They're off!
It's all happening here in Inglaterra. Just one day to go and I can get a haircut, buy a pair of shoes and sit outside a pub watching the snow come down as I slurp pint of cold beer.
It's April 11th. 2021 and snow is falling. Yesterday, Saturday, our central heating boiler packed up, just after we had opened all the windows so that Ash and Paul, the electricians, could work in Covid safety.
No heating, no electricity and no 'Sounds of the Sixties', which was cancelled because The Duke of Edinburgh had died the day before and the BBC decided that the old codgers like me, who get up at 6.00am.on a freezing cold Saturday morning to listen to the music of our distant youth, should show some respect by listening to more appropriate music, which included such morale boosters as:
The Theme From the Deer Hunter (John Williams),
Tears in Heaven and My Father's Eyes (Eric Clapton)
and Do You Know Where You're Going To? (Diana Ross).
A couple of surprises were:
'I want to Know What Love Is', by Foreigner (he was never very keen on them), and
Crazy (Patsy Cline).
The good news is that the Grand National horse race was won for the first time by a woman, Rachael Blackmore, or as some may have it, for the umpteenth time by a horse.
They didn't have a race last year because we were all 'locked down', pretty much as we are now The 'Boat Race' was cancelled too, but this year things are obviously looking up.
The Grand National horse race and The Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race, which always seem to take place on the same day, are two great British sporting events, indeed institutions, which along with the English FA Cup Final have, from time immemorial, marked the end of the British winter. - and we're glad they are all back on this year.
The Boat Race had to be moved to the River Great Ouse at Ely because of Covid restrictions.
Apparently, so that the 8 rowers and the 'cox' (the chap who sits facing the wrong way with his hands in his pockets and doesn't do any work but still has the cheek to keep shouting at the rowers to Get a f***ing move on!) are at least two metres (6.56 ft.) apart, the boats have to be twice as long and are difficult to steer round the tight bends on the River Thames. The Great River Ouse is a lot straighter.
The Boat Race Course on The River Thames.
These world famous events make one feel proud to be British and they lift one's spirits as one looks forward to another glorious British summer of cricket, holidays by the sea, Wimbledon and salad for tea.
For Mrs. Sánchez and I, that's what being British is all about, even though we have foreign-sounding names and are often told to 'get back where you came from' when we arrive back in Blighty, tanned and relaxed, after our spring sojourn in Álora.
And now that we have left the European Union and 'taken back control', such important traditional events are all the more important to us in re-establishing our national identity, post BREXIT.
This year The Grand National was won by an Irish horse ridden by an Irish jockey.
The Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race was won by Cambridge with only three out of the eight rowers being British. The 'cox' was American.
The four English Association Football Clubs which have reached the semi-finals of the FA Cup, Chelsea, Leicester City, Southampton and Manchester City are all owned by foreign nationals (China, Abu Dhabi, Russia, Thailand)
Three out of four of their trainers/managers are foreign nationals.
Out of sixty possible players only 15 are English.
Just saying.
Mrs, Sánchez and I have had our second 'jab' of The Astra-Zeneca anti-Covid 19 vaccine so we're feeling very positive and looking forward to going out again tomorrow, if we can remember where the shops are and how to drive the car.
We were due to catch the boat from Portsmouth to Santander tomorrow, but we can't go unless we pretend that we want to rent out or sell our luxury Spanish villa or on some other laughable pretext and which would not make any difference as Spain still won't let us in yet.
They can't stop little Monty because he has a Spanish European Pet Passport, but we'd miss him.
T'Please don't make me go'.
To be honest, I'd rather be here in England at the moment, even though it´s freezing cold. The EU, and particularly Spain, is making a spectacular cock-up of things Covid -related at the moment. Their vaccination programme has only just got off the ground, they are expecting a 'fourth wave of infections' and they can't agree about crucial issues like travel, mixing in public, face masks and whether or not they want the 'British' Astra -Zeneca vaccine or not.
Part of the problem is that the Comunidades (Autonomous Regions) of Spain - Andalucia, Madrid, Murcia, Castilla-La Mancha etc. are allowed to make many of their own decisions about curfews, opening of 'hostelería' (bars, hotels and restaurants), restriction of travel between their own provinces, towns and villages and movement between one Comunidad and adjacent ones. Also, under EU rules, movement between member states is allowed.
