they mean when they say a 'buffet breakfast' is included. I shall also discover whether the 7 a.m. start time uses the rather more flexible Spanish clock.

Allow me to, finally, get to the point of the blog. I arrived here yesterday afternoon and started looking on the internet for things to do. I stumbled across a site called wanderlust and there found reference to the Vies Verdes, (or green routes) disused railway lines that have been converted into scenic (and largely flat) walking and cycling trails. "The Baix Ebre Greenway, a 26km section of the old Val del Zafán railway, is particularly enticing. From the former station of El Pinell de Brai, the route runs via red-rock ravines, limestone caves, orange-blossom meadows, impressive viaducts and tunnels, and the Ebro River to reach the historic city of Tortosa". 

 All that remains for me to do today is visit the bus station and see if there is a bus to the far end of the route - I don't particularly want to do 26km to then turn around and do 26km back again! Having completed my recce, I plan to return another time.

Tortosa is a lovely town, if only it didn't suffer from that particularly Spanish malaise of not opening its restaurants for dinner until 8pm. I can't change their culture but I can choose to put my money into the pockets of Indians, or in this case Pakistanis, who have the required entrepreneurial skills to open their eating establishments at a more reasonable, for me at least, time. And a nice kebab it was too! 

P.S. Breakfast was fine, but I get quite grumpy when I see people sneaking stuff out for their lunch - to me that suggests the hotel will need to raise its prices to cover its costs so I'll have to pay more next time. 

426: One good turn deserves another....

2 blogs in a week, I have surpassed myself. I'm still dreaming of pushing through to 500 and then (self-)publishing a book for the grandchildren's coffee tables once I'm long gone. I shall always regret not asking more questions of my grandparents, especially those on my mum's side, as I know grandad served in India and nan was there with him, at least for some of the time. Here is a picture of the ship nan came back on. One of my cousins did the research and I saw nan's name on the passenger manifest. Must have been fascinating times.

On my way North to Scotland in a couple of weeks I will be stopping off at Stockport for lunch with the surviving aunt and uncle on dad's side of the family. I must quiz them. Again.

I digress, I'm quite good at that!

I've mentioned before that I enjoy the beautiful walk from Salou to Cambrils. I usually walk one way and take public transport back. This time though, the one remaining little grey cell kicked in and I realized it would be better to walk 'halfway' there and then walk back again, thus gaining the benefit of the sun on my front and my back rather than just one or the other. Hundreds of other people on the path, of many nationalities, either walking, running, cycling or whizzing along on skates. There was a small police presence (I mean small in number, not in size!), which doubtless did a lot to deter the usual throng of Africans from selling their wares (or maybe even somebody else's wares!) from blankets on the pavement.

One thing I did see were these artistic 'sand castles'. I don't have an ounce of artistic talent in me - it's the other UK Des Buckley who has all the talent. 

Why is this blog entitled "one good turn deserves another"? 

On my way off to do the walk I popped into the local barber's shop for a quick No. 2. Who should be the barber but a guy from Morocco that had been coming to my free English classes. A small world.

He gave me the haircut for free, instead of the usual 8 Euros. I was well pleased!

A video clip to finish? I heard Simon & Garfunkel singing "The Sound of Silence" this morning. It has to be one of my all time favourites and I have enjoyed listening to it since it first came out in the sixties. Hello darkness, my old friend...

Now is it dinner time?