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We can go out after midnight!

The nighttime curfew has been lifted which means we can now go out after midnight - while that won't make a huge difference to us, as we move into the summer when people start living a semi-nocturnal life, I am sure many will be happy! 

The 6 month state of alarm has now ended, but that doesn't really made any difference as the main reason it was there was to allow principalities (ie Andalucia, Extremadura) to act independently - and I think it's been agreed that on things like shutting borders can still be done on a local level. The key difference is people can travel from principality to principality for 'fun'. Before, while you could travel to another principality for work, see family (not suggesting that that's not fun, of course ;) ) etc, we couldn't travel to somewhere in Andalusia for, say a picnic.  The principalities can also set limits on numbers of people meeting in gatherings.

We asked an architect who also acts as an estate agent in Llerena to come round and tell us if he thought he could sell the house - and give us a price. He was pretty underwhelming - so much so that it's over a week later and he still hasn't got back to us! I'm assuming that either he's busy talking to prospective clients about what he can do with the house - or he doesn't feel he can do anything.  I fear it may be the latter.  His friend owns the field behind us as he referred the architect to us with great enthusiasm, so I wonder if the architect felt obliged to see us because of his friend.

Other than that, we're getting close to the end of the asparagus season - it's been pretty steady this year and hopefully we'll have a few good-ish weeks left, where we can get together enough for a topping on toast if nothing else...

Our Dawn Chorus

Our morning starts with a cockerel crowing in one of the neighbouring fields, and then the family of birds who live in the orange tree start to gently tweet amongst themselves...

... and then Ludvig starts!

From just after dawn we get his full repertoire of songs and words - including a few of his made up ones. 

 He's started to join things together or mix things up - sometimes with extremely funny consequences ('who loves you, walnut?' or 'to be or not too sexy for my feathers').

There are a lot of 'you ou ou's in here. This is because he is learning 'I will always love youuuuu' and when he learn something new, he makes the different sounds before stringing it all together. It's quite interesting seeing how he learns.

While unsurprisingly I have taught him many of these words (I don't wander round the house muttering 'I'm too sexy for my feathers), other things he's picked up are the dogs barking, and then getting told off for barking (he does a Pixie bark and then tells her off) and a fair few 'out the ways' which we appear to say a lot!

 

If the above doesn't play, the one below should...

Ian gets stabbed by the vet

 Bobbins have never truly recovered from her canine coronavirus last year and last week she started taking a turn for the worse again, with seizures and bad diarrhea.  Ian's been taking her to our old vet in Llerena which has less staff than the one in Zafra so Ian has to act as vet assistant. 

She had to go into the vet as an emergency  over the weekend and they wanted to take blood. Bobbins certainly does not like having blood taken and she wiggles extensively - and she has a very powerful wiggle for a small dog!

Anyway, as the vet was trying to take blood from Bobbins, Bobbins moved and the vet stabbed Ian by mistake. Bobbins then compounded the situation by weeing on Ian. Luckily he saw the funny side and came home smiling. Or was it a grimace...

We took her back yesterday and she had rather extensive diarrhea outside the door of the vet - which was unfortunate timing, but I guess something they are used to. Particularly now with the outdoor waiting room.

Hopefully the diarrhea will clear up this week - the vet thought that this time it could be down to change of food as we've had to change her diet.

Fingers crossed...

Easter

So this would normally be the start of the Easter parades for Semana Santa and for the second year they have been cancelled. I'm not sure if they've been cancelled throughout Spain, but they have here. We still have our nighttime curfew and during the Easter period 'casual' travel between regions is banned. Someone could go and visit family or friends, but we couldn't just head off to Malaga on a whim. 

The whole issue of tourism is becoming a hot topic, and I guess how someone feels about it will depend on how dependent their income is on tourism. Since last September visitors have had to produce a negative test when arriving in Spain, and that will continue, but of course, with the Easter holidays, there will be a lot more people travelling.

Visitors to Spain will have to adhere to the laws (wearing masks, social distancing etc). They will also have to adhere to travel restrictions, so people arriving in Madrid, won't be able to travel to Andalucia, for example. I wonder what sort of pressure this will put on policing.

