Sunday 27th April 2020

After I’d written my blog post and had my breakfast, I went out to the front to the front balcony and had my morning coffee there. It’s the balcony of the outdoor stairs so there’s not a great deal of space, but enough to stand there with a coffee watching the now busier streets.

I wanted to see what it was like now the children were allowed outside. Life returned. The deserted, eerily quiet streets became filled with the sounds of kids feet running and laughter and screams. A slice of normality.

On the whole, everybody abided with the rules around here. A child (or 2 or 3) with one of their parents. The kids were using scooters or bikes and their parents were stood supervising. They all had a distance between the kids playing. One kid was running and shouted it was “the best day of my life”. We did see one group though, a good three or four adults with a further 4 or 5 kids. Just walking around chatting huddled in their relatively big gathering. They overflowed on to the road so they could continue walking in a line in their group chatting. Why can’t people follow rules? I hope the police caught up with them.

Other places across Spain weren’t so sensible though.

We saw the photos come flooding into social media of parks and promenades absolutely rammed. People huddling together chatting with their friends mums who they haven’t seen for ages. I really hope they haven’t spoilt it for the rest of us. I really hope they don’t cause a surge in cases. How can some people be that daft? Or selfish?

I had a 5 minute walk in the garden after I’d made a couple of tiktoks on the balcony. I might be getting a bit obsessed with making the videos on there. Though, it definitely feels like it’s going to be one of those quickly passing phases. Rio had been on the balcony with me, whenever I go out there he refuses to stay in the apartment. He loves to sit at the bottom of the stairs and watch what I’m doing. It was lovely and sunny in the garden, not a cloud in the sky. There was no wind and everything was calm. It felt normal outside as the laughter of the children could be heard from our garden. There was just so much more movement than there’d been in forever. More traffic. More noise. It was like the world being reborn.

I miss sunrise. Now the clocks have moved we get the nice, long sunny days, but I’m never up in time for sunrise anymore. I’m up the same time as I am in winter, but by then the sun has already risen. Most of the time the sun has already partly risen and the sky is a tired blue, the kind that reminds you of summer and beach days to come.

I’d tried reading more of the mixtape in the afternoon while I was eating my lunch and I just can’t get into it. It might be one of the most boring books I’ve read in a long time. I’m a third of the way through the book and I don’t really know who these characters are or why we’re still putting the foundations for new characters in and had zero action so far. For 3 days I’ve been reading this book and I’m only on 30%. That’s it. But, the non quitter in me won’t let me not finish but the book. I have to keep going!

TikTok seems to be the current trend as we did some more TikTok videos in the afternoon. They are quite addictive. It’s so easy to sit there and spend hours scrolling through watching short 15 second videos and then realise it’s two hours down the line.

My mum FaceTimed while Alex was doing dinner. We had toad in the hole which is something we’ve never had before here. We’ve been trying lots of new dinners now that time allows. It’s been a nice change from a cycle of variations of pasta, curry and fajitas, which are all quick to do late at night.

The Valencia region announced that there had been no new positive cases in over 337 municipalities of the Valencia region over the past two weeks. They also said in the next 10-15 days they will be ready to implement a descaling process as set by the government, which is good news on both accounts. They also highlighted that the current situation stands at the moment that there are 26 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, which is a third lower than Spain’s average. It’s also worth remembering that we have two big cities that come into these figures, Valencia and Alicante, so on the whole our area has been one of the safest in Spain.

I’d finished my languages early on in the morning but I hadn’t done my exercise yet. I really need to go back to doing it in the morning before I get settled! It meant just before At Home with Joel Dommett started, I had to race to get the yoga and the ab blaster done while Rio was our on his last toilet stop of the day.

It will be strange to start the process of going back to normal. These are whispers so I’m not sure how true they are, but one news outlet reported that by May 11th shops and businesses will be allowed to open and then by the end of May, bars and restaurants will be open. I’m not sure how this all equates with travel and tourism, but one scenario they’re looking at is letting people with a holiday home in Spain return first and then allowing hotels after.

The days are going by so quickly and I’m sure before we know it we’ll be getting back to normality. It’s crazy how quickly the time has gone. I’m glad I started new projects and kept busy at the beginning of lockdown because it’s already gone so quickly to now. I wonder if the last stretch will go just as quickly or if it will drag like waiting for a holiday or Christmas!

Keep safe.

L x