Life after Lock Down Day 100 – 102

Day 100 since lock down started but after coming out from the state of emergency into the new normal phase 2 days ago, I have decided its time to change the heading to Life after Lock down. Today Wednesday 24^th June I made yet another trip to our weekly market to find again it wasn’t on, next week they say, so fingers crossed. During these last months we have learnt to accept authority for the good of the whole, even when we disagreed with some of the decisions, for some, patience ran out a long time ago as can be seen by the many fines imposed, but now I feel that I am starting to join that group. After last nights banning of celebrations for San Juan, when people are on the beaches during the day, tourists are arriving by the plane load and bars are open it seemed senseless. The reason given was to stop the spread of virus, I could have accepted the decision for no fires on the beach and the usual bands playing and in some places market stalls along the promenade, but to stop you from going on the beach in your own small groups which you can do during the daytime? my brain is finding it hard to accept the reasoning behind the decision.

Our market not being allowed is another thing I am having difficulty in assimilating, it is in all other towns and has been for a few weeks now. Nobody is asking for it to be opened with the many stalls that used to be, just a few mainly fruit, veg and local produce of honey, nuts and dried fruit would suffice. It is frustrating for me as the area where I live has expanded over the years but there is not a shop in the area. Without a car it is a trek to the town to buy these things and of course if you get 5k potatoes and other produce the trek home uphill is almost impossible, especially now the heat has arrived. Of course we are lucky to have it in walking distance which it wasn’t for many years but it is our only option for fresh produce in our area of the town. I guess I will have to ask my son to get some supermarket veg once again on his way home from work.

On my way home through the park I was able to let all the frustrations go and enjoy the moments and its beauty before the heat emerged, it looked so vibrant and alive even though most of the tree blossoms have finished. Parts were still wet from its early morning sprinkling making the air feel fresh and clean, the colours were vibrant and in contrast with the sparkling reflection out to sea that could be seen in the distance. Its good to feel alive!

Day 101 and my new mattress finally arrived, may I add without the saga of the bed base delivery, the young guy found the building, rang the buzzer and brought it up to my door, on seeing steps up to my living room he proceeded to carry it up those too. This just left me to take it up to the bedroom which turned out quite easy as it was in a box, although it was quite heavy I could end to end climb it up the stairs in 3 turns. Unpacking was a little more difficult as not only was it vacuum packed and rolled it was also folded in half, as it sprung to life on opening, it was too heavy for me to move juggling around the bed base as I tried to unfold it. Finally I managed and it is now sitting in a flow of air from the open balcony doors to try to remove some of the fumes it is giving off. Tomorrow night hopefully I will sleep well.

Moving on to articles we see more evidence of the magically appearing money as the government announced spending on the abandoned Test and Trace app plan was nearly £12m, all for an ill-fated project! Also flying around is that leaving the EU so far has cost more than the entire contributions it has made since joining! I checked it out and yes it seems to be true, well as far as you can get truthful information these days, the bill for Brexit so far was around £130bn at the beginning of 2020, with a further £70bn expected to be accrued before the end of the transition period. The House of Commons library document puts the UK’s net contribution to the European Union and European Commission budget between 1973 and 2018 at around £163 billion so yes UK has spent in the last couple of years around the same as 47 years contributions, all in a time of austerity!

50 years ago in In 1970, a Computer Model at MIT Started Crunching Numbers to Predict When Civilization Will Collapse, the majority of the scenarios showed industrial output starts declining in 2015 and population declining in the 2030s. An Australian reporter in 1973 stated “the year 2020, the condition of the planet becomes highly critical. If we don’t do anything about it, this is what’s going to happen. The quality of life goes back to practically zero. Pollution becomes so serious that it will start to kill people so the population will diminish, at this stage, round about the year 2040, 2050 civilized life as we know it on this planet will cease to exist. hopefully, it won’t be allowed to happen”. Wow yes I remember so much talk and information pointing to this time being critical but we had 50 years to prevent it, the primitive computers got it right! I look back and think how on earth did we end up here after 50 years to prepare or divert this scenario we now find ourselves in! Maybe the words at the end of this video stating that maybe to prevent this scenario happening in 2020 “prestige will come from low consumption but for that to happen it will take some radical re thinking for the fat cats of the planet.” As we look back we see that the fat cats became deaf and they just got fatter!

Day 102 Barcelona Opera house opened this week to an audience of plants. The event was conceived by Spanish artist Eugenio Ampudia, who said he was inspired by nature during the pandemic. “I heard many more birds singing and the plants in my garden and outside growing faster. And, without a doubt, I thought that maybe I could now relate in a much intimate way with people and nature.” He said before the performance, “A highly symbolic act that defends the value of art, music and nature as a letter of introduction to our return to activity after a strange, painful period. It offers us a different perspective for our return to activity, a perspective that brings us closer to something as essential as our relationship with nature”. At a time when a large part of humanity has been confined to reduced spaces and been forced to renounce mobility, nature has moved in to occupy the space that we took from it”. The performance also aimed to underscore the possibility of “extending the concept of empathy to other species. We had to tell the plants something specific, to tell them what we’d been through during this time, and tell it in the form of music, which is the language that I am sure they understand,” said Ampudia. At the end of the eight-minute concert, the sound of leaves and branches blowing in the wind resonated throughout the opera house like applause, he also asked that we share it with our own plants at home. The theatre says it will gift the 2,292 plants grown in nurseries across the city of Barcelona to local health workers as a thank you for their efforts during the pandemic.

What a beautiful story to end with, while the world is getting back to a new normal please stay safe and take precautions to protect yourself and loved ones using common sense, including taking care of your mental health. Look for the beautiful stories happenig that are often not reported mainstream and protect yourself from all the negative information we are bombarded with. Dont worry – Be Happy 💜