Spain in lockdown Phase 2 - Day 73

We woke up good and early as Ian was going to Palma for a few hours today.  So he headed off clutching his mask for the bright lights of Palma and after a leisurely start, I headed off for the rather less exciting, but nevertheless enjoyable, delights of the charity shop here in the Port.  I had a lovely browse wearing my mask and having cleaned my hands with sanitiser at the door first, and found a QI board game, a microwave rice steamer (our old one is falling apart) and a lovely top - all for the princely sum of 11€.  If you're here on holiday and need buckets and spades, beach towels and all that sort of thing and don't want to bring it here, why not buy from there and then return it on leaving - like a cheap rental and all in a good cause.  Also a good place to buy games for children if they aren't supplied with your accommodation.  But I'm jumping ahead a bit as Spain has announced that we have to wait until 1st July for tourism to resume.

A coffee at Pascalinos beckoned - and let's face it, there are few places that can beat the view from there while you drink it 😎  I saw and chatted to several friends and dodged the now over-cheeky sparrows who, once encouraged, were looking for crumbs - lockdown seems to have made them extra confident.  One of them actually picked up an entire rich tea biscuit for a few seconds which was bigger and heavier than he was!  They flew so close that you could feel the breeze from their little wings.  Once the word got out, we had about ten of them and it started to feel like an outtake from a certain Hitchcock film.  In future, my rich tea biscuits are staying firmly in my possession 😂

Without commenting further, I have seen the photos of Southend-on-Sea beach yesterday on the UK Bank Holiday Monday.  From yesterday we have been allowed to go on the beaches here; this is the beach near Stay restaurant today at late lunchtime:

Good social distancing by all concerned 👏  mind you, I still haven't been on the beach myself but fully intend to do so in the next couple of days.

To return to masks - they are quite hot to wear and just a teensy bit claustrophobic, especially with sunglasses on which, once inside, steam up 😎  I'm certainly glad I didn't have to travel all the way to Palma whilst wearing one.  But I'll just have to get used to it and am sure by the end of this week I'll be fine.  And I do love wearing one of my bespoke ones and styling it out like a boss 💃😷  I even chose today's pattern based on what I was wearing 'cos that's the way I roll!

I can report that work on the terrace of what was Guru is now gathering some serious pace; no indications yet as to what is planned but whatever it is is clearly intending to open at some point in the not too distant future so I'll keep an eye on that!  Joker, on the other corner from Pascalinos, is also putting things out on their terrace, cleaning etc so it looks as if that will open soon too.  And a couple of days ago the gardeners were hard at work in the garden of the Hostal Bellavista where the vegetarian/vegan restaurant Bellaverde is.  There was a decent sized truck backed in through the gates that was almost full so it's possible they may be scheduling an opening soon, either that or the weeds had become seriously impressive.....

Stay safe and hasta mañana!