Where's Bertie? He's sitting looking at the beach, and the Mediterranean beyond, from a car park outside the airfield at Castellón. Exact location: 39.99806, 0.02829.
Weather: Sunny and warm when out of the breeze.
Yesterday the supermarket shelves were bare and thus our need for fresh fruit and veg remained. The obvious thing to do, it seemed to us, was to hit the supermarket first thing this morning.
It was apparent even from 100m away that we were not the only people to have that thought and the ensuing experience was not like anything I have ever seen before.
By ten past nine (they open at 9) it felt like everyone in the entire town was in that shop (making it by far the riskiest place we've been in terms of virus transmission) and, of course, all those people then needed to pay for their shopping. With top marks to the supermarket, they managed to open all of the tills, but to cope with the volume of shoppers they needed about ten times as many. By the time we (with our paltry trolley of ten items, in amongst a sea of trolleys piled high) made it through the check-outs the queues from every single cash desk stretched the whole way up each aisle to the back of the shop. The state of chaos was accelerating as more and more people tried to work out where the queues started/ended and I would expect that soon afterwards tempers would have started to fray. As I said, I've never seen anything like it ... and I was very glad we weren't even three minutes later arriving and thus were able to get through the checkouts whilst only mild chaos reigned. (An hour later, as I made coffee, I realised we'd forgotten to buy pastries. There was no chance of going back to rectify the omission!)
Having toted our stuff back to Bertie (half a mile away, at the Aire), we were surprised to see that a mass exodus had occurred in our absence. Chatting to a few of those who remained, we all assumed that this was because the French and Dutch (who made up the majority of those who had left) had made a run for the French border amid rumours of a possible closure.
With all of the available space, we wondered if we could stay an extra day, so Mick went to ask permission at the nearby 'Aire Control' office. 'No' came the definitive reply.
Having run past the place where we are now, we had yesterday assessed our chances of getting a space here as somewhere around zero. This morning, with the mass exodus up the road, our optimism soared so this is where we came, and to our surprise found just one empty space. It only later occurred to us that we'd witnessed official-looking people checking number plates at the Aire yesterday afternoon and this morning and maybe the departures were because people had overstayed and been told to leave.
As you might expect, given the current situation with Coronavirus, we've had a few discussions about whether we should stay put or head home and had pretty well come down on the side of 'stay'. The question then became whether we were going to get stuck in Spain, in which case we would head south again, or whether we were going to be able to leave as planned in a few weeks, in which case we would likely stay around this area. Indeed, we could happily stay exactly where we are for a good while, if we weren't limited by our toilet capacity (this is only a car park, so it has no facilities, although there is a water tap across the road and a public toilet (not a nice one!) just up the road).
Then this afternoon the situation in Spain escalated. A state of emergency has been declared, a number of towns to the south have restricted movement (removing our option to return to that area), as have a couple of places to the north of us. Amongst other restrictions, the region we are in has closed all bars and restaurants as of this evening.
So, we can stay, enjoy the climate and hope restrictions don't go so far as to stop us wandering around outdoors at will, and hope that we can get home as planned next month. Or we can cut short and enjoy the certainty of being home, even though we won't enjoy the climate. Decisions, decisions...
(No photos today. I really wanted to take some in the supermarket, but felt it would be impolite, and whilst we did walk a few miles along the coast, I took not a single snap on the basis that it wouldn't be dissimilar to the views I shared over the last couple of day.)
Weather: Sunny and warm when out of the breeze.
Yesterday the supermarket shelves were bare and thus our need for fresh fruit and veg remained. The obvious thing to do, it seemed to us, was to hit the supermarket first thing this morning.
It was apparent even from 100m away that we were not the only people to have that thought and the ensuing experience was not like anything I have ever seen before.
By ten past nine (they open at 9) it felt like everyone in the entire town was in that shop (making it by far the riskiest place we've been in terms of virus transmission) and, of course, all those people then needed to pay for their shopping. With top marks to the supermarket, they managed to open all of the tills, but to cope with the volume of shoppers they needed about ten times as many. By the time we (with our paltry trolley of ten items, in amongst a sea of trolleys piled high) made it through the check-outs the queues from every single cash desk stretched the whole way up each aisle to the back of the shop. The state of chaos was accelerating as more and more people tried to work out where the queues started/ended and I would expect that soon afterwards tempers would have started to fray. As I said, I've never seen anything like it ... and I was very glad we weren't even three minutes later arriving and thus were able to get through the checkouts whilst only mild chaos reigned. (An hour later, as I made coffee, I realised we'd forgotten to buy pastries. There was no chance of going back to rectify the omission!)
