Day 98 - "The End?"

Transcript: Day 98 The End? Sunday and the Alarma is over, Lockdown is unlocked, 99 days, it started on Saturday March 14th, but actually I consider that weekend to be the two phoney days of Lockdown.   Saturday 14th March was a pretty normal day, the supermarket rammed with people taking everything off the shelves, including the toilet paper, something that the Spanish do not a use a lot of, most prefer to wash in the bidet than smear on the pan, as it were.   Sunday was equally as busy as people rushed around to be in the right place before the strict measures and fines started on Monday 16th March.  Our friends Jen and Dave making a run for it to their seaside flat, Jen told me “Well it will only be for fourteen days, so we grabbed a few things from the village flat and drove early to the coast.”   As it turned out it has been 99 days and Jen only had her flip flops to wear which after week three fell to pieces and had to patched up with sticking plaster.   For us that first day felt, well felt like this:   CLIP:   So, 99 days, the first thing that happened was our air-conditioning failed due to a power surge that also, we discovered destroyed our faithful ten-year-old iMac computer, then the business laptop decided to join the other two in a suicide pact. That left us with one working laptop and the challenge of buying a new laptop and fixing the air conditioning in full Lockdown.   Ricardo came to the rescue for the air conditioning, finding a new unit tucked away in a warehouse, the laptop had to come all the way from China.  The iMac now resides in our workshop waiting for a trip to Harry the Russian who fixes computers in town.   Chris was out of a job, Spain shut all Gyms on Saturday 14th including the one where he was working, but thanks to our Administration ladies they were able to fill in the complicated online paperwork so that Chris could receive some money from the Government.      Then there was the silence, no traffic, no planes, nothing but birdsong and the waves crashing against the shorelines.  Weird but after a few weeks, quite relaxing.    Our British friends fleeing the country so that they could look after their parents back in the UK.  They left so fast that they had to leave their precious dog behind.  He hasn’t seen them for months now, poor love, but he is enjoying life with a family who run a local kennels.  It took them two days driving pretty much non-stop through Spain and France to grab a ferry back to England.  Petra says she never ever wants to go through that again.   Being really worried about our family, for a few weeks Britain just ignored the Pandemic and my elderly parents went out to a packed pub lunch on Sunday March 15th – but bless them, after that they stayed at home, I think they picked up the seriousness of the situation.    It all seems a long time ago now as we sit outside in the warm sun, the road below noisy and busy, the sounds of the motorcyclists haring round the coast road, great gaggles of cyclists shouting encouragement to each other and on Saturday evening the sea was filled with silly boys on jet skis racing each other, yachts out from Marina de Este, little fishing boats and the odd canoe, far off on the horizon a stream of container ships were heading out to the Atlantic.   Parasols decorated the beach in the distance, all perfectly socially distanced thanks to the lifeguards and the new officers of beach protection.   Chris turned to me and said, “it is if this never happened, like some kind of dream.”   The fact is, it is still happening, it has not gone away and it has not ended, probably not ended for years to come, even if a vaccine was found, it would take years to administer and there would be parts of the world, I am thinking poor parts, that will not be vaccinated.    There currently is no proper control of the virus, it looks like a particular steroid might help, but it seems to have many side effects, My LBC colleague Ken Guy took it for cancer he says on Facebook:   I see that the steroid Dexamethazone could be useful in the treatment of Covid 19. It was part of my cancer treatment back in 2009 and should still be, but I gave it the flick pass sometime back. I took six pills each Monday. It kept me awake till Wednesday and produced mood swings. Neither Gracie nor I appreciated its effect, so I’ve not taken it since.   I should point out he is an Australian. So here in Spain we might be at the end of Lockdown, but we are only at the beginning of the understanding of what this virus is and does, where it actually came from, bat? Wet market? Laboratory Accident?   Will it mutate? Will it return in the Autumn and cause another Lockdown? Will the effects of the virus be nothing compared to the economic havoc it has reeked across the world?   The virus is like life, full of more questions than answers, and in life you should always dare to take risks.  As humankind we took a risk climbing down from the safety of the trees, learning to stand upright, our lives are all about risk.   Thank you for listening to Spanish Practices these last few months, our biggest hope is, weirdly, that we do not have to come back for another season, that dear Spain never has to go through Lockdown ever again, stay safe and well, Goodbye. lFd58mibb6I6ULlLi8Ew