By Robbie Broughton
One good thing to come out of this lockdown is that I’ve never seen so many dogs in our village get so much exercise! It’s the only way that people can get out of their houses at the moment other than to drive to the shops.
While the dog owners here who don’t have much outside space do regularly take their canine friends out for exercise, lots of people who have big gardens tend not to. Seen as guard dogs, they lurk round front gates ready to let off a loud torrent of barking as you pass, often making you jump out of your skin in surprise. But it’s been great to see even these fearsome beasts being taken out for walks down the network of lanes around us.
I can tell that the lockdown is really getting to our Norwegian friend Lennart, because he’s suddenly become very interested in our own dog, Espe, and offered to take her for walks. For the last couple of days we’ve been keeping ourselves busy decorating our basement flat so we’ve been more than happy to oblige: Lennart and Espe are forming a bit of a bond and she’s eagerly trotted off with him the last couple of mornings leaving us to plough on with the decorating.
Ellie and Espe take some time out from decorating
I know that this is, strictly speaking, bending if not breaking the rules – you’re supposed to be able to take your own dog for a walk not borrow someone else’s to get some fresh air. But it seems pretty harmless – Lennart comes in through our gate, we keep plenty of distance from each other, avoiding any possible contamination and everyone goes home happy.
While we may be bending the rules I’ve been pretty shocked by the stories we’ve heard coming out of the UK where most of our family are: panic buying resulting in empty supermarket shelves; people continuing to socialize in pubs and cafes; lots of people sitting in close proximity to each other on public transport. It really seems that a large proportion of the British public is completely out of step with the rest Europe. Certainly, here in Spain, there’s a respect for the rules that have been imposed upon us as well as a huge appreciation for the public servants who continue to work to keep us safe (doctors, nurses, police etc).
Every night at 8pm across the entire country, including in our own little village, residents stand at their balconies, windows and front doors and clap all those who are working for us. Last night this was preceded at 7.55 by someone playing Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” at full volume. The village sang along lustily. We were then treated to a little parade of five police cars letting off their sirens provoking even more applause than usual and giving a lot of bored kids something to look at.
Ellie and I have been reconfiguring our estimates of when things will get back to normal again. Sadly, there’s been a massive spike in both deaths and new confirmed cases here in Spain. One wonders if the huge Woman’s Day march that took place in Madrid and Barcelona a couple of weeks ago has anything to do with it. It seems crazy, now, that that was allowed to go ahead.
Back in the UK and Ireland there are reports coming in that many of the new cases are being detected in people who attended the Cheltenham Festival just over a week ago where hundreds of thousands of race goers socialized, ate and drank together over several days. At the time I was amazed that this was allowed to go ahead.
Yesterday the UK government shut down its schools and today declared the enforced shutdown of bars and restaurants. One can’t help wondering if it’s all too late: people have been mingling closely while this dreaded virus has been spreading unabated.
We desperately want to open up our house again to cyclists and hikers. Apart from the fact it’s our business and main source of income, we miss you guys so much and can’t wait for things to get back to normal. We so miss that buzz when a new group arrive, getting to know our guests, listening to their cycling and hiking adventures and sharing stories of this wonderful island.
One individual here remains blissfully unaware and happy as ever: Espe is right now curled up by the wood burner in doggy heaven having had two walks today – one with Lennart and one with Ellie. Sweet doggy dreams!