Tuesday 30 March 2020
If there’s one thing that is cooperating at the moment, it’s the weather. A once bright and sunny seaside town on the Costa Blanca has looked dull and dismal for 95% of the time in lockdown. Instead of inviting, warm weather teasing you to go out, there’s a dull tone, one telling you it’s okay to stay home because the weather is rubbish anyway.
If we could sum up today, it’s this. Work, Disney, hoover. Yes, you heard that right. WE HAVE A HOOVER. Like a real working, specialised for animals, no cord, no bag, upright hoover. Deliveries are classed as an essential work so everything that is ordered online, regardless of which shop, still gets delivered. Unless it’s from Leroy Merlin, then don’t hold your breath because we’re still waiting for our Christmas wreath to be delivered from them back in November. No refund. They just ignore all correspondence.
Anyway, the hoover came. Alex got a phone call telling him the courier was outside. There’s no ringing door bells or anything like that. Alex went down and opened the gate. You still have to sign for the parcels, which seems backwards accounting for how many people are going to be signing that touch screen, and the poor courier has to carry it around. I hope he’s given hand sanitizer to clean his hands after touching his machine. You’d think they’d do like some countries and just take a photo of the recipient holding their parcel as evidence. Alex said the courier was wearing a face mask though, which makes me feel better for the courier having to go to all these doors.
We haven’t received our sound bar yet, so I’m sure that will come soon. It’ll be another case of Alex going down and getting it. Which is absolutely fine. It’s just so different to usual where they’d come up to your apartment and bring it in for you. I imagine it’s taking a lot of getting used to, for them too.
I’ve been in such a bad mood all day. When I said we hadn’t had any raised tensions yet, I spoke too soon. I was furious. I’d looked on the web around different places and everybody was inside. Rome, deserted. Venice, not a soul. Madrid, empty. Barcelona, silent. Then I looked at some places in the U.K. and there’s people wandering around… some in groups. I was livid. Then it got me annoyed that in the U.K. you’re allowed to do exercise outside, and remembered how many people have been posting that they’re suddenly out doing exercise as an excuse to go outside. We’re locked down under strict conditions to combat it, but some places in the U.K. aren’t even taking it serious enough to just… stay home?
The longer it takes for people to stay home, the longer it will be for us all to go out again. I read an article that said Italy will start reopening in mid April, and by the beginning of May everything will be open again. The last things to open being theatres but the first being secondary essential businesses followed by bars and restaurants. It says that when they reopen there will be stricter guidelines. A greater distance between tables and masks recommended to be worn. It makes me wonder if life will be the same for a long time yet.
We are one or two weeks behind Italy, and the U.K. is a week or two behind us. So, it gives me hope that by May we’ll be out too. April is going to be such a weird month. It was supposed to be our road trip around Spain and Portugal, with the Easter holidays. Now, it looks like we’ll be spending the entire month at home. I can only imagine that it’s going to feel so hot when we do go outside. Normally, we have the progression of the temperature rising, but from March to nearly May the temperatures will soar and we won’t have gone through them gradually, I think it’ll be a beach day when we’re out.
I spent ages trying to learn Italian too. I say trying, it’s coming really easy to me. French is going okay, and Russian is just near enough impossible. I am soaring through the Italian course and then I got annoyed again. I asked Alex if the course of Italian is easy because I remember some of it, or it’s easy because it’s the same as Spanish and sounds slow and easy. He didn’t understand any of it and went “well obviously I don’t.. I don’t speak Italian” and rolled his eyes. I didn’t know if it was easy because I knew Spanish, and as he knows Spanish too I wanted to see. I guess it did answer my question though. There have to be some tensions when you’re stuck safe at home everyday.
We both had a lot of work to do today. Alex had classes and I had proofreading and editing to do. I got on with that, as he got on with his classes. I finished before him so ended up sitting in the room with him whilst he gave the class and I played Brawl Stars. It was the same class as I’d sat in with the other day, which was weird!
Alex took Rio to the vet for his weekly checkup. She gave him another injection for his infection and said to carry on a little longer with his ointment. He doesn’t have to go back now for at least 2 weeks which is good. I had to get on with some social media work whilst they were out and practised a 20 minute yoga flow.
We watched Mulan whilst we had curry for dinner. It’s my favourite Disney movie. Super powerful. Super brave. Visually pleasing and Mushu is everything. We had dinner a little early today.
We finished the day by listening to a chapter of Joel’s audiobook. It was a comedic blast before bed. It told the story about how he randomly ended up going to an A Listers birthday party, getting her a wildly inappropriate very thought out gift and flying across the world for someone he barely knew, in hopes that she liked him. It ended up being a very strange party and you’ve gotta read it or listen to it to appreciate it.
Spain had its worst day today for figures. It’s really sad but I suppose fluctuations are to be expected. There are now more than 95k people infected with coronavirus across Spain, there have been nearly 20k recovered though and more than 90% of the cases are mild, which is good news in a bad situation.
Keep safe
L x
Lauren in Leicester 
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