Warmer and Freer

I can once finally go outside in the morning with shorts and sandals. The weather is still a little cool, but it’s a pleasant change from always being bundled up for most of the winter, even inside our house.

A few weeks ago, I woke up to a smoke-filled house and a malfunctioning pellet heater. That scared us enough to not turn it on again until someone came to look at it the other day. We think there was a small gap in the pipe leading out of the ceiling and the ashes. Unclear if he solved the problem, but luckily we’re getting to the season where we don’t need it.

On Monday, all four of Galicia’s provinces will be promoted to phase 1 of the deescalation plan. Notably, Madrid will stay in phase 0. But here, we’ll be able to:

• gather in groups of up to ten people while maintaining social distancing. Luckily we have about four friends here plus their kids!
• drive in the van together. For the whole quarantine, we have separately driven down to town to buy groceries or to the post office and back up. We’ve saved quite a bit on gas.
• sit at a terrace restaurant of 50% of its normal occupancy. We’re both not desperate to do this, as we rarely ate out before the pandemic.
• visit the countryside and beaches in limited groups within the same province. The last few weeks with the warming weather, I’ve daydreamed of taking the van out and camping in the middle of nowhere once again. It’s been so long.
• use the gym, but not the changing rooms and by appointment. I finally developed a good routine of going to the gym before the virus came and I hope to be back soon, but I’ll be waiting much longer until things are calmer.

I expected to be in quarantine for much longer, but it seems we’ll make it out of this first wave and finish our different phases by late June. Other than possibly seeing a few friends from a distance here and my in-laws at the coast in July, I’ll be maintaining my social distant vigilance for quite awhile.