Friday 3rd April 2020

For me personally, this is the saddest day so far in lockdown. It’s the day where everything will change from now on. Or might do. Today is the day I received the WhatsApp telling me that the company can no longer afford to keep me as their social media manager and that there are cutbacks throughout the entire team.

I had already lost my day job, and now I’d lost my social media managing. It was the two things that brought cash in for nice things for us. It gave us that extra cash for a weekend adventure or dinners out. It seemed like from now on, things would be different.

Luckily, I’m on furlough with my teaching job. I’ve been let go temporarily and the government will provide me with a basic living wage, when that gets sorted. I’m very lucky that I’d just picked up a social media client a couple of weeks before that just about balances it out. Short term, it makes a different but long term it should be about the same. I just have to hope that the new client sticks with me.

They did say they would potentially still want me to write blog posts and they did say if things got better, they would be back in touch about me potentially taking it on again but sales are way too scarce due to the pandemic so at the moment, it’s just not feasible economically.

It’s sad though when you lose a job. No matter what the circumstances. I know it wasn’t my fault and I worked hard for them for nearly 2 years. They went from 18,000 followers to 29,900 followers. I published ads, I wrote successful blog posts, I wrote clothing descriptions and product launches. Hundreds of Instagram captions. Answered hundreds and thousands of customer queries. Set up automatic responses. Analysed analytic data to know target groups. Created imagery for advertising. Created engaging topics for discussion among their followers. There’s so much to do when you run a social media account in a business form that people don’t realise.

I received the message quite early on. Not long after we’d got out of the fort and I’d finished watching Mary Poppins (the original). Rio seemed to love it. He sat next to me and kept being fixated on the screen. That’s four times he’s watched the TV, ever. The first being an advert that used to be on where lots of dogs were in a band and he loved it. His tail would wag when they came on. The second was when a cat was stuck on a loading screen, she was like a full size cat. It scared him and after growling for about 10 minutes and realising she wasn’t reacting, he went to full on bark. The third was lady and the tramp, which he loved and now Mary Poppins. His head tilted left and right when the penguins came on.

Alex only had one class to do today so it was going to be a little quiet. I had my social media stuff to do for the cake business but I didn’t have too much to do neither. Alex had a call about 10 to say that he was delivering the sound bar now and to be outside. Alex waited and waited and waited. Four calls later, saying I’m round the corner make sure you’re outside, and 20 minutes later, the delivery guy showed up in his gloves and mask. I’m glad the sound bar and hoover have both been delivered safely, it’s regained my faith in the Spanish delivery system after the whole Christmas wreath situation. Alex set up the sound bar when he got back up. The sound is great, but for a while it wasn’t synced with the TV which was just well annoying.

My friend, Amy, FaceTimed me late morning. We caught up and talked about the losing the job situation. We also chatted a bit of rubbish and talked about the world we’re in now. It’s all a bit weird this new norm that we’re in. Nobody really knows how to respond to it all. It all seems to have came so suddenly. I personally feel like usually there’s some kind of build up to these sort of things. Things happen almost gradually, but with this, there seemed to be no warning. It just kinda escalated dramatically and then suddenly, the world is locked down.

I have no idea how this is going to affect all of us in the long run. Will it come back around and we’ll have to get use to randomly being locked down every so often? Do we have to learn how to live in a new way with a plague? Will our immune systems be compromised because we’ve all spent so long inside that being outside for the first time will mean we’ll all pick up who knows what? Will the economy just crash and planes will be grounded and that’s the end of budget? Or perhaps one day the sun will rise and it will all just be the same again?

I hope it’s closer to the latter. One where we get back on with our lives. But with more care and consideration for others. One where we realise the importance of regularly calling our friends. One where we appreciate the little things around us like a hot coffee, and a beautiful sunrise. One where have consideration for those around us.

It’s a Saturday morning as I’m writing this and the birds are singing and the waves are crashing loudly against the shore. It’s something that I’ve always listened to in the morning. The sound of the sea waves has always been one of the reasons I wanted to live by the sea. The relaxing sound of peace. It’s louder now. No cars whirring over the top of it, no laughter coming from the beach, or chatting from the street. No sounds of tables being set up and coffee being served up at the local cafes. It’s just nature. It’s partly beautiful and partly unnerving. I told Alex to move the ottoman to be like a corner one and it’s opened up the room so much more. It’s made more space, but the ottoman is comfier and it means the pillows in the corner can actually do what they were intended for. It’s amazing what a change of perception can do. I remind myself to keep that in mind during lockdown.

Alex went off to the supermarket midday while I was still on the phone. After an hour or so on the phone to Amy, I called my mum. Everybody is inside doing more or less the same thing.

We looked at a few houses. There are some gorgeous 2 or 3 bedroom houses that are up in the mountains. They have a little garden for Rio to play in and a few extra bedrooms for guests. They also had large living rooms which would be perfect for a corner sofa. Maybe one day.

We watched 4 episodes of YOU today. There are only 20 episodes in total, so we’ve got 8 left now. It’s getting rather gruesome. Alex and I are both not great with gruesome stuff. Both of us have to cover our faces when things are gross. How anybody can just watch some stuff, I don’t know!

We had an early dinner of sausage casserole, with carrots, onions, peppers and mashed potato. It’s one of my favourite warming dinners. After dinner, we played music through the sound bar, it sounds so much better! So much clarity to it. We played brawl stars for a bit whilst listening to music.

At about 11, I did my yoga and Alex did a workout. Rio went on his last walk of the day, he has 3 or 4 now. One in the morning, one mid afternoon, sometimes one late afternoon and one before he goes to bed. He’s happy enough. He’s always happy doing whatever we’re doing and never makes a fuss. He doesn’t get frustrated and he never needs a lot of exercise. He is trying to get his paws on more treats though so sometimes we’re having to shut the kitchen door to stop him crying at the treats drawer (we don’t want him getting sick! 5 treats a day and a dentastick plus our snacks that he has a few bites of is definitely enough!)

Tomorrow is another day, a brighter day. It’s the weekend so we’re going to try and do a walk in the garden. As nobody is allowed to do exercise here we’ve noticed some people walking about in our garden, we thought we’d give it a go. Get some fresh air for 10 minutes. It’s supposed to be lovely weather all weekend too. It’s strange not being able to make plans anymore. The prime minister is supposed to be making an announcement on Saturday (today) about lockdown and it’s rumoured to be extended again until at least April 21. It makes me nervous when I see people counting down until the end of their lockdown in the U.K. saying it’s only 2 weeks. That’s what Italy thought. That’s what Spain thought. Italy is on day 45 or something like that and Spain must be on day 25 or 30, as we missed the beginning of it when we were in the U.K., I’m hoping this might be our final countdown or maybe one more extension. We’ll have to see.

Stay safe

L x