Spain in lockdown - Day 43

Another lovely sunny day and the first day that children have been allowed out under certain conditions from 9am.  Ian saw them during the morning dog walk because many parents obviously did what I would have done which is have those children dressed and ready by the front door as 9am struck!  Both they and the parents must have been finding the lockdown very hard and I just cast my mind back to when my four were young and imagine what it would have been like and believe me I'd have practically fallen out of that front door at 9 😂

I did the lunchtime dog walk and the first thing I noticed was the sound of children's voices.  And on the pavement opposite our street level front door was a mum and her two little boys, one of about 4 or 5 on his little bike and his maybe 3 year old brother on one of those tiny bikes with no pedals that they just push along with their legs.  Poor mum was trying to keep an eye on both enthusiastic and excited boys; the older one was out in front, the little chap behind her was paddling along with little chubby legs going like the clappers as if his life depended on it.  It put a smile 😃 on my face and I'd barely left my house.

So I walked on around to the beach by Stay and there they were!!  It was like a mirage......children walking on the beach, on the promenade, on the wall between the two, mums with pushchairs - and it was glorious! 👏👏 Brought a bit of a tear to the eye if I'm honest.  Children - our future and absent from sight and sound for so long - suddenly present, running, jumping, skating, scootering, cycling....it was bloody wonderful!  They must have been loving the gorgeous sunny day god love them, and the parents must have been sighing with relief.  I didn't want to obviously be taking photos of children as this might have looked a bit weird, not to mention inappropriate, but here is a photo taken from a distance with everyone at the correct social distance just by Brisa Marina 😍

However, there does seem to have been some, shall we call it creative, interpretation of the rules however....both parents with children, female friends with children, one family were walking along - she with a baby in a sling and her partner with them; occasionally he moved 1-2m away but basically he had no reason to be out at all according to the rules.  And I believe groups of people with children were walking through La Gola according to people living next to it - and La Gola is actually still closed at the moment and has been for a couple of weeks as people were congregating there especially in the evenings so the police took action.  It's hard to be disapproving in the face of the joy and delight on the children's faces and of course it's also easy to understand the parents assuming that as they live together they must be able to go outside together.  BUT this is against the rules as it's one adult for up to 3 children that they live with who are under the age of 14, for one hour and no more than 1km from home.  The police weren't in much evidence so I think they were letting things settle down a bit on the first day but I assume they'll be as vigilant about keeping people obeying the regulations as they have been with us dog walkers 😝  In any event, lots of people were sticking to the regulations and it took dog walkers a few days to get the hang of the rules too if I'm honest so let's see how it's going in a few days.  

This weekend would have been the Wine Fair in Pollensa and is one of my favourite events of the year so I'm sad that there won't be one this year.  I keep the little book from it each year until the next one so I guess this one's going to get kept a bit longer than usual then!

From what I can see on Facebook I'm not the only one who would have been there.  Every year we've gone on the Saturday and had a wonderful time trying various wines and then buying.  We've mostly focused on wines from the Pollensa(ish) area and luckily last year we bought more than usual so we still have quite a few bottles as we save them for special occasions.  I guess you could say the lockdown is a special occasion but we'll still save them for a time when we can savour them with friends.  

In other news we've spent time in the sun on the roof terrace, I've finished the frame of my new jigsaw puzzle and laid out most of the other pieces, and I went for a 5km run on the running machine; I've have improved my time by 1min 11 seconds in two days and got to within 33 seconds of my current target time, so within the next week I'm hoping to not only achieve it but to set a new target time which makes me a very happy bunny indeed!  

All in all, a great day today and seeing all the children has given me a real morale boost and a reminder that things WILL be ok.  Hasta pronto!