I asked my Madrid students what the atmosphere was like there, and they said it feels a bit weird as the streets are so quiet, but there’s a problem with younger people ignoring the rules. The police have started giving fines – and I do wonder if it will get even stricter there. Hotels have been turned into hospitals and I believe that the military are being drafted in to help.
Cristina, the girl student, says her family are worried about her grandmother, who, at nearly 100 and who lives independently elsewhere in Madrid, will insist on going to the church to check on the priest as make sure he’s OK because there are no services!
They have both said it’s really difficult to get a feel for how things are as everyone is in their homes. They said there is bulk buying going on, but not like they’ve seen on the news is happening elsewhere.
The male student is from here, but has been living in Madrid for many years. His family have told him not to return to the village!
Here, it seems quiet and the mayor sends out regular broadcasts keeping us informed of things.
Ian said he saw a policeman patrolling the street this morning (and not one of our local ones) when he took the rubbish out – so that was quite sobering.
We’ve actually been unclear about the rules for going out – and it transpires that only one person should go out at a time, but we can walk the dogs, so I assume Ian and I can walk them together, just not with other people. It seems that unlike other countries, Spain is not counting exercise as an allowable activity for going out of the house.
People have been told to limit their internet usage – because with everyone at home and watching Netflix and other streaming services, the Internet is likely to be put under pressure.
We did push our luck earlier this week and take Daisy out for a walk and went asparagus picking. But the mayor sent a reminder out yesterday reminding everyone that they are to stay home unless they absolutely have to go out and dog walking is to be kept at a minimum. So, I guess that’s that for now, but we may find asparagus if we resume our morning walks. Luckily, we can go for a walk easily without needing the car and we can avoid other people – but we’ll see how things transpire.
There are all sorts of rules about supermarkets, but we’ve been getting our food delivered over the last few weeks anyway, before all this started, and will continue to do so while we can. Last week we couldn’t get tinned tomatoes in the size we normally buy, and this week’s delivery arrives today – so hopefully it will all be there. I haven’t heard of widespread unavailability of items.
It’s also one person per car – we’ve rarely been using the car anyway, other than for vet visits so that won’t really affect us. But it does mean that any vet visits are going to have to be a one person trip. I am sure we could argue that it was necessary for the two of us to be there – but I’d rather not be in that position.
If this continues any length of time the main concern is going to be money, but we certainly won’t be unique here – I can no longer do classes, although I will continue to do some via Skype. But our Internet connection isn’t great and keeps dropping, so it’s not the best experience for students. And our printables site, which has been bringing in the most money in revenue from advertising has taken a severe downwards dip this week – not surprisingly given that the vast amount of our traffic is from teachers for classroom printables and parents for party printables.
And, of course, we will lose the tenants in the flat, as they are instructors at the outdoor educational center in Alston, and the shop tenant, who was going to renew for another year is not renewing her lease. We had already made our minds up to sell it – and will continue down that route – without expecting anyone to buy it this year. We’ll probably be lucky to get 100k for it, so we’re both hoping that some rich person in London will want to buy a getaway home to, well, get away from it all.
Happily, though, we’ve been here before and we have lots of experience of making money online, so we just need to pivot and find some new opportunities. Ian is currently making a website showing people all they need to run a business from home and which will help them make a business plan, so that should be well timed.
Our key concern is that we can continue to look after our four legged household (and Ludvig). We did stock up on their food and it does appear that animal welfare is allowed for in the lockdown rules. Animal feed stores and vets are still allowed to open.
Bobbins had a swelling on her front leg yesterday, but we were able to take photos to show the vet who said it was in the site of where they had given her drip and it would go – and it did.
She spent the first 48 hours unable to sit down because of the big wounds from the surgery, but she has now find how she can make herself comfortable and is currently snoring loudly.
Worryingly, Sam has started having seizures again. They’ve been light and he’s come round quick, but we had said we wouldn’t let him go through another seizure cluster.
And to think, my key concern 10 days ago was whether I was too old to wear sparkly eye shadow!