To talk to you about life in Spain right now

[Changednamesorry]

In case UK follows many other countries and tightens the rules, I made a post about what it's like here in Spain.

A few things worth buying. Vitamin D for kids in case you are not allowed to take them out from next week, especially if you have no outside space. Craft materials (these are now very scarce here as supermarkets have had to close that section if they had it to discourage browsing). Disney Plus for movie nights. Microwave popcorn!

I live in Spain. We have an apartment in the city centre and no outside space at all. I am separated from my son's father but we chose for him to move in just before the lockdown as we saw it coming in the news and wanted to ensure the kids were not separated from him for months on end. We get on very well, I appreciate this is not an option for everyone. We also have a flatmate who is a lovely 27 year old Portuguese guy. So we are 3 adults and 2 kids in 115 square metres of space..... And that's better than some of our friends who live in 60 or 70 square metre apartments. Spanish children have not been outside for 3 weeks. My sons are 9 and 3 and normally active boys doing lots of sports and we are normally out of the house every day between 8am and 8:30pm. That has all changed. Schools are fully closed and have been since 13th March, no exceptions.

1. How are people coping with kids?

Varying levels of coping, of course. Here with the little one I bake, do drawing, dance, play football inside etc. For the older one I made little bags. One has basketball drills (his favorite sport) which he does 2 a day. One has exercise sets (I will post an example), one has different amounts of screen time and one has activities linked to school (maths, history, Spanish, English, science projects, baking etc). He chooses 3 of those.

1. Grocery shopping.

My ex goes to the shops once every 6 days. That's it. You are asked to carry a paper justifying your journey. You can not go to whatever shop you choose. You must go to the closest one to home. If you are caught turning this into a walk you will be stopped and fined between 600 and 30000 euros. If the police decide you are covering up a walk with a "shopping trip".... Fined. Someone I know was fined 200 euros for only buying a can of coke and a chocolate. We have not seen scenes of panic buying or bulk buying here, possibly because in cities most do not have a car so you take a granny trolley and a couple of bags for life so no space for millones of toilet paper etc. This may be different in rural areas but there haven't been many reports of it (I haven't seen any, in fact). People wear a mask and gloves and supermarkets make you queue outside 2 meters apart and don't let many people in at a time. Most supermarkets also provide gloves and require you to wear them.

1. What can you leave the house for?

Essential food shopping, pharmacy, medical appointments, essential workers, walk your dog (but only so he can go to the toilet... No big long walks) Only allowed to leave the house individually unless you are accompanying someone who is unable to go alone.

4.Can you use your garden or roof terrace?
If it is for private use, yes. If it is for communal use (shared garden or roof terrace with other flats), no. You'll get fined as if you were outside.

1. Clapping?

Yes. Every night for keyworkers at 8pm. Most people join in. Slight difference with UK is its unusual for kids to be in bed before 9pm here. Occasionally will be extra one for kids at 6pm.

1. Doctors appointments

All non urgent appointments canceled. Telephone appointments with emailed prescriptions available and I had one within an hour of asking.

Please stay safe. It's difficult, but it's not forever and it will be less time the more people abide by the rules. Feel free to ask any questions and I will try to answer. It's tough, but we are coping. So will you if the UK tightens the rules for a while.

With regars to DV, it was recognised as an issue when the royal decree was issued. People are allowed to leave their home when fleeing DV, the hotlines and DV services are all running as normal and then it depends a bit on your autonomous community and the extra measures it might be taking.

The principal reason most people are complying in Spain - including expats of various nations - is that things have been so awful that everyone apart from the terminally stupid accepts that - just for now - this is how things need to be, so we can begin to return to normal. Absolutely. Even before our death rates were in the 800s/900s I think most people did recognise that "shit just got real". Maybe those not complying in the UK won't until they are seeing the same figures, I don't know. Maybe it's more that if a lockdown this strict is imposed on you and enforced from day one with big fines and police patrols and drones, and everyone on all your social media is hashtagging everything with yomequedoencasa (I stay at home) and quédateencasa (stayathome) you kind of know it's serious.
The fact that the schools were completely closed too, so suddenly ALL the kids are home, it all adds up to more people getting it more quickly.

