Spanish views from a small town

Day 7, and it's over.  I tested myself this morning, and I was negative, so, even though today I should still have isolated myself, by the rules in place, this afternoon I went out for some much needed groceries.  Now, I am free from Covid for at least the next four or five months, according to researchers. It seems that this variant is acting more like the human coronavirus that gives us colds. Whenever we get a cold, we are then immune from that virus for the next few months. It's good that it is slowly becoming much less serious, though there are still people it can kill. As of yesterday, masks are no longer necessary outside, unless large groups of people are gathered together with little chance of separation. As of tomorrow, hostelry will go back to their normal capacities, and normal hours. Numbers of sick and hospitalized are going down, and things are starting to look better.  Unfortunately, that doesn't mean I can pick up the car and just go for a drive. Gas pric...

Day 5. My throat is now almost completely clear. My nose is dry, but that's because of the lack of humidity in the air. My voice is still a touch gravelly, but it's very recognizably mine. I declare this Covid finished, though I won't waste a test until Friday, when my seven days are up. I am running out of ideas on what to make to eat. My husband has been eating at his mother's, or making for himself next door, so I get to eat things he normally doesn't like. Except, I stocked the fridge and pantry thinking he would be quarantined with me. So, I don't have all the exotic ingredients I would otherwise need. My husband did give me two avocadoes last week, passed to him by someone who has an avocado tree. They went to one of my healthier meals at the beginning of my quarantine, homemade guacamole with bread. I also did vegetable soup on my worst day, salads, chick peas in sauce with chourizo and vegetables, and Oriental-style stir fries with plenty of vegetables....

Day 4. My symptoms are retreating. The only thing left is that I sometimes have to clear my throat, or give a small cough to do so.  The forecast is calling for some rain on Thursday night, and then a return to the sun. But only until Saturday. From Sunday on out, it's supposed to rain. So, this week I can't go walking because, despite being physically capable of doing so, I'm quarantined, and next week I won't be able to go walking because the long-awaited rain is coming. You just can't win. I finished a Donna Leon book last night, and started one by David Young, about East Germany in the 1970's. I have another book waiting. What I haven't been able to read in the past months, I'm reading now. It's good to have the television off at night. Unfortunately, that also means my husband isn't in the house in the evenings. He'll be back on Friday. By then, I will most likely test negative, and he will probably remain Covid-free. So, today I've ...

Day 3.  This is becoming the literary lockdown. I've gotten through two Ian Rankin books, the last one of Andrea Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano, have started one by Donna Leon, with another of hers in the wings, and have dug out a couple I want to re-read. The spring cleaning can wait, I suppose.  My symptoms are of a disappearing cold. My nose has stopped running, and is simply a little itchy, with partial blockage when I lie down. The back of my throat still has some phlegm, which is the result of the infection being put down by my immune system. I can take deep breaths with no problem at all. I could very easily be out and about, but I can't, ethically. So, my walks will have to wait. By the time I do get out, the buds will probably be swelling, and a leaf or two might have started to peep out. We have a fruit tree that has started to do just that, flower included. This has not been a harsh winter, at all. My hopes for a freak, late snowfall are fast disappearing in th...

Day 2 of my imposed imprisonment. My husband has decided to live next door, in the house where my parents used to live. Whenever he comes over, he wears a mask. So far, he has tested negative, including this morning, which doesn't really surprise me. Whenever people around him are sick with colds or the flu, he never catches anything. His immune system is top-notch. Still, it is lonely without him, especially in the evenings and nights, when he's always been there. My nose is still a bit runny, though it's become a bit more stuffed up as this runs its course. My throat is mostly good, except for a small bit of phlegm that is more of a small bother than anything else. I get the suspicion, that with total numbers of infected going down across the country, that most people who are as sick, or less, as I am, simply either don't get tested, or ignore the positive result, and continue with their lives. Truth is, I probably won't be contagious after tomorrow or Tuesday, ye...

