#LivingInLockDown
Day 4 (Part 1) – Thursday March 19th
I wake up early today and hungry. This is good news. I’ve obviously caught up on my sleep. I’m generally a good sleeper and if interrupted my body will claw it back. I don’t question the body just sleep when it tells me to. My Fitbit has regularly listed 7 to 7.5 hours average weekly sleep per night for years, so much so I’ve stopped looking. The exercise routine must also be working if my appetite is back. Especially after last night’s snack attack.
I get up and open the persianas. Normally when I look out of the window there is nobody out there except the security guards and the urbanisation’s handyman. Not this morning. It appears 7.30am is the time to walk your dog. There are four of them out there. It is funny to watch as it’s like a little dance. Mine is a large apartment complex with several blocks and entrances. Each dog walker comes out of their block sees the others then changes direction to a different exit in order to avoid each other. I can’t help laughing. Many of the homeworkers are already at their desks. Boy do they start early. Bit too keen if you ask me.
Time for breakfast. There are no more hot cross buns left. So sad, but you can’t live on toasted teacakes forever. Back to my usual breakfast of cereals and fruit. On the plus side today is the first day of the dreaded Mercadona teabags. Turns out they are perfectly fine. Obviously not up to Yorkshire tea standards but way better than Liptons. I can live with this. This is a good day.
There is a lingering smell of cooked food in the house from yesterday so I open all the windows to air the place then get back under my duvet because it’s cold. Bugger working early I have an hour of lounging in bed with breakfast on my itinerary whilst I check out the Facebook posts and maybe check the news, which lets be honest is getting a bit monotonous. I’m sure other things are happening in the world besides corona virus.
Time to clean the cooker hob after yesterday’s batch cooking. Also empty the dishwasher which has not done a particularly impressive job of washing the pots. I still have to give them a quick rinse to remove odd particles and to scour off the remains of the burnt bits. I also decide to clean the crockery drainer, which I should really do more often and the inside of the microwave. A quick sweep of the floor and that’s enough for one day I feel. In the back of my mind I’m aware that this period of quarantine is an ideal time to spring clean the house, but no rush we have plenty of time, a little each day is the way to go. At some point I will tackle the dreaded windows (i hate cleaning windows), but not today.
I then take a rest to write this blog, which takes longer than you’d think. Especially as I’m playing catch up from the first couple of days when I didn’t write anything. It’s quite difficult to remember everything you’ve done and amazing how quickly the hours get filled. I’m writing today’s blog in real time as I go along, sitting down every couple of hours. Could get a bit long.
This morning has two major plus points. The first is that my plastic bin is full after yesterday’s cooking session. This means I have a reason for going down stairs. The second is the sun has finally come out. First to deal with the rubbish. Our bins are all kept in a storage room on the ground floor and the handyman takes them out to the street to be collected. When I go downstairs at 10am he’s already removed them and not returned. What joy! I will have to go out to the street to empty the rubbish. It’s a crazy world when emptying the rubbish is the highlight of your day.
Also on the street permanently are the recycling bins for glass, paper and cardboard. Our urbanisation has had problems with people leaving their recycling rubbish in the bin storage room when they’re supposed to take it out to the bins on the street themselves. Something tells me this is no longer a problem at the moment. Having a valid reason to go out is everything now.
There is a new notice on the doors telling residents to wash their hands as soon as they enter the house as corona virus could be present on the door handles, stair handrails, lift buttons, keys phones etc. I do my daily stair run up and down 9 floors not touching any hand rails. On entering the flat I remove the gloves and thoroughly wash my keys, the door handle, my phone and then my hands. Probably overkill as I’m the only one who touches these things.
I then go to the lounge window where during the morning the sun shines through. Opening the window I stand there to absorb the rays. I notice a couple outside coming down the stairs from one of the gates. You aren’t allowed out in couples at the moment, so this is immediately noticeable. They’re lucky as they’ve just missed the security guard’s rounds. They stop at the entrance to the urbanisation’s indoor sports area, which is naturally closed at the moment. They stand there together reading the notice saying it is closed due to Corona virus. This notice has been on every door and lift since Sunday. Why haven’t they seen it before? Have they just got back to Madrid? Do they even live here? Then they go to the two doors further down. One is for the outdoor toilets (used when the summer pool is open and also, I assume, locked at the moment) and the other is for the utility area at the back of the indoor pool which is used by the lifeguards and the handyman. They go in this latter door I think. To my knowledge it doesn’t lead anywhere except for the utility room and then the pool. What are they doing? I wonder if they are trying to nick some toilet paper from the public loos, because I’m pretty sure it is stored there. After 10 minutes the handyman goes in and comes out again. I assume he doesn’t see them. I wait 15 minutes but they don’t come out. I guess it will remain a mystery.
Time for some exercise. Today I have added lunges to the routine. 10 squat jumps, 10 lunges on each leg, 10 burpees (still hate them) and a 1 minute plank. I’d like to get up to five of this routine throughout today. I put some music on for today’s exercises and end up doing a dance round the living room floor with the sun streaming through the open window. It felt good.
I send a few texts out to friends about tonight’s drink and tapas evening via Zoom. These are people I can call afterwards if it goes wrong, to try and work out what happened. Hopefully it should work OK because it seems simple enough, but you never know. I’m really looking forward to it.
I ring my sister in care, as I promised her yesterday, but she’s back to refusing to get out of bed. Then my Dad FaceTimes me and we have a long chat. Things in the UK are beginning to heat up and I suspect they are not far from a similar quarantine situation as us. One more call from a friend, pop today’s #TipOfTheDay on the Costa Women Madrid site and it’s time for lunch. After which I take a break from the rest of the world to read a book and write some more of this blog.