Spanish views from a small town

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 ...

If yesterday I said justice will end up working out, today I have to say the opposite. Last week, amid the steep rise in Covid cases in several cities, Madrid foremost, the central government decreed a small lockdown, with no one allowed in or out of certain cities. (Cities of over a hundred thousand inhabitants, with an infection rate of over 500 per 100,000.)  Today, the Superior Court of the region of Madrid declared the lockdowns illegal without a general state of alarm declared, because they impinge upon individual rights. These are the same judges that upheld the rather lopsided and ineffectual restrictions the regional government imposed on only a part of affected areas, and that did not admit a case against the managers of various publicly owned elderly residences where many older people died because controls against the coronavirus were lax in the spring. Politics, much? That must be what some of the judges would like to see happen. Another national state of alarm would tu...

The days continue, sunlight dancing on our eyes, wind blowing through the crannies, swirling the leaves upside down. Days that seem normal now, until we step somewhere that used to be teeming with people living their normal lives. Now, they stay apart and wear masks, swerving to avoid others.  Days continue with meals being made and eaten. Simple meals, usually, unless I feel inspired and want to spend time in the kitchen, concentrating on cobbling together something more exotic. Or I'm forced to do so on specific days, such as Christmas. Generally, I'm too impatient and get too hungry, so I go for the faster meals. Our daughter is a vegetarian and, during the lockdown, sometimes sent us photos and videos of her making her lunch. She told us she made a rice to die for and that she would make it for us when she came home. She did so yesterday evening. Mine she made with little salt, plenty of hot pepper, coloring, bay leaves, and garlic. Her father's was the same, exce...

Yesterday afternoon, not even twenty-four hours after getting tested, my daughter got a call. She is negative for Covid-19. She simply had a little spring cold. With this virus, every little sniffle becomes suspect, and we tend to forget that other illnesses, much more benign, still exist and infect us. So, she has now fully installed herself in the house. My solitary days are over.  Life is slowly getting back into its regular grooves. Now that we can move a bit more, I am going to go back to shopping on Saturday afternoons in the next township, where there are some supermarket chains I frequent that don't exist in my township. But I will still try to stock up to not have to run out in the middle of the week. I don't want to be exposed to many people without any reason yet, even though the number of infected is going down in our region.  I am also getting back into the groove of moving my body every morning. Last week I went walking for a half hour almost every day. Thi...

Our daughter came home on Tuesday evening. From the start, she hadn't been sure whether or not to come, but decided to do so. Only, she tried to stay as far from her father and I as possible, and opted to sleep next door, in the empty house her grandparents had lived in. Her reason for distancing herself was that she had a slight, scratchy throat and a touch of a runny nose. She blamed it on spending the Sunday evening outside without a jacket as the cool of the night was making an appearance. But she couldn't be completely sure. (Did I mention she's a bit OCD?) So, she made a phone appointment yesterday afternoon with her GP, and insisted on getting tested. The doctor told her she would get a message with the appointment, probably for today. An SMS reached my phone yesterday evening. At first, I ignored it. I get so many texts that are simply publicity. But, I looked at it, thinking that it might be from the bank because my daughter wanted to make a transfer. (My phone...

Now, it seems that there are errands to run every day. Yesterday, I had to go to a different hardware store in the next township to buy some things for my husband to replace others that had broken this past week.  Boiro was not bustling. It was supposed to be market day, but, though now open-air markets are allowed, the town decided to wait another week or two. Everything was quiet. Many stores decided not to open, including some cafés that normally had every table occupied on a Tuesday. Those few that did open, had rules on the door. Masks obligatory. Gloves obligatory. Use hand sanitizer upon entering. I had little trouble parking. Normally, I have to go around the central blocks two or even three times before giving up and going into the underground parking garage of the very central supermarket. Yesterday I parked on a nearby street and walked. People were out walking their dogs, or their children. There were extremely few shoppers. Perhaps some of the shops already had sum...

Yesterday was the big day. We were being let further out of our cages. It coincided with an appointment my mother-in-law had at the hospital in Santiago. She had not been sure during these months leading up to it if she would be able to go, but she got a phone call a couple of days before, telling her that it was still on, and she should wear a mask and gloves. It was an evening appointment, very rare, and meant for people whose diagnosis is more urgent. In her case, urgency was required when the appointment was made because of pain that made walking a torment. Since then, the pain has gone away, but the knee problem remains, with a return of the pain lurking in the shadows.  The norms in this Phase One are that a driver can take people that don't live with them, but in the back seat and with a maximum of two people. Also, both driver and passengers must wear masks.  So, we drove like this to Santiago. I let my mask down around my chin to be able to breathe without foggi...