I was expecting it, and I wasn't let down. I tested positive yesterday evening for Covid. Ever since I began my classes after Christmas break, I was expecting it. Children were falling like flies, including some of my students. This past week, three tested positive, including two the day right after they had been here. Despite the masks, the open window, and the air purifier, I decided to stock up supplies in case I couldn't go shopping today. In effect, yesterday morning I started noticing something wrong. I woke up with a slight headache that went away, and came back with more force at midday. I had had a slight sore throat in the night, and my body ached, though not too much. I did a test, and it was negative, but I decided to cancel yesterday's classes, all the same. Throughout the day, the headache went away with the help of paracetamol, and the sore throat was a mere tickle, but my nose began to run a bit, and I started running the slightest of fevers, at 37.1ºC/98.7º...

This new year is starting off the way last year ended, with illness everywhere. The good of it, is that most people are now vaccinated. The bad of it, is that the Omicron variant is now dominant, guaranteeing exploding contagion, even if most of it doesn't end up in the hospital. The further bad of it, is that after two years, we still haven't shored up our health system to withstand the shock. With the incredible numbers going up, we've been left more or less on our own. Protocall has changed, and I really have no idea what to do anymore if I suspect I've come down with Covid. Buy an antigen test at a pharmacy (if they have any)? Call my GP (if he or she answers)? Search for a special number that I have heard talked about (if it's still working)? Protocalls have changed because pharmacies can't keep enough antigen test kits on hand, and the labs are overwhelmed with the number of PCR's sent to test. Of course, knowing that Omicron was coming, nothing was do...

I am falling back into the old ways of writing every few days rather than every day. In part, it's because the newness of the pandemic, and the necessity of recording its ever-changing nature has disappeared. We have become more or less inured to the illness and the numbers that we are still barraged with every day. Those numbers are now going down, though certainly not through our actions. The beginning of the new school year has brought thousands of students together in university towns and cities. In Santiago, thousands have had to be hounded off the streets by riot police where they were binge drinking and keeping the neighbors awake with their revelry. In Barcelona in recent days, forty thousand were rousted from the largest plaza in the city. With these enormous get-togethers, with the flux of tourism this summer, and with our complacency, the numbers should have gone up. But vaccination is a wondrous thing. Over seventy percent of the total population in Spain is completely ...

August is winding down to a close, with just a week left. The days are now nicely warm and summery, just as summer is about to end. There are blackberries in the sun-speckled areas of the woods, and I've eaten some, already. The days are now losing their light, as the sun heads away from us, with sunrise at around eight in the morning, and sunset at about nine in the evening. There's less than a month to go to the fall equinox, and then the darkness of winter descends upon us.  As school comes closer (9 September for primary, and 15 September for secondary), parents are caught up in buying clothes, though books and supplies will wait for the lists to come home on the first day. This year, back to school also means getting a shot, and the age group getting their Covid vaccines are now from 12 - 16. I don't know if the European medical agencies will recommend the vaccine for younger children; perhaps they will wait for further research, but I suspect primary schoolers will so...

It's been a long time since I've been sick. I would have preferred to pass the pandemic without getting a stick up my nose, but I might just get one. This morning I woke up fine, but at mid-morning I started to notice how my legs hurt. After a while the muscular aches went to my lower back. I then started to get chills, though the day is not exactly cold, and I am wearing an undervest with a warm polar fleece over it. I checked and I didn't have a fever. A little while later I checked again, since the shivering wasn't going away, and I had just a tenth of a degree over 37. I've had this before, and it's always proven to be a simple spring cold, more than not, caused by temperature changes and exposure. And these days we've had a rollercoaster, along with my walking yesterday morning that got me hot and made me peel sleeves, in a stiff northeasterly wind. But my daughter started pestering me to call the doctor and forego any classes today. In ordinary times, ...