On one side, people are pleased to welcome tourists back and on the other side (people whose incomes don't depend on tourism) there's a concern that tourism will increase cases of Covid. Spain has done pretty well (since September) of keeping the country open, with schools and businesses operating as normal, so there's a worry that this is in jeopardy. There is a photo in the national newspaper of maskless German tourists flouting all the rules, which doesn't help. 

And in a cruel twist of fate - whereas we normally see a break in the lovely spring weather at Easter, with torrential rain and storms falling over the Easter period - this year we are just seeing little smiley suns in the weather forecast. The one year when bad weather would actually be a good thing!

One Year On...

 

So... we're a year on from our when words like 'pandemic', 'border closure', 'mutant strains' and 'lockdown' became a normal part of our vocabulary.

Here's my recollection of the year interspersed with snapshots of Ian and my chats which referred to the ever developing situation :) Of course, our experience has been different to others - particularly people living in Madrid. While we were pondering about what type of flour to buy, one of my students in Madrid was seeing hearses parked in her street as Madrid just didn't have the facilities to store the bodies - and my other student lives by the ice rink which they had to turn into an emergency morgue. It's worth remembering that in Spain it is normal to bury people within 12 hours, so there just weren't any facilities ready. 

Our experience, thankfully, was much lighter...

This time last year we were in our national lockdown - and Ian saw an armed policeman in the street on the first day, which was sobering. 

As everywhere, we found it difficult to get flour, however we found we could buy flour direct from the mill - and this is something we've continued to do. While it's a little cheaper than what we can get from the supermarket, the quality is significantly better, so there really wasn't any reason to go back to  getting flour from the supermarket again. Plus we learned a lot more about flour than we ever really needed to know!

And of course, when we had purchased the big bags of flour, we had to decide how to actually keep it

The other thing which was difficult to get - and remains so - is the multivitamins I liked to take. They went out of stock and the price  of vitamins and supplements skyrocketed.

We learned to embrace online shopping and found that one way or  another we could get (almost) everything we wanted and delivered.

Our lockdown was hard - I'm not aware of anywhere else where people weren't allowed out even for exercise (we did spend the first few days debating whether asparagus picking would be allowed). 

We took to running in the back yard and in the barn. The red scribble below is the GPS record of our run in the back yard. This is what a 3km run looked like!

But I do wonder if it had a positive effect later on. We've been fortunate that since our lockdown was eased last May, we've not had a further national lockdown and schools and businesses remained open since September. I can't help thinking that the threat of another lockdown spurred people into responsible behavior! Since then, we've just had the localized lockdowns and measures restricting the opening hours of shops and bars.

Plus, of course, we have had a nighttime curfew in place for several months now - but that's not something that's effected us.

During the summer people were allowed to travel although because of water shortages, many villages didn't open their swimming pools and this acted as a disincentive to travel.

However, later the data showed that 'social travel' had been responsible for increased cases, and the main emphasis from there on was on stopping or at least controlling social travel. Those restrictions were lifted a while back, but are reintroduced at holiday weekends. People entering Spain have been required to provide test results since last autumn, however there are discussions now about how and if that will continue as the pressure is on to open tourism again (and people's view on that appears to be very much dependent on whether their livelihood is affected) - and the border to Portugal is closed except for commerce and essential visits. I'm not sure what the French border is doing, but I guess similar.

I do remember watching the figures rising.

The level of data we get has been excellent and is something I personally have found reassuring. When the health authorities can pinpoint outbreaks and where they have come from so accurately, and share that information promptly, it at least gives the feeling that things are as under control as they can be in an out of control situation.

The wearing of masks was mandated pretty early on and while it seemed odd and alien to start, now feels very normal. 

I wonder if we will see a significant increase of people electing to wear face coverings after the restrictions are lifted. Certainly given how dusty it is here in the summer, I can see me wearing a mask more often. The only thing that's really stopped me before is the fact I'd look odd!

The vaccine is being rolled out, with vulnerable people and key workers, including teachers and support workers, being prioritized. There are concerns about the AtroZeneca vaccine, and the government has said it is up to the health districts to decide whether to stop or continue. I'm not sure what Extremadura has decided - as we're pretty far down the list, I'll probably pay more attention when it's near our time.

