21 March 2020 – Lockdown Day 9

 

Friday 20 March

The UK has announced what was called “draconian restrictions”.   In fact they closed bars and restaurants.  This was necessary because so many people were ignoring the recommendation not to use such establishments.   There is still no restrictions on movement, nor confined to homes.   Again it is a recommendation.   And again it will no doubt be ignored by many.

                                                   

I hate to think what will happen if they are finally forced to restrict movement and make people remain at home, as they have done in Italy, France and Spain for more than a week.

We are running low on food, but today is a national holiday in Spain.   Despite the emergency the few remaining shops, mostly supermarkets, close all day for the local “Father’s Day”.   How very Spanish to consider this more important than allowing the housebound population to do some shopping.

Saturday 21 March

Another wet and cold day, but it is now really necessary to do some food shopping.   Because only one of us is allowed to drive or enter the shop, it was decided Jan would do it.   But she was not sure this would be the best day.

According to Facebook there have not been the same panic buying or crowded supermarkets here in Spain.   On Thursday there were photographs of quite long queues outside the supermarket in Jalon.  But this was because only a small number of people are allowed in the shop at one time.  It is then one out and one in.   Everyone is aware of keeping personal space, and there is about 5-6 foot between everyone in the queue.   So what looks like a lot of people is actually much less than it seems.

The because of the shop being closed all day yesterday, and closed again on Sunday, we were concerned that there might be more than usual today.

There is no special time for older people to shop here.  Not that it would make much difference, because the large ex pat population in the valley are mostly OAPs.

However the decider was that it was raining.  We assumed that people would be less likely to queue in the rain.   Anyway Jan decided to give it a go.   If the queue was too long she would put it off until Monday.

Fortunately it was not too bad, nor too wet.   There were about 20 people in front of her, all with the required gap.   No one spoke, but all were patient and well behaved.   In about 15 minutes it was her turn to enter the supermarket.

She was pleased to find the shelves well stocked, including fresh fruit and vegetables.   There was also a good selection of meat, except for chicken which was sold out.

There was plenty of space to shop, and everyone politely avoided each other.   The  

Till ladies were behind a glass screen, similar to a bank.   Everyone kept their distance at the tills, and it was all very civilised.   How different from what we see and read about the shopping in the UK at present.

We only bought what we need for the coming week, and everyone else seemed to be doing the same.   The whole experience was much less stressful than Jan had expected and has made her less anxious to repeat it next week.