Today is the first day of Phase One. Today, we can travel throughout our entire province. Today, I can go see our daughter, and she can come home later this week. Many will probably be breathing more easily now, thinking of leaving the house, getting together with those friends and family only seen on a screen these past two months. Probably they'll be thinking of sitting at the newly opened café terraces, sipping a coffee or a cold beer, chatting with friends before going shopping for new clothes. Well, they're thinking too fast.  We are still in semi-quarantine. The virus is still out there. What happened is that the rate of transmission has gone down, and it's not spreading like an Australian wildfire in dry-as-bone 40ºC degree weather. The quarantine is being eased so that we can check up on family and friends we haven't seen in ages, but keeping our distance of two meters. My daughter coming home is actually going against the rules. What we know is that we are ...

Tomorrow we're supposed to start Phase One in the four provinces of Galicia. Other places, like Madrid or Barcelona, however, are staying in Phase Zero at least another week. We're being let out of our cages slowly. We will be able to move around the province, but not cross over into others, not at the moment.  It shouldn't matter, unless you live next door to another province. My husband talked about going to a green grocer's he frequents during watermelon season over in Catoira. He thought he would go Monday after work. I reminded him it's in another province. He didn't like it.  We are in A Coruña, but just across the river Ulla, is Pontevedra. It's no hardship to cross the bridge whenever we wish. In fact, we are equidistant from Santiago and from the city of Pontevedra. Both are around a half hour's drive away. But we can't visit Pontevedra until probably next month.  The good thing is that our daughter can come home. She was doing a three...

The virus doesn't care who you are or what you've done with your life. It attacks its victims at will, sometimes passing through without a second thought, sometimes killing its host. That is what makes it so unfair. Disease of any kind only takes into account our biological humanity, not our overall humanity. One of the deaths this week was Antonio González Pacheco. By that name, he is barely known in Spain and certainly not outside the country. But he is better known here by Billy el Niño (Billy the Kid). He got that knick because his face looked like a little boy's when he was younger. But he was more of a spawn of the Devil than an angel of a boy. He joined the police and was incorporated into the Brigada Político-Social , the feared department under Franco that investigated those that dissented. During his tenure, he used torture during interrogations, and was brought under suspicion by the untimely death of the student, Enrique Ruano, while in custody, in 1969. Af...

Today, I woke up late, thanks to a cat that came to bother me by stepping on the pillow in the wee hours of the morning. But I could still go walking because the guidelines have changed a little.  In Galicia and Asturias, it now depends on how many people there are in each parish, rather than township. In the rest of Spain it depends on the township. The hourly rules were: 6 to 10AM and 8 to 11PM, everybody from 14 to 70 could go out to exercise or walk for an hour; 10AM to 12PM and 7 to 8PM, over 70's; and 12 to 7PM children to 14 with one parent. Those townships exempt from the hourly rules are those that have five thousand people or less. In Galicia and Asturias, the population taken into account now are the parishes, not the entire township. That's because in these two regions, people are more spread out than in the Castillas or other regions. For example, my house isn't in my village. It's a seven minute walk away from the village center. Because population is sp...

We are into the month of May, one of the prettiest, most gracious months of the year. It's warmer, the days are longer, everything has flowered or is flowering, the trees are kelly green. But I'm not in May. My head is still somewhere in April. It still seems like yesterday we went to the Women's Day march with our daughter in Santiago. It still seems like a strange Easter was last week, and that vacation still hasn't ended. It still seems like summer is such a long time away from now. This week my routine has changed a little bit. Now, I go walking every morning that it doesn't rain. That means I didn't go on Tuesday. I come home, shower, and do something. Depending on the day, I might have some video classes. My busiest is Wednesday, with one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Compare that with my usual five hours in the afternoon previous to this quarantine.  Then, I make lunch, laze about, do something more in the afternoon. Or, force myself to g...

