Diary of Spain in Lockdown - Restrictions ease and parks fill with children

Sunday 26^th April

After zooming with friends in Valencia yesterday and seeing all the photos shared on social media today, I realise just how lucky we are here in our l’Eliana bubble.

Our experience of the lockdown has been vastly different from that of Juan’s friends and family living in the city.

Anybody moving about the Valencia by car needs to carry papers and ID proving where they are going to and from, as they can get stopped at the many checkpoints.
The residents also come out to their balconies and windows every evening at 8pm to clap for health workers, something which here we try to do when we remember, but there are usually just a few neighbours clapping here and there, certainly nothing like the noise there must be in the city. Then on some days Valencians go to their balconies at 7pm as well with their pots and pans to complain about the government, or perhaps just to vent all that pent-up frustration.  It must be quite the cacophony. As someone who has never wanted to live in an apartment, I can’t imagine what it must be like to be shut inside one for weeks on end.

Then today, after a month and a half of being locked indoors under 14s have been allowed out ‘for a walk’, with one parent, within a kilometre of their home. But the photos circulating are beyond belief: people stopping to chat, whole families out together, facemasks round necks, people sitting down, enjoying the sun. All this in spite of the helicopters circling above, telling them to keep moving and maintain social distancing.

And all the while, the 15 to 18-year-olds indignant that they have not been allowed out to walk and complaining that stricter lockdown will be imposed again after today’s scenes and that they will miss their chance.

Then, within a few hours came the tweets and news reports that the council are looking into closing off the parks and the river again. Of course, if people cannot behave properly and stick to a few social norms, what do they expect?