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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.

And the winner of the messiest member of the household is...

 Despite close competition, the lovebirds are most definitely the messiest members of the household. When their size is factored in, they are probably the messiest creatures in Spain! They strew debris with gay abandon around  their cage. It doesn't help that Barry digs in her food like a dog digging in earth, spraying her food out behind her.

Of course, they are only doing their job. In the wild their job would be to spread seeds around to grow - and that's what they are doing with a vengeance. But for such little birds the food goes so far!

Ludvig is also messy, but not in the same league as the lovebirds. 

I don't remember Barry and Gary being as messy as Barry and Harry - Harry doesn't seem particularly messy, perhaps he just brings out the worst in Barry.

Sam keeps on hanging on. I really don't think he'll be with us for much longer, but when he's awake, he has his head up looking around  and when he's outside he's very wobbly but sniffs around and seems still to be enjoying life so we'll keep on taking every day as it comes.

We're enjoying some lovely spring like weather at the moment, with almonds out in blossom and carpets of daisies (although I think it might be chamomile) in the olive groves. This is daisy looking for a ball under an almond tree.

A covid carnival (and the first asparagus)

Normally there would have been big carnival parades this weekend, however they didn't happen this year. There was a covid-safe carnival celebration in the village on Monday, but I think  it just involved people in their costumes all stood 2 meters away from each other.

The evening curfew has been lifted - depending on where you live it's been lifted to 8 or 10pm. Cinemas, shopping centers etc are allowed to open again - but with capacity limits. Bars were able to open anyway until the curfew, however without music with the aim to stop people shouting.

The situation in Extremadura is back to how it was in August, and in Spain as a whole, the number  of cases per 100k people has dropped. One of the most significant pieces of data we look at is the % of ICU beds has dropped well under 40% - with 40% being crisis point. However, the situation has improve in Madrid, but not as much as in the rest of Spain.

The warmer weather will undoubtedly help, as people can meet outdoors rather than inside. Many schools have been giving classes with the windows open - so they will definitely be pleased that the warmer weather is here!

There are and will still be the closure of the borders of villages and towns which have a high level of infection - but that's something that I guess we will live with for a long time. When a village has a travel ban, people can still go to work, school and essential travel, but not go to a closed village or leave a closed village for social reasons. 

We went out on Sunday to see what the asparagus situation was - and we did find some! Not a huge amount, but enough to say we'd been picking. There were huge numbers of catapillars around, which there are some years, must be certain weather conditions which bring them out - but they certainly ravage the countryside- for such cute fluffy looking things, they don't half cause some damage.

We thought we were going to have to take Sam to the vet on Monday, as for two days he'd been unable to stand on his own. However, in true Sam style, he's rallied, but in the context of  being an extremely old and frail dog. 

Month 11 - life nearly one year into a pandemic

So now we're nearly a year into life with the virus and the new normal has started to feel decidedly, er, normal!

The situation has been improving - which is good news.

Spain has kept schools and businesses open since the first lockdown - much to the disappointment of students who feel most hard done by! Where possible, students are encouraged to work from home, so where many students go to the library after school to do their homework, they now have to do that from their house, and many universities have distance learning programs which they are running.  Extra curricular activities were stopped for a while, but they are starting up again.

The restrictions that were applied to big towns are also being lifted. So I believe now we could go to Llerena for a coffee now, but the cafe or restaurant isn't allowed to  play music to stop people shouting. We also have to wear a mask except for the point of food or  drink consumption - which could get very messy!

The mini lockdowns will continue and appear to work well. I had wondered how sustainable it would be - having a small village under lockdown  whereas in the next village people were roaming free! However, like everything else, we just get used to it 

As I've mentioned before, the feeling here is that we are learning to live with the virus - I don't think that Spain is particularly vaccine sceptic, but the message that the vaccine isn't the key to the 'old normal' is very strong.  For example, although all care homes residents have had both doses of the vaccine now, restrictions aren't being lifted because of fears there will be variants which residents aren't protected against. However, the situation in Spanish care homes at the height of the first wave was truly horrifying, so I imagine that a super-abundance of caution is being applied.

