189 – Walking Through Lockdown

And so it goes on.  Coming up to a year, now.  Facebook “Memories” each morning highlight the last of those crowded events we went to back when doing that was normal – a concert, a street party, a packed bar.  Last week Facebook reminded me that this time last year I was on a mini-break in Seville, and heard on the Spanish television news that Spain’s first patient with the virus had been admitted to hospital, right there in Seville.   I turned off the telly and went out to eat in a cozy bar, shoulder to shoulder with strangers, before going out to photograph the magnificent Plaza de España.

188 – Chocolate? With SALT?

Their eyes widened as I tried to explain ‘salted caramel’.  A flavour that has long been popular in the UK but is only just arriving in Spain (and being received with a fair degree of scepticism).  Lorenzo is a man of few words, and his eyes locked onto mine as I described that touch of salt that cuts through the sweetness.  He said nothing, but wagged a finger disapprovingly towards the chocolate petals flavoured with salted caramel that I was offering. 

187 – Empty Benches in Empty Squares – Lockdown Day Nine

LOCKDOWN DAY TWO:

Monday is the first “normal” day of the lockdown.  I go to the surgery for routine blood tests.  Everyone is maintaining social distance.  Doctors and nurses are wearing masks and gloves.  The village is VERY quiet.  I use the opportunity to go to a couple of food shops.  In the first, they have put tape on the floor to keep people queuing at a good metre’s distance from each other, and that works well.  It feels a bit like a board game, when the person at the till leaves the shop we can all move one square forward.  In the bakery, a sign prohibits more than one customer at a time, and there is a tray to put the money on.

186 – Lockdown in the Pueblo – Day One

It’s just as well that the Spanish prime minister is easy on the eye.  Guapo, we say in Spanish.  Just as well, as we sit glued to the television watching his almost daily pronouncements.  It’s just like those days last year when we couldn’t tear ourselves away from BBC Parliament.

180 – Settled?

There was a nurse on my flight home to Málaga.  A Spanish nurse, working in a GP surgery in Dorset.  British husband, dual-nationality totally bilingual daughter.  We’d been chatting in the queue about the newish Ryanair rules requiring us to jam our handbags INSIDE our cabin bags, just for passing through the gate before boarding.  ¡Qué pena!  What a pain.  She was flying to Spain for just a couple of days, to collect her daughter from the Spanish grandparents in Granada province to bring her back for the new school term.

179 – Escaping the Heat

Forty degrees and higher.  Really, that is too much.  The rhythm of the day changes to suit the temperature.  At the hottest time, after a lazy late lunch, it’s time for a siesta.  Late at night, after midnight and into the small hours, it is finally cool enough outside to sit on a kitchen chair on the slope of our little street and share some comfortable time with the neighbours, catching up with the minutiae of life.

178 – Big Blue Skies, Small Cloud

Back when I worked (oh how long ago it seems, now!) I was up with all the jargon.  Words like social inclusion, stakeholders, outcomes and future-proofing.  The charity sector’s version of management-speak.  And yet all of a sudden I am “future-proofing” all sorts of aspects of my life!  And it feels quite serious.

177 – Forty Days

 

Forty-four days.

I go for my morning walk, my feet heading automatically to the Enchanted Place.  The almond blossom is just finishing, and the grass smells fresh.  The view is clear, across to the rocky outcrop that so dominates the village, across to our big mountain, with just a touch of snow on its peak, down to the neighbouring village, and back through the frame of the almond trees to the village that I call home.  I shake off the worries, the cloud that hangs over, and turn back, retracing my steps and round to the bakery where Gloria puts my bread roll in a bag as I enter, without waiting for me to ask.

174 – Growing Old in the Pueblo

Officially, I’m not old.  I’m too young to get a pension, and I’m not sixty yet.  My pueblo organises events and trips for the “oldies”, but technically I’m too young.  Technically.  But thanks to last year’s heart attack, I can sneak in. 

172 – An Educational Escape

Poco a poco, paso a paso.  I suppose it is a mark of how life here has become normal and familiar, that in recent months it has only been my “escapadas”, or escapes, that have seemed to warrant a blog post.  Daily life in Colmenar and Málaga trundles on.