Financially, it couldn't have happened at a worse time as far as the shop in Alston is concerned(or the other way around). The previous tenant had said they were interested in extending their lease for another year - and then the pandemic hit and they didn't. So we're responsible for the business rates now - which are quite hefty for a small shop. We finally got the whole building on the market, so fingers crossed something happens there.

I was also wrong about the fact that the pandemic might encourage people to leave cities and that we may see some interest in the house. Even dropping the price to under 200k euros didn't do the trick - but maybe people just aren't in buying mode at the moment.

I was looking at the data from my website and we realized pretty early on that we were going to be badly hit - both from the website and from the shop, although I had hoped we might have got the shop sold during this time.

 I am surprised looking back that we weren't in a bigger panic. I can only assume that things were sooooo awful and so much out of our control, we didn't know what to worry about first! Our site visits dropped by about 70% overnight and our revenue by even more - people were obviously much more focused on googling stuff about pandemics than looking for things to print. We had changed the ad provider on the site just before we saw the downturn, so we also had to see whether the problem was the ad provider (it wasn't) or the pandemic (it was).

Once the initial shock wore off, I made covid themed coloring pages and other printables for the site - and we saw things pick up as people were looking for activities to do at home.  

I had been working on a website with numeracy games for preschoolers, and if I had known that lockdowns in the UK were going to continue for as long as they have, I would have stepped up getting that launched as I am sure parents would be looking for educational games for playing at home.

As a family we learned to embrace Zoom  - and importantly, I learned how to turn myself into a smurf for zoom chats.

So looking back on a year living with a pandemic, I remember the initial shock followed by a surprising acceptance of where we are and the 'new normal'. I wonder what the next year will bring...

Emma

 Emma died last Friday night. I don't know if she was in hospital or at home, but I do know that Ed was with her and holding her hand till the end. He emailed and said that Emma 'just slipped away, no pain, no fuss'.  

Emma had had a stroke the weekend before and was in hospital. She had lost her sight and the movement of her arms. Ed had emailed me to say Emma was in hospital and I think I took this as a sign that she was coming to the end of her journey although he didn't explicitly say this.

The downturn happened quite quickly. Just before Christmas Emma started to feel ill and she went for a scan and they found out that her body had become resistant to the treatment she was taking. This was expected - but they hoped it would be years off. The plan had been that as new developments in the treatment she was taking were made, she would move with it - but it all happened too quickly.

She was offered another experimental treatment - but this one caused side effects which the first didn't. And she had arranged to be off work for 6 weeks to get used to the new treatment. Putting the pieces together I am guessing the new treatment either didn't work or the side effects were too bad.

The photo above is of Emma when they went on a barge holiday last summer and shows how effective her first treatment was. Six months prior to this, she was too ill to walk upstairs.

In our last correspondence we were working out how long we'd been friends for - whether this year was 30 or 29 years. Unfortunately we didn't reach a conclusion.

We say goodbye to Sam

We said goodbye to Sam yesterday. He's been getting increasingly frail, but had been eating well and would wander out into the sun to sit and enjoy himself. But he was very wobbly and needed help getting in and out, and would sometimes fall and not be able to get up. 

We had said that we would wait until either he refused two meals in a row or if he had another seizure. He'd had one seizure since we set that rule, but it was on a Sunday when the vet wasn't open and the next day was a holiday - but luckily Sam came out of that seizure quickly. However, yesterday he had a seizure in the afternoon when the vet was open and it was apparent this was going to be a big seizure, so we decided to take him directly to the vet before he had a chance to come round - therefore he wouldn't have known anything that was happening.

Of course we don't know how old he was -but he's certainly the oldest dog we've had. The vet thought he was two or so when we found him, and that was over 14 years ago. 

His seizures were an oddity. They would stop for years and then start again and then stop. We don't know if the seizures were because of the accident he'd had when we found him or whether he was born that way. But regardless, he seemed to take it all in his stride, albeit a slightly wobbly stride over the last year or so.