I won't be surprised to learn that there are new recommendations regarding masks soon. Research is being done into the effectiveness of 'double masking' - wearing two masks. At the moment we just have to  wear face covering without there being any quality specifications, but I think we'll see that change.

I am guessing this will be another year without fiestas. Already the Easter parades have been cancelled -they were last year too - and towns have been told not to hold carnival  events. The key to keeping the latest wave under control appears to be keeping people local and stopping mixing between towns - so I imagine that's something we'll see certainly through the spring fiestas.

We have to go to the vet for Pixie's blood test and Horace's hair cut soon, so it will be interesting to get a feel for how things have been in Zafra. We haven't been there since before Christmas when we did our cheese shop.

I wonder what I will be writing this time next year - what will have changed and what will be the same. In particular, I wonder if mask wearing will have become a normal part of society. It gets very dusty here in the summer, and I'd often thought about wearing a mask when we were out for a walk in the morning on the cement road, as if a tractor goes by, a huge cloud of cement dust is raised.  I wonder now it mask wearing will have become more normalized so even if we aren't wearing them because of the virus, it becomes more normal to wear one because of pollution or dust - simply because the unusualness of mask-wearing (here, I know it is different in big cities) has been negated.

In other news, poor Sam is showing his age. I'm not sure how aware of things he is now. Hopefully the warmer weather will be good for  him - but we're just taking it day by day.

Month 10

 It's just over 10 months since the pandemic hit Spain with a wallop. I think this time last year we were beginning to hear the first rumblings of a new 'virus', but given that we (at the time) didn't really consume much news, it sort of passed us by.

It was in the latter part of  February that we really became aware of things in Italy.... and here we are today.

As we know, Spain has very much taken a localized approach to managing the virus which has allowed the schools, universities etc and business (well, some) to keep going, with villages or towns getting locked down where and when necessary. The main common feature across all of Spain still remains the nighttime curfew, which is a minimum of between 12 and 5, but principalities can adapt that as they see fit. So ours is currently 10 - 6, and some have curfews have just changed them to start earlier at 8.  Obviously people can travel to and from work and other essential things - but it's to cut down on socializing.

Things have got tougher in Extremadura and we're very much in the 'third wave'. It started with the big cities having restrictions on capacity being limited in bars, cinemas etc. However, this has changed and all social gathering places in populations of over 3k people are now shut. We also cannot travel outside our municipality for non-essential reasons. So someone from here, for example, couldn't travel to Llerena to meet a friend, but they could to go to school or work. We could go to the bank in Llerena and to the vet  in Zafra, but travel for any non urgent or important purpose  is banned. Being under 3k people, the bars are still open, but only till 10 and I think at 50% capacity. Which given the time of year would be about right anyway.  Casual sport is banned (kicking a ball around the park), but organized sport (local sport league) is allowed. Cinemas are now closed - but only in towns over 3k people. I think it's safe to say that would be all of them!

Some shops are keeping open by having staff members stood by the door and then people shouting their shopping lists at them and the staff member then goes off to fulfill the orders. Obviously not the big shops which have online ordering  - but quite a good idea for smaller shops which may find complying with new laws difficult.

The compromise that is being made to keep schools and businesses going is to stop socializing - which is something that hits some people more than others (given that many from  the village can turn a queue in the post office into a party, they I am sure will be many who are feeling it!)

There is a much less of a focus given to the vaccine as a 'way out'. Probably because of the priority list which puts care homes, health workers, essential workers including teachers at the top of the list, then it goes into age bands, so for many people, they're looking at weeks or months ahead. 

In fact, I looked at the front page of two Spanish newspapers today and the vaccine wasn't mentioned on the front page - not even the delays getting the vaccine. The virus is mentioned on the front page, with facts and figures and the latest changes, but it feels very much like we're living the 'new normal' with life with the virus and accepting we need to adapt to manage it.

