Lockdown Life - The New Normal

All the restrictions in Extremadura which are going to be lifted have been lifted and things are pretty much now how they will be in the immediate future. 

We can now travel anywhere in Spain, and bars and terraces are open with limited capacity and/or more space. We still have to wear masks where we can't guarantee social distancing, but that doesn't really affect us. 

Some regions in Spain have gone back in the reopening after rises in cases of the virus and the advent of international travel has been greeted with enthusiasm/dread depending on the view point. People in the tourist trade are pleased tourists are coming back, others, not quite so delighted. 

In the news, there is something being reported which is madrileñofobia, which is a fear of people from Madrid! It's supposed to be quite a thing with towns and villages actively encouraging people from Madrid not to visit. Cases of the virus have been very polarized in Spain, with the huge majority coming from Madrid and Cataluña. I spoke to my Madrid students about this, and they feel that actually, people from Madrid will be much safer than other visitors, as having lived very closely with the virus for several months, they are a lot more aware and a lot more cautious than villages and town that have had no cases. Which is a pretty good point!

Lockdown Life - Phase 3.5

Today we enter the second part of Phase 3. Until now, travel outside of our community (Badajoz) has been prohibited. However, as from today, we can go to anywhere in Extremadura - which means we can go to the northern half (Caceres) if we wanted to.  

I don't think anything else has changed :)

Don't Worry, Be Happy & 20 years!

If the video doesn't work, this a direct link https://youtu.be/IFUyAF4n1-c

We've been teaching Ludvig 'Don't worry, be happy' complete with the whistling. As we don't know all th words, there's quite a lot of 'doo doo be doo be doo' going on, which, of course, Ludvig is picking up too.

We only started teaching him on Tuesday and already he's starting to form the words. As he's getting more confident with his speaking (slightly too much so as he and Google seem to engage quite a lot), we thought he might like to learn something a bit longer and with some different 'noises' for him to try.

It's quite interesting to watch him. The way he learns words is different now, he used to start by making the broad sounds and then finess them into words, so he'd sort of whistle the cadence first before making the words. Now he seems to be jumping straight in and trying the words. They still aren't clear - but when he was younger it would take him several days to get to this point - and it's taken him just a day to almost get 'don't worry be happy', plus a bit of the whistling.

There's also a 'tickedyboo' and 'I love you mummy' in there too :)

And yesterday we celebrated 20 years of meeting 😮 doesn't time fly!!! We had a Dia pizza to celebrate!

Lockdown Life - Phase 3

So this week we enter Phase 3 of the lockdown deescalation. As we had thought, there's little here which will really affect us on a day to day level as this is more about lifting the restrictions on businesses. Cinemas, for example, can reopen and the capacity for the outdoor areas of bars has been lifted from 30% to 50%. Discos are allowed to reopen - but with no dancing! Luckily, as we are heading to summer, most activities are outside now anyway, which will make adhering to the new regulations and social distancing more easy.

One of the biggies from this phase is that many principalities are now open for unrestricted travel within that principality - not just restricted to travel within a community. In our case, that would mean that we could travel unrestricted throughout Extremadura and not restricted to just the Badajoz region. However, it doesn't apply to us, as the Extremadura government has not lifted the travel restriction until next week. There aren't any new cases in Badajoz, but there have been in Caceres, so they are wanting to wait another week to make sure Caceres is under control before the travel restrictions are lifted.

In the next phase - which is the last one, there will be unrestricted travel to areas within Spain who are at the same level.

Lockdown Life - We leave the village

Yesterday, for the first time in nearly three months we left the village to go to the vet in Zafra. While we've been out to the two pines (the other side of the railway track) to pick asparagus, we haven't left the village since all this began. We've been lucky as it has been made very easy for us to stay in the village, with what I think is an excellent (all things considered) food delivery service from Dia. The main problems with food delivery have been of our making, when we forgot Easter and May Day which both fell on our 'normal' delivery day.

While we haven't taken advantage of this - the Extremadura Government also published a list of local manufacturers who were offering home delivery during this time, which is handy and also made shopping from home easier.  The reason why we didn't buy anything via this scheme is most places you had to ring up and place your order - and that would just be asking for trouble. Although waiting to see what we had ordered could have been fun.

We had to go to the vet with Pixie for her quarterly blood test (which is the last time we'd been to Zafra) and Bobbins as we thought she had another lump growing (she hasn't).  We also wanted to get a few things that we've been unable to get online (a mob handle, believe it or not) - plus of course my vitamin tablets and our 'normal' coffee.

So, as we didn't know what to expect, Ian dropped me off at the vet while he did the shopping. The vet was all set up for social distancing, with a perspex screen by the receptionist and lines showing people where to wait. But they are next to a park, so it is really easy to sit outside.

The one big thing I noticed, and I hope isn't significant, is that I saw Javi, who is one of the owners and is the chief surgeon. We used to see him all the time when we started going there, but when they moved premises, they took on more vets and we now very rarely see him. But I just saw him and a couple of others - while it's normally brimming with vets. He does training for the university, so I wonder if that had stopped - that would explain why there were less vets, but not why he wasn't doing operations. 

I hope that doesn't mean that mean that they are experiencing problems with people not bringing in their pets.

Ian said the supermarkets were quiet - and felt pretty normal - although some shop have hand sanitizer or gloves and others request masks are worn. Carrefour had an 'in one way and out the other' system going. I asked him about prices and about supply levels, and he said it all seemed much as it had before.

I was talking to my Madrid students who have this weekend gone out for the first time, even though they've been allowed out now for a couple of weeks. I do think people's view on this is tempered by how they have been affected or the implications should they become infected. 

Spain is now in the final state of alarm. The way it works here is that the state of alarm can only last for two weeks - so the government has to keep renewing it. They've renewed it once more and have said that this is the last time.  

I think in the next stage, which starts next week, people can move between provinces, as long as they are of a similar level, so we may see people coming to the village for their holidays this year as normal.

While the virus figures are looking very positive and very different to a couple of months ago, people are being reminded that it will be about now that we may see new cases increase due to the lifting of the lockdown.

Going back to the vet visit - Bobbins' lump was where we could feel the stitches that are under the skin. And Pixie we won't know about until her results come back. I don't think her fur is coming out as much as it was - but neither is it growing. She still has bald patches where they shaved her last time for the blood test.

We're back again in a couple of weeks to get Horace's coat cut - which is always a trauatic experience (for the groomer!).