The European agency in charge of the vaccines has declared that the AstraZeneca vaccine is safe to use. That means that next week people will continue to be called up to receive it. Yes, the recent cases of thromboses were probably related to the vaccine. But the number that occurred, compared to the number of vaccines administered, is not worrying. Every vaccine, every medication, has some possible side effects, some very serious. It's a question of monitoring oneself, knowing when to go to the doctor, and just living. The probabilities of dying or suffering disabilities are much higher from Covid than from the vaccine. Everything we do in life has risk; the vaccine is less risky than the illness. This holiday weekend (today is St. Joseph's Day - a holiday and Father's Day), and on Holy Week, we will be able to wander around our own region, but not between regions. So, in Galicia, we can go on holiday to Ourense, but not to Ponferrada, just over the border in Castilla-León...

It's been a year. A year since the first state of alarm that locked us inside our homes.  I remember the growing anxiety over the spreading contagion last March, but still couldn't believe one of my students when he said he had heard school would be closed within a week. There were few people in our region who had contracted Covid. Yet, the weekend after we had marched in the Women's Day protest in Santiago, we were all shut up inside our private enclosures. Those who lived in flats couldn't even go out on communal patios or roof terraces.  To prepare for the lockdown, people went shopping. And emptied supermarket aisles. Anyone seen with the last packet of toilet paper in the entire supermarket, was set upon, in good, WWE fashion. People who usually went shopping every other day, suddenly had two or three carts in the queue. Some, experts after having watched zombie movies and movies about the siege of Leningrad and Stalingrad enough times, knew to head for the canned ...

Yesterday was quite a full day. In the morning I went to Santiago, and in the afternoon I finally had classes in my studio. It's a good thing it was Friday. On my drive up, looking around, there was nothing discernibly new. The only thing that hadn't been there was a pharmacy that had popped up. The only thing that wasn't there that had been, were the pilgrims. Normally, driving up I can see pilgrims doing the Portuguese Way of Santiago. Either in groups, or individually, in places where the Way coincides with the road, I could see dozens of them. Not this year. It may be a Jacobean Holy Year, but the Way is empty. When the Pope announced at the end of last year that the Holy Year would be extended, with its plenary indulgences, to 2022, he merely cemented the fact that the Church has forever been more involved in economics than in spirituality. Entering Santiago at around ten, it was traffic as usual. I went first to an industrial area with large stores. First, to Decathlo...

Finally! As of Friday we can move around and get together with three other people! Normal classes! Normal shopping! Feasting my eyes on landscapes I haven't seen in over two months! Seeing people again! But not completely. The clinical committee of our region got together this morning and decided to further open the region, but according to rates of contagion. There are still seventeen townships that will remain completely closed. Then there are several health areas that will open, but not as much, those include the areas of Pontevedra, A Coruña, and Ferrol, along with the townships that depend on the hospitals in those areas. The health areas of Lugo, Ourense, Santiago, and Vigo will open a little bit more. Most importantly, there can be movement among those townships, so we can at least move around, and even go down to Vigo by highway, though we probably won't be able to go to nearby Vilagarcía, which I believe depends on the hospitals of Pontevedra. And Catoira, just across ...

To continue the internet fiasco, I went again to the store where I contracted it. There, the assistant called Movistar, and after twenty minutes with the phone hanging on his ear, the person he finally spoke with assured him that someone would come out to see the best place to put the hook-up box.  On March 3rd.  In the meantime, they might be calling me to see if they come up with any other, temporary solutions for me. The assistant told me not to accept anything else. Of course not. If I accept a slow access to internet, it won't be temporary, it will become permanent. I will be saving them work, so they wouldn't make good on their promise to set up a connection to the fiber optic cable. Vaffanculo , Movistar.  Yesterday, on the news, they were interviewing people on the Canary Islands. Everyone is depressed because this year, there is no Carnival. Celebrations should have begun, already, in many places. Various small towns here, in Galicia, would have already had custo...