There is also news about a new treatment which is supposed to be more reliable and reduce recuperation time. It's actually produce from some sort of thing found in the Mediterranean. Admittedly, reading that back it sounds improbable, I am assuming I didn't dream that.

I do wonder what things will look like in a year's time. While many businesses can stay open and are trading well - others, for example small bars, I  guess will never recover. I suppose on the plus side, many Spanish people go into hibernation during the winter, so many bars don't open or open on reduced hours in the winter, so that perhaps will lighten the load a bit.

They say that last year was the worst for tourism since 1970, which I suppose is completely unsurprising. I'm not sure that this year will be any better. There was certainly a lot of mixed feelings  in July of last year when Spain 'opened up' again as people felt there was a tradeoff between tourism $$ and the fact there would be more infections.

In other news, I was a  tad surprised to see this on eBay - import duty from the UK to Spain! Over 60 pounds in import fees on top of postage, which is an astonishing amount. It is now significantly cheaper to buy from America and pay import duty than it is from the UK with import duty. I must admit I sort of zoned out during the latter stages of Brexit, once I knew our status was clear and it all seemed to be focusing on whose fish is it anyway, plus the fact it was going to happen regardless, I didn't bother to read the small print of the done deal. Hence it came as quite a surprise! But, happily I don't think there is too much now (except Marmite, which I guess I will have to smuggle) that we need to buy from UK.

We're thinking again about different ways to sell the house - I read over the weekend yet another article about Madrid people wanting to move to the country - so it is those people we want to reach. According to the newspaper articles, they are typically young families wanting to be in a village but with easy access to wide open space. Just need to think of the best way to get to them...

Snow!

 We were at the back end of storm Filomena which resulted in the heaviest snowfalls in Madrid for 150 years with many roads blocked and lots of building damage. We had a bit, but not a huge amount. 

There was a huge amount of gratitude paid to the people who kept access to the hospitals open as if they had closed, it would have caused even bigger problems. As it was, many places were cut off and some still are.

The centre was Madrid and nearby towns, once it got to us, we had cold weather but not too bad. I think the cold weather is to continue for a couple more days.

There was a new coronavirus case in the village last week - but it seems only to be the one. The tracing system is very good, so we will hear if it spreads. There's been quite a sharp increase in cases in Extremadura, but more in the north than here. We can access a list of cases broken down by village or town by health district in Extremadura. This is a pdf document and it has increased in size from 2 or 3 pages to 4 or 5, over the last month or so, which shows the increase in the number of villages where cases are reported.

We still have our nighttime curfew and Extremadura closed its borders over the holiday period - families could visit, but it was limited in number.  I think most of the provinces closed their borders.

It's odd how normal it now sounds to be talking about closed borders!

Our car's off the road awaiting a new battery which we hope is here Wednesday or Thursday, and hasn't been caught up in the snow. The car can be jump started if we really need it, but waiting round in the cold for someone to go past isn't much of an incentive to get it going!

So with the new year come new plans and we're committed to trying to sell the house (again). We've dropped the house to 199k euro and redone a listing in the national classified ad website hoping to appeal to Spanish buyers. Annoyingly, the person who was interested in the house a couple of years ago offered us 200k, which we sneeringly turned down! Oh if we had had a crystal ball (actually, if we had had a crystal ball, I bet we'd have thrown it away thinking that what it was predicting re pandemics, curfews and closed borders meant it was clearly faulty!)

While I don't think anyone from outside Extremadura could visit at the moment, I remain hopeful that people may well be looking. I have read in several places now that people are looking to leave the big cities - so we'll see.  We could certainly do a video walk through for people.

As I write this I can see a stork circling in the sky. They have been back for a while and I will be interested to see how many nests we have. I firmly believe that there has been a decrease in nests since the pre-christmas night time drums started. It will be interesting to see if there are more this year as we were happily drum free (except once on Christmas Eve morning, and that started after the curfew ended - so was bearable!). We've seen them in the nests on the Church, not sure if there are any on the castle though.