Growing Old – Lock Down Day 20

I am happy to say that we start today with the sun shining! The birds are singing their songs in harmony, more dogs are barking obviously outside in gardens enjoying the sunshine, not trapped indoors with rain. Off course as can be expected I can hear a lot more cars passing by, people want to be outside on this beautiful day but the only place to go is the supermarket! I can imagine the queues as only a few people are allowed in at any one time, there will we a line outside keeping a safe 2 metre distance from each other, all wearing face masks basking in the sunshine. It seems the silence of the last few weeks has disappeared and everything is springing to life, maybe because today is the only day we can see that round bright yellow ball pictured on our weather forecasts for the coming days.

Yesterdays little experiment of setting a time limit to write worked, but with the consequence of many errors on the blog, so today my first job was to correct and update yesterdays mistakes. I am not sure how this happens, besides my lack of writing skills, my typing mistakes and lack of knowledge on correct grammar, I write within the processor which corrects the text, I then load it into a grammar checker which corrects the grammar, then I upload it to WordPress. Sometimes after going through this process and making corrections it feels like my copy and paste is playing tricks on me and it feels personal! Thank you to my daughter for offering her boyfriends time to proof read for me, I may take you up on it, especially on those days that my obsession to self master this alone falters.

A few updates on our situation here, firstly Spain’s daily death rates are still high, but new cases are slowing down and seeing a turn in the upward trend, which is bringing hope that we may now be on the path to containing the spread of the virus. We still haven’t seen the troops on the street disinfecting, and we still don’t know when they will arrive or by what means they will deploy the task. We had a notification yesterday that if we posses a certain snorkelling mask from Decathlon, to call a number and somebody would come and pick it up from our homes, they are able to convert them to work on ventilators which will greatly help with the lack of supplies which the hospitals need.

I will leave you now to go take in some sunshine and top up my Vitamin D levels while I have the chance, as it may not be shining tomorrow. The sun will only be on my balcony for around 3 hours, a blessing during the summer months but not so much during this time in isolation, my cat is already there and waiting for me. Talking of animals everybody is saying their pets are acting strange during these last weeks, maybe they are unnerved by the change of routine, maybe they are peeved they don’t get home alone time any more, maybe the silence around is worrying them or maybe they are picking up on the emotions of their owners. They don’t understand what’s happening, we all wish we could be like Dr Doolittle and talk with them to give reassurance and comfort. As always Stay safe and take precautions to protect yourself and loved ones including taking care of your mental health 💜