Having toted our stuff back to Bertie (half a mile away, at the Aire), we were surprised to see that a mass exodus had occurred in our absence. Chatting to a few of those who remained, we all assumed that this was because the French and Dutch (who made up the majority of those who had left) had made a run for the French border amid rumours of a possible closure.
With all of the available space, we wondered if we could stay an extra day, so Mick went to ask permission at the nearby 'Aire Control' office. 'No' came the definitive reply.
Having run past the place where we are now, we had yesterday assessed our chances of getting a space here as somewhere around zero. This morning, with the mass exodus up the road, our optimism soared so this is where we came, and to our surprise found just one empty space. It only later occurred to us that we'd witnessed official-looking people checking number plates at the Aire yesterday afternoon and this morning and maybe the departures were because people had overstayed and been told to leave.
As you might expect, given the current situation with Coronavirus, we've had a few discussions about whether we should stay put or head home and had pretty well come down on the side of 'stay'. The question then became whether we were going to get stuck in Spain, in which case we would head south again, or whether we were going to be able to leave as planned in a few weeks, in which case we would likely stay around this area. Indeed, we could happily stay exactly where we are for a good while, if we weren't limited by our toilet capacity (this is only a car park, so it has no facilities, although there is a water tap across the road and a public toilet (not a nice one!) just up the road).
Then this afternoon the situation in Spain escalated. A state of emergency has been declared, a number of towns to the south have restricted movement (removing our option to return to that area), as have a couple of places to the north of us. Amongst other restrictions, the region we are in has closed all bars and restaurants as of this evening.
So, we can stay, enjoy the climate and hope restrictions don't go so far as to stop us wandering around outdoors at will, and hope that we can get home as planned next month. Or we can cut short and enjoy the certainty of being home, even though we won't enjoy the climate. Decisions, decisions...
(No photos today. I really wanted to take some in the supermarket, but felt it would be impolite, and whilst we did walk a few miles along the coast, I took not a single snap on the basis that it wouldn't be dissimilar to the views I shared over the last couple of day.)
That supermarket account is chilling. I hope you can get sorted satisfactorily one way or the other.
ReplyDeleteHow can you manage for food? Looks like eating out is a no-no?
I am under orders from daughter High Horse to go into lock-down. I do intend to go for circular walks in the-middle-of-nowhere from the car when weather windows permit.
Circular walks from remote car parks sounds like an excellent plan to me. The chance of catching or transmitting in such a context must be at the low end of negligible and you'll get to be out and about without the risk of public transport or busy places.
DeleteAlthough overtaken by events, the fresh food we managed to buy on Friday, combined with the staples that we generally have in anyway, would have been enough to see us through the week, even if we were having some odd combinations by the end of it. Eating out became impossible as of Friday, due to all eateries being closed, which (disappointingly!) means that our last meal out in Spain was at Ikea.
THe Spanish Government has just (13:55 today March 14) enacted a decree effectively puting the entire country into lock-down.
ReplyDeletehttps://elpais.com/espana/2020-03-14/el-gobierno-prohibe-todos-los-viajes-que-no-sean-de-fuerza-mayor.html
I've made a rough translation of the first paragraph of this piece, viz:
The Government will limit the movement of citizens to stop the spread of the coronavirus. All of Spain is now formally closed under a State of Emergency. El Pais has had access to the draft State of Emergency text … defining limitations to freedom of movement, viz:
Citizens "may only circulate on public use roads to carry out the following activities:
a) Acquisition of food, pharmaceuticals and basic necessities.
b) Assistance to health centres.
c) Travel to workplace
d) Return to the place of habitual residence.
e) Assistance and care for the elderly, minors, dependents, people with disabilities or especially vulnerable people.
f) Acess to banking.
g) Force majeure.
Basically no one can move except to go to work, go home, or search for food and medicine
Eeek! We're well on our way towards the French border (not to the nearest bit of France, which may turn out to have been an error). Our ETA in Hendaye is 1830. Let's hope we qualify for movement under the 'returning to place of habitual residence' exception.
DeleteIt looks like much stricter impositions will be implemented here early next week when our dithering government are said to be making a U-turn.
ReplyDelete