Sunday April 12th 2020

I’ve never been a massive fan of Easter. If it wasn’t for the fact I get some days off work, I’d never take any notice of it. I’m not religious and I don’t particularly like chocolate so it’s always just a nothing day. I do like holidays though, and I do like time off work, so that’s usually the extent to my excitement about Easter.

There have only been a selection of Easter sundays that stand out in my memory. Very very few I actually remember. My family would always get us a large selection of eggs, different shapes and sizes and flavours. I’d nibble on one or two and then put the rest in my room. It would be nearing on Christmas and the eggs would still be there. The tiniest nibble out of a few of them where I’d had some chocolate whilst I was playing. I’ve just never been a fan of chocolate. Then there was the Easter Sunday I’ll always remember. I looked at the eggs, determined that this year would be the year my room doesn’t hold 10 or so Easter eggs. This year, I’m eating them all. I ate a few of my eggs before heading down to my Nan and Grandad’s. They used to hide the eggs for us to find. Another one to eat. I spent the rest of the day curled up in the armchair having never felt so podged and sick in my life. Needless to say, the next year I went back to nibbling.

I’d been really looking forward to this Easter. Alex and I had never been on holiday before over Easter together. With the exception of going back to Leicester the other year, which I don’t think warrants as a holiday. This year though, we were doing it big. A road trip covering the majority of Spain and the majority of Portugal. We would stop in every major Portuguese city and cover the Galicia region, the Andalucía region and the Castile and Leon region. We’d never been to Galicia before, we’ve not seen much of Castile and Leon and we love the Andalucía region so it was looking to be a great route. We were supposed to be leaving today. Had things not have changed so drastically and rapidly in the world.

Bizarrely enough though, I didn’t think about this all day. In fact, by the time I even sat down and looked at my watch it was 3pm. I’d woken up late for starters, hence why yesterday’s post was a little late. I then read some of my new book on the balcony room, “The Flat Share” that one of my friends recommended to me.

I dived straight in to doing my yoga in the morning. I decided to take the mat out to the balcony room again and do it out there, with the sea in the distance as a focal point it makes focusing much easier. I followed it with a 6 minute ab blaster, one that is much pow pow and much more dynamic than previous ones I’ve been doing. Note: abs are painful but looking very defined for the rest of the day.

The Imagineering Story is released on a Friday every week, and we’d not watched the most recent episode yet. With my cup of tea and a few shortbread biscuits we watched it. It is so interesting. Watching the process of parks, cruises, rides be designed, built and made is just so interesting. Seeing all the actual work that goes in to Disney is incredible. This one was focused on Disney California Adventure, Animal Kingdom, the Cruises and Tokyo DisneySea. It was so nice to see so many places I’d already been to. Especially the California parks which aren’t so fresh in my memory anymore. Alex and I both agreed that we’d love to go to the Tokyo Disney parks and do a Disney cruise. I want to go back to the Anaheim parks too. Obviously we want to go back to Florida too. Maybe Hong Kong Disney and Paris Disney too. Looks like Disney is on the agenda for when lockdown ends. Are you surprised?

Ubisoft are offering their unlimited version for free during lockdown, so we signed up for that. It means we get every song available to dance to on JustDance which has made the game so much better. I thrashed Alex on some songs, but he does beat me a couple of times. I got very much into California Girls and Barbie Girl, ending up setting a 12k points record, which for a better understanding is a third more than the points we’d been consistently getting. There’s a lot of hairography and hip shaking to Just Dance which I’m a fan of, especially in a Footloose. We played for an hour and burned 234 kcal, again, I don’t count them, it’s just that my watch tells me ha. But, fitness gaming is definitely a good way to keep fit and active especially during lockdown.

Alex made poached eggs on toast for breakfast, which was more like a brunch as it was already 3pm. “Fancy anything on TV?” surprise surprise, I didn’t again. I can’t be bothered to scroll through and find something to commit to watching at the moment. So Alex put on a concert for Disney Coco music which was actually really good. A full orchestra and singers performing the songs from Coco, it’s definitely a good one to put back on in October. I set my timer for 20 minutes and cracked on with my languages.

It seemed everybody from my past was bored today. I had texts from three different people that I haven’t spoken to in years. Asking what we’re up to, how we are. It was nice that they’d thought about us and nice to fill each other in the gaps since we’d last spoken. Time goes by so quickly and people tend to move on without a second thought. It’s nice to take this time to catch up with people, close friends and those we’ve drifted away from, even if it just to make sure they know you’re doing okay without them, and them the same without you.

We spent the rest of the day listening to music. Alex played FIFA for a bit and intermittently took Rio for a walk. I’ve had to do photos and videos to send to the kids at work. I’d been texting my friend for the most part of the evening and dancing along to the hits of the 00’s and the 2010’s.

We went to bed pretty late considering we’d done nothing particularly interesting all day. Funny that isn’t it, the times when you’ve done loads you get to bed earlier, yet today we’ve done hardly anything and both been tired all day yet didn’t go to bed until midnight. It wasn’t quite the Easter we’d been looking forward to, but we’re both safe and healthy and finding our own way to have fun and keep busy and active everyday. To certify just how off today was, I had a pot noodle for dinner. It was all I fancied. I’m sure with the moving less you get less of an appetite. I’m really finding it difficult to force myself to eat things at the moment. With so much sitting around, I’ve just not got the stomach to have our normally three meals a day.

Alex had planned to clean the windows today, but when I saw it was threatening to rain I checked the weather. Rain forecast everyday until Wednesday 22nd April so far. Fantastic, that’s the Easter we know and love. It doesn’t matter when Easter falls, apparently it always rains in Benidorm on Easter. Period. There was no point Alex cleaning the windows just for them to get dirty again (or relatively clean) in the rain. So he did one window and stopped which I’m glad about. It makes me feel ill watching him clean them. How he dares stand up with such a drop below, I’ll never know.

The Health Ministry informed that there had been 619 new deaths due to coronavirus in Spain. It makes me so sad to think of those that die alone, with not even a face of comfort from a health worker or a family member. Total solitude with care from somebody in PPE, all body suit and face mask. It must be terrifying. And then the poor families have such limited people at funerals now, one or two allowed to go with the rest being video streamed if the families want to. The world is a very lonely place at the moment. It makes me think of the babies born too. The Valencia community announced that pregnant women going in to labour will have to do so without anybody present. I can’t imagine how terrifying it must be to give birth with nobody to hold your hand, not even your partner. A girl I know is due to give birth in Benidorm soon, and they’re allowed nobody present. The family won’t see the baby until its all over, and possibly the father won’t even see his baby until they’re discharged.

There has been good news amongst it though, like a 13 year old boy in Spain has designed and made protective masks with his 3D Printer. The newspapers headlined it “Solidarity knows no ages.” And it’s right. Everybody can help out in their own way. It doesn’t matter how old or young you are there’s always something you can do. Even if that’s something as simple as sending a message to a friend to check they’re okay, or just staying home to flatten the curve. I used this as some inspiration to do my own bit, I sent off some products to a food bank. It felt good to be able to give back, even though it’s a difficult time for us too. I’m hoping it will really help somebody in their time of need.

Construction work will start again on Tuesday so it will be interesting to see the trends then. At the moment, it looks as though the situation is getting better. The rain threatens and looms like its circling its prey all day until finally around 2am it can’t wait any longer. The rain pours and pours as it crashes against our window, and just like this virus, it’s not stopping any time soon.

Stay home. Stay safe,

L x