Thankyou OP and sending and much love.

everyone on all your social media is hashtagging everything with yomequedoencasa (I stay at home) and quédateencasa (stayathome) you kind of know it's serious

Everyone on my social media in the UK is already doing this, and has been since lockdown was announced. The vast vast majority of people in the UK are as pissed off with the majority flouting there rules as anyone else.

the minority* of people flouting the rules

What about dog walking? (I don't have a dog but people round here are going nuts about their pet's need for stimulation).

I don’t know birds, our death rates are in the 600s and there still seem to be people about who think that the more lax policy we have now should be ended now. I don’t know what sort of numbers they’d need to be seeing in order to grasp the magnitude of the problem.

Thank you so much for your post, I found it very useful and interesting. I hope you are staying safe.

I really think this is what the UK needs. We have proven as a nation we cannot listen and push all of the boundaries and rules. And I personally am fed up of seeing people die unnecessarily.

If the children of key workers aren’t in school, what’s happening to those key workers if all the only / all the adults in the house are key workers?

@m0therofdragons people can take their dogs out but it's supposed to be just for toileting. If you are stopped with a dog and are more than a certain distance from your house (i'm not exactly sure what) you can be fined.

Autistic children (with a diagnosis) are allowed to go for a walk with their parents.

If the children of key workers aren’t in school, what’s happening to those key workers if all the only / all the adults in the house are key workers? I don't really know, all the key workers I know, their partners are not. Also I think the list of key workers who also can't work from home is smaller than the UK (I think). But I guess they are just managing somehow. Opposite shifts maybe?
The idea is that if the schools are partly open then you aren't reducing contact in the same way.

Our town (SE England commuter) is totally dead too. Apart from the odd idiot (my neighbours don’t seem to understand that they can’t have their adult kids who don’t live there pop over Constantly) it’s dead as a dodo. I went to the local Sainos for milk, bread, fresh fruit as we’d run out yesterday and saw one man and his dog. Nobody. Whenever we’ve taken the kids for a scoot round the block we bump into maybe one dog walker and someone out for a run. And everyone crosses the road. I hope it doesn’t get like strict lockdown in Spain.

@Aesopfable For those of you in Spain and Italy. What is the exit strategy? How and when (at what point) will they loosen lockdown? In Spain, the lockdown is going to be extended until the end of April, we're not quite sure, but probably under the same conditions as the first 2 weeks (the second 2 weeks all except essential production was mothballed). They have said this extension won't be the last but that hopefully they can start to change the conditions gradually, so, maybe in a futuere extension people will be able to go for short walks and so on.
One of the things they are talking about is to ease restrictions they want anybody out to be wearing a mask. So, maybe ease some restrictions like allowing walks or some businesses to open but you can't be out without a mask. The problem with that is that there are virtually no masks available to buy and a massive shortage worldwide at the moment.
I think it really depends on how the infection and death rates evolve over the next 3 weeks or so.

Iwantacookie:
In Slovakia, they took various measures very early on. One of the first was to tell people not to return library books, because of the possible risks to library staff, and that all fines were obviously waived.
Another was to shift prescription collection online, to limit people going into pharmacies.
This was several weeks ago, when they had barely any cases.

For those commenting that Italy and Spain are more compliant because of their experience of fascism, I think that's a misreading.
It's more to do with the fact that many (not all...) communities in S. Europe are still less anonymous than in the UK.

In my little provincial SE French town, everyone is very obedient because they know how awful things are in other French regions and in neighbouring countries and really don't want it to get like that here. Vichy is a very long time ago now and irrelevant to this.