Spanish Comunidades (Autonomous Regions)
This has resulted in some bizarre, conflicting rules, particularly when the Madrid Comunidad is involved. They have insisted on acting against government guidelines all through the pandemic and have one of the highest death rates in Spain, which they now blame on the national government.
At the moment, you are allowed to leave the Madrid region but not to enter another one. You can take a plane from Madrid Airport to France, but can not travel 20 km.(12.4 miles) to visit your family in neighbouring Castilla-León.
In effect, Spaniards can not move around Spain, but can move in and out of it. Also, people from any EU country can fly to Spain and travel around Spain. This has made lots of Spanish people very angry, particlarly during the Semana Santa (Easter) holiday period when many Spanish people go back to their home towns and villages for Easter and many Madrileños like to head for the beaches on the Costa Del Sol.
So... Madrid has become the party centre of Europe, particularly for young French binge-drinkers whooping it up when the locals are hell bent on getting out. Germans have been fleeing from areas in their own country with rising Covid numbers to areas like Mallorca where there is a low incidence of Covid. (at the moment).
The wearing of facemasks is causing the latest hoo-ha. The rules are as labyrinthine as the Laws of English Cricket or ´the offside rule´
You don't need to wear a mask during exercise, including swimming in the sea or in swimming pools, nor during 'rest periods', but for rivers and beaches you have to remain 'in a specific place' and keep 1.5 metres away from non-household members. You must wear a mask when you're walking to a beach or river bank or a lakeside and in changing rooms.
You must wear a mask inside or outside a bar 'except for the moments necessary for drinking and eating'.
Originally, Sanidad (the Health Ministry) had said that you must wear a mask even when walking outside in the country or up a mountain, which was both unreasonable and difficult to enforce - criteria that have never been an issue in English, Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish rules. Yes, we have our own Comunidades here, and they make their own rules too.
Of course, in Spain, you still have to wear a mask in enclosed areas and in busy public places.
'While masks should be obligatory in enclosed spaces, it is not necessary for everyone to wear one. 'What's important is that people who are infected wear one - although we don't know who is infected and who isn't.'
Fernando Simon, head of Spain's co-ordination centre for health emergencies and alerts.
I do hope that nobody is depending on this blog for up-to-date information on wearing facemasks.
Spain is facing a fourth wave of the coronavirus which has already infected 3,326,736 people and claimed 76,037 lives.
Pie News
On a lighter, but high calorie note, I have news from Pieland.
Last week Mrs. Sánchez suggested that, as we are allowed, under the new rules to go futher than 5 miles from home, she would like to visit her sister who is currently residing in a care home in Shaw, near Oldham, Greater Manchester,
It would have to be 'window visit' using mobile phones to communicate through a closed window. The idea appealed to me, even though it meant driving 200 miles for a half hour visit and taking two dogs with us. Of course it was worth the trip! They hadn't seen each other for over a year. How could I object to such a 'mercy mission'?
I had received a tip-off from a usually unreliable scource that the Shaw branch of Asda stocked Holland's Pies.
So off we went, equipped with a pre-primed cool box to transport the frozen pies back to Brum.
This was the first time we had driven any distance in England during Easter in 20 years. We are usually in Álora at this time of the year, and in April last year we were under house arrest in Birmingham. Can you believe it? Asda was closed! All the shops were closed. There was not a pie to be had in the whole town, not even for ready cash.
I sometimes think they go a bit over the top in Álora during Semana Santa (Easter), and I admit it was Easter Sunday, but surely this is taking Christianity a bit too seriously. No pies!!?
Mrs. Sánchez and her sister had a nice chat, but the day was a soured by the failure of my unsuccessful piegrimage.
On Tuesday I rang the Holland's Pie factory in Baxenden, deep in the beautiful and relatively unknown, Lancashire Dales, and asked where I might find a Holland's pie in the Midlands. I'd already tried Asda and Iceland. I got through to Mrs. Wainthropp, Head of Pie Location, UK Division.
'If it's a meat pie you're after you may be out of luck as they are rather regional.' said Mrs. Wainthropp,
So much for globalisation.
And yet, after a couple of minutes of pie perusal, she came up with Farm Foods in Acocks Green, just ten minutes drive away. 'They had an order from us two weeks ago. 24 steak and kidney pies, two dozen steak puddings and 25 meat pies.'
I rushed round there and bought the lot.
Best Wishes
Juanito Sánchez April 12th. 2021.
