Light at the end of the lockdown tunnel

Sunday was a great day.

(Nearly) summertime and the living is easing

It wrapped up week 6 of our lockdown here in Spain and, boy, it’s been (and still is) a tough lockdown. People not absolutely obliged to travel to work are only allowed out to go the shops, the banks, a pharmacy, a healthcare centre or (it may just be me, but I find this amusing) to the newsagent to get a newspaper. Could this be the triumph of the much-maligned Mainstream Media? Of those institutions Trump denounces as purveyors as fake news? Here they have special status.

There are a few exceptions to the lockdown rules. We, by sheer good luck, fall into one of them: dog owners are allowed to walk their dogs, though only close to home. But what exactly is ‘close’? At one time, the suggestion was just 50 metres but, outside the cities, there is slightly more leeway in the definition.

In a spirit of complete compliance with the strict letter of the regulations, I can firmly state that we never go far.

And in strict compliance with the spirit of the regulations, we never meet anyone anyway, so we’re exposing neither ourselves nor them to any risk.

Besides, the smaller dog – Toffee – has developed a certain indolence recently. Since we’re only allowed to walk on the streets, and not in the woods, and she doesn’t like the streets, she’s more than capable of lying down suddenly at the end of her lead – we’re not allowed to take them off the lead – and making it quite clear that she intends to go no further.

That really can happen within 50 metres of home.

The option then is to head back or carry her. And, small though she is, I certainly do not enjoy carrying her far. That too helps to keep the definition of ‘close’ to within pretty tight bounds.

The only people allowed out under any of these arrangements were, in any case, adults or kids of 14 or over. The only exception were children with a single parent or carer: when the adult went out, the kids necessarily went with them. But all other kids were stuck indoors. Which is pretty soul-destroying if you think that the lockdown was just coming up to the end of six weeks.

Lovely weather AND the kids are out again

That’s what made Sunday so great. The Spanish government decided that the downward trend in numbers of Coronavirus cases and, above all, of deaths was sufficient to allow a little slackening of the rules. And the big deal was that kids up to 14 would now be able to go out, for an hour a day, to play as they wished, with no particular destination in mind. They could take toys, scooters, skates or even bikes. A single adult could accompany them, taking care of up to three kids.

What made things even better was that the weather had just turned glorious. To me, still retaining British criteria, it felt like summer, with temperatures in the mid-twenties (OK, OK, high seventies if you insist on using that old-fashioned Fahrenheit). No one from around here would call that summery, of course. They’d just say, “just you wait. You’ll see what real summer is like. You’ll be regretting the rain.” And I know they’re right: we were here last summer. Even so, Sunday felt good and raised my spirits, for both the weather and the unusual sight of families out walking.

People did cheat a bit. There were a lot of family groups out, with what looked distinctly like two parents with the kids. And at times different families met up and chatted, not always, as far as I could tell, respecting social-distancing requirements.

In our local city, Valencia, things were worse. The council, unlike its opposite numbers in Madrid, decided to reopen the parks for the first time. A flood of humanity descended into them. The police were nice, though. They announced in the evening that they’d gone round that day telling people what they should be doing and, above all, what they shouldn’t, without fining anyone. But that was a one-off ‘pedagogical experience’. From Monday on, it would be fines again. And they’re not cheap here.

The weekdays have seen a return to something more orderly. People are still out, and the weather’s still good, but social distancing has become the norm again.

Now we’re waiting for the next step. The Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, has said that the exit from the lockdown will take up to eight weeks, until the end of June. That’ll make 14 weeks in all, which sounds a bit right: Wuhan in China is approaching three months.

The exit will happen in steps, making it a lockdown stepdown, I suppose. The stages will be timed differently in different regions. The first step, however, has already been announced. As of the coming Saturday, we adults will also be allowed out, for the first time since the whole business started, for an hour’s exercise or walking a day. And we don’t even have to go out alone but can walk with others from our household. In my case, that means that I can enjoy Danielle’s company, though if our cat Misty wants to join us, I dare say we won’t object to his coming along too.

That’s subject to things continuing to go well. But yesterday saw the lowest number of new cases registered since the lockdown began, so I’m feeling a little optimistic.

There could be light at the end of this particular tunnel.