But, as PP have said, the issue of policing does make a difference: French municipal police are often armed (50%, I think), while gendarmes are a branch of the armed forces, so you don't piss around with them.
There are very frequent police patrols here, on foot and in cars, and road blocks. I went out for our 1hr authorised exercise yesterday with DS2, who's almost 11. He was on his scooter, a bit ahead of me, and was flagged down by a burly gendarme in a huge bulletproof jacket, with an assault rifle, who wanted to see his papers. That kind of experience makes you realise how seriously this is being taken.

Figures regarding fines also need to be analysed, as they don't necessarily mean everyone is taking the piss: last week, I had a click and collect slot booked at the supermarket, the first I'd been able to get for 12 days, but they rang to say they had to close earlier than planned, so my slot was wiped and I should go straight away. I was WFH, but I rushed to get ready and filled out my papers. Then DS2 asked me sth about the schoolwork he was doing, so I got distracted and picked up the wrong self-certificate along with my ID and keys. I hit a roadblock (it's 1.5km to the supermarket), and was fined because my certificate had the wrong time and activity on. It was one I'd filled in for taking DS2 out for his exercise that morning - I can't combine that with click and collect supermarket shopping because the latter is over 1km from our house.

The French are very inclined to think the law is for bending or for other people, but I've seen far less "I have to cycle for 2hrs a day or I will suffer" attitudes here than in the UK (from what I see on MN and the media), despite people here being very keen on their cycling, running, hiking, etc. Our neighbours are all doing online gym on their balcony/inside.
Having a clear message from the head of state helps, TBH. I'm not a Macron fan, and I think carrying on with municipal elections on March 15th was irresponsible as hell, but he spelt things out clearly once lockdown was announced and thereafter.

We clap at 8pm. Every day. No one thinks it's naff or if they do they just keep their windows shut. It's a nice community ritual each evening, where we call across to check everyone is OK, get updates on people who've got CV and are in self-isolation, etc. Sometimes a neighbour plays the flute or piano after, so we can listen.
Fear of naffness is quite a British trait, in some ways.

Hey OP, just wanted to clap you too - sounds like you're doing really well. A lot of people in the UK have houses and gardens and are still annoyed. I just think we are so far v lucky and should appreciate that.

I wish there was a campaign that encouraged people to see the positives in Lockdown. Certainly here in the UK there's a lot good about it. The biggest problem is money. The rest is doable. And everybody's cupboards will be really organised by the end of it .....

Thank you @Changednamesorry! Interesting read. Stay safe!

"The fact is some people are in a position to have a lot more freedom than others without increasing their risk of catching the virus if they live in a very unpopulated area or have a huge garden."

Current law allows that sensible flexibility and use of indiividual judgement

However, if exercise outside your own garden were banned, it would probably have to be universal.
would be very difficult to exclude "unpopulated areas" from a nationwide law

Many thanks for your information about Spain, Changednamesorry 👍

I haven’t started on the organising of cupboards yet...

Organising cupboards? I’ve got three young children at home, one who has just started walking (and who gets up for the day at 4am) and 2 who I am trying to homeschool. DH is working from home in a key worker role so I have to keep them all semi quiet during the day, and I am doing my own freelance work in the evenings. There will certainly be no cupboard organising going on, the house is a tip.

I don’t have half of that going on, there’s just me in a tiny flat. Things will have to get a lot mor desperate before I decide organising the cupboards is a thing that needs doing.

RafaIsTheKingOfClay I’d have to have read every book I could get my hands on, drank off of the wine and completed Netflix before I organised my cupboards to be fair

I haven't organised any cupboards in the 3 weeks I've been locked down here in Spain. DH works long hours (now from home) and I have to try to do some of my freelance work. At the weekends I find it hard to concentrate on anything for more than about 10 mins.
I've porbably cleaned more than usual, but can't face sorting cupboards.
I have changed meals a bit just to avoid going to the supermarket too often. I don't like all the masks and gloves and queung so far apart, it all feels like a sci fi film, it makes me anxious.

And organise the kids schoolwork and keep them entertained.

For some people, they'll only comply when it's their own family and friends who are ill. Some, not even then.