My classes are, most likely, effectively over for the school year. The Ministry of Education is talking about not opening schools again until September. And then, halving the number of students in each class, by combining regular classes with online ones. How they will do that, I have no idea.  But smaller classes are a good idea. After the Great Recession, one way to cut back on educational spending, was to increase student/teacher ratios and therefore spend less on payroll. Now, it turns out that smaller classes are a good idea, if not pedagogically, epidemialogically. But I don't think the online bit is really in the best interests of the students, nor the teachers. How will the teachers deal with both a classroom and kids on a screen? Who will decide which kids stay home and which go to school? What about the kids who can't socialize with their friends on the school grounds? Or who are separated from their best friend? The Minister said this situation would be ideal unt...

So, in seventy years time, when historians research this Great Pandemic of '20, where will they go to find information on how the common people got through it? Will they search attics and boxes, and chests, and libraries to find written letters and diaries? No, they'll try to find information on obsolete servers, most likely.  Some would argue that this is the most documented age. Almost everyone can read and write and has access to writing utensils, while most people in first world countries have some kind of access to internet. There have been videos, posts, memes, pictures, everything, hung on internet on how we are going through this pandemic. But will any of this survive time? How many of us have picked up a pen to write a physical letter on paper to someone we know, describing what we're going through? Perhaps we should be thankful that the 1918 flu pandemic happened before computers made themselves ubiquitous. We have letters, diaries, photos, newspaper articles,...

I went for another walk this morning, though the daybreak wasn't as promising as yesterday's. I woke up a bit late, and, while the hilltops were covered in cloud, it seemed brighter when I went out than it does now. Cloud cover from the sea seems to be moving in. While the rest of Spain will be sweltering in the first heat wave of the year, we'll get rained upon. Again. Yesterday's high temperature of 27º/80º was Nature laughing at us. I wouldn't mind temperatures like that the entire summer.  Every evening on the news, just about all they talk about, on every channel, is coronavirus, quarantine, deaths, vaccines, coronavirus. It gets so depressing, that my husband doesn't want to watch after ten minutes, and I also find my attention slipping, and not even wanting to wait for the weather report (One thing I would never miss on the news was the weather; I love meteorology, though not the physics to go with it.). But, a notification from a news app on my phone...

This morning when I opened my eyes, the sky was swathed in luminous mist. It wasn't the grey, depressing fog of a low cloud, it was the mist rising after the sun began to hit the wet world. Today I go walking! On my walk. So, after breakfast, I put on my sneakers and went for my walk. I only went a half hour, because my legs were beginning to ask forgiveness from the punishment. Other were out, too, though just cyclists along our road. There were extremely few cars, like every Sunday since this began, so whenever I crossed with an on-coming cyclist, he would pedal out into the middle of the road while I walked along the edge. Social distancing. Except for one who floundered by me, less than a meter away. Cyclists like this one are the ones that, when I'm driving, make me want to morph into the Raging Avenger, and send them skydiving into the ditch. Please don't be like that cyclist. Tomorrow, I'm returning, and over the coming weeks, I shall be extending my reac...

Okay, today is the day we're allowed to leave our houses to do exercise. So, I woke up this morning, full of expectation to.... ....face a wall of damp, miserable, wet fog.  The day is not lost yet, though. Adults have two time schedules in which to do exercise, from 6AM to 10AM, and from 8PM to 11PM. So, I might still have an opportunity this evening.  Because of the chaos last week, when children were first allowed out, the government has set up a schedule for people to go outside. Adults have the hours I mentioned above. People 70 and older have the ranges 10AM to 12PM, and 7PM to 8PM. Children have the hours from 12PM to 7PM. And if you're outside from 11PM to 6AM, you'd better be going to work or coming home from work. Yes, there's confusion. More than anything, because we've never lived through a situation like this, and we're more or less doing everything by ear. One thing is running an errand, another thing is going for exercise. An errand should...

Today the sky has decided to tumble down upon us. It's grey, damp, and with a permanent fine rain. Yesterday was similar, but not as closed down, with a few intervals of just plain grey. In one of those intervals I went out and got my broom. I'd almost forgotten that it was May Eve, or Walpurgis Night, until our daughter sent me a text telling me what she was going to do, since she couldn't go walking out to the woods surrounding Santiago. This month has been one of the longest in my life. There have been others in which I lost count of time, but this year, it's ridiculous. In my head, we're still in the middle of April, and Easter was a week ago. So, during a cloudy interval yesterday afternoon, I hopped across the road to the woods (illegal, yes) and cut off a few branches of broom. Towards sunset, my husband and I broke off the sprigs and put them on both cars, on the gates, and on the doors of our house and my parent's old house, now empty.  It's a...