Yesterday, I had my first video classes of this year. They went smoothly, though they each involved only one other person. Mondays are quiet, simply because scheduling worked out that way. Today will be another story. I have four group calls that I will attempt for the first time. Movistar still hasn't called to schedule a hook-up, and yesterday I spent about six hundred megas of my phone data. Today, I'll connect to one of the wifi's, and let's see how many calls I have ahead of me before the data goes bye-bye. I doubt I have a week's worth. Damned Movistar! The only problem was a slight delay in sound and image, so one would start talking and the so would the other, at the same time, probably because of the signal. So, it's not the ideal working situation, but it will have to do for the next couple of weeks. Or, at least the next day or two. Aside from the cancellations of various spring celebrations all over Spain, Pamplona has declared that this year's S...

I'm changing my header, again. The New Year is now no longer so new, yet the third wave of the pandemic continues strong. When I am able to give my header the name "calm waters", I'll rejoice. Do you have an extra 25,000 pounds lying about? Are you over 65? Are you anxious for travel? You can apply for membership to the KnightsBridge Circle, a members-only travel club that will cater to your every wealthy need. This January, they presented a travel package to Dubai of a month's stay at a seven-star hotel, private jet to and fro, an appointment at a private clinic, and two shots of the complete vaccination with either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. All this, for 40,000 pounds. Cheap. In the meantime, if you only have 25 euros until your next paycheck, however anxious you are for travel, or whatever underlying health problems you might have, you may wait your turn until the regional health department calls you up for your doses. At this rate, probably around Septemb...

It's another dreary wet Sunday. Yesterday, at least we could see the sun between showers. But today, another front is going by, after Justine yesterday left monster waves along the north coast, and the dark mist has converged upon us, leaving us even more isolated. Too many times, the weather colors the mood, and today isn't much of an exception. Today marks a year since the very first case of Covid was detected in Spain, and the contagion in our township has gone up again, to 50 infected. Portugal has closed its border with Spain. The admittance to ICU's in all of Spain has gone up exponentially, as has other hospital admittance for Covid. The vaccination has slowed down, and numerous stories of people who know people getting shots ahead of time, abound. Pandemic fatigue is beginning to show, with people either going paranoid about getting sick, or giving up, or denying a pandemic even exists.  Regional politicians play petty games, too, at the cost of the population. Cata...

It's happened. Yesterday afternoon, new restrictions in our region of Galicia were announced, that will be in effect until, at least, 17 February. All hostelry is to be closed down. Non-essential businesses close at 6PM. No one is allowed to reunite with anyone they do not live with. All cultural offers are to be closed; no movie theatres, no auditoriums, no libraries, no museums. Gyms are closed; sport shall be outside, individual, and masked, even if you're all alone in the park, street, or road (that last one makes no sense).  This goes into effect at midnight tonight, so I have to scramble and tell everyone I'm going onto Whatsapp video calls. But, only after I get my fiber installed this week, which, hopefully, will happen as promised. Otherwise, I will finish all the data on my wifi connection in two days. I'll be on Whatsapp until I figure out another free way to get together online without a time or person limit and on something I can figure out easily.  A local...

There's no running away from news of the virus. We are nearing the peak (I hope) of the third wave, and there is much lamenting. Hospitals are overwhelmed. Doctors are calling for another confinement. Some are beating their chests over lax Christmas rules. In the meantime, people are getting sick, and too many are dying. One that stood out this past week, was a 46 year old man that died rather quickly after begin admitted to the hospital, despite having no pathology of any kind. Our township, despite having had its borders closed for a month, is lucky. Today, we have 41 positives, the most have been 55. We've been down to 35, but have come back up again; still, out of a population of just a thread over 11,000, that's a manageable number at this point. The news is out, too, that this year, because of masks and keeping apart, there have been almost no flu cases. Even some contagious illnesses that parents don't like to vaccinate their children for, such as whooping cough,...