Andalucid Again

This Cloistered Life: Reflections on the coronavirus lockdown

With thanks to Fred Shively for the photos in this post

This Cloistered Life

"For in this Rose containéd was / heaven and earth in little space.” (Medieval carol)

Today, as for the past fifty days, I am sitting in the bright ringing silence of our dining room in this town flat, where I also work and write.  Lunch is over, work becalmed, there is nowhere to go and no-one can visit. Day after day, my husband and I observe the ceremonies of breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner; go out separately for short walks with the dog, and watch a film or TV series at night. Twice a week, I carry out a masked raid on the nearest small supermarket.

I’m not unhappy.

And I’m not alone in this feeling. Several family members and friends admit to finding this new, more limited life not only bearable, but in some ways preferable.

“We don’t have to give or accept invitations to lunch or dinner.”

“We’re saving a lot of money, the days have more space for things we want to do, a rhythm and peace.”

“No-one else is doing anything exciting or going anywhere ‘awesome,’ any more than we are.” (No mo’ FOMO)

“I can watch Holby City in peace and without feeling guilty…”

I am finding the reduced demands on my time, attention, energy and money surprisingly liberating. I feel protected from the many calls the outside world made on these commodities. I feel cloistered.

The Order of St. Clare (‘the Poor Clares’) was founded in 1212. Inspired by the preaching of St. Francis, Clare of Assisi, an aristocratic young woman, refused the marriage planned by her parents and embraced a life of poverty, seclusion and contemplation.

The Poor Clares are members of the strictest order of cloistered life, the Papal Cloister. Here, “the presence of strangers can be admitted only in case of necessity…it must be a space of silence and recollection, facilitated by the absence of external works…”¹

Clare’s rules for nuns have come down through the centuries unchanged: “once her hair has been cut off round her head and her secular dress set aside, she is to be allowed three tunics and a mantle … she may not go outside the monastery except for some useful, reasonable, evident, and approved purpose.”²

Now my hair is growing out a fine penitential grey, and Clare’s ‘three tunics and a mantle’ have been transmuted into three interchangeable teeshirts and two pairs of jeans. As for ‘going outside the monastery’, my husband and I only emerge for the ‘evident and approved purpose’ of taking our dog on a toilet run, or buying ever stranger combinations of ingredients with which to conjure up cheering meals.  Our days are bounded by customs that have become traditions, in a cycle as sacred as the canonical hours.

In ordinary times, so much resource goes into how I look to the outside world. I am amazed at how well I can live without all the stuff – clothes and cosmetics; particular brands and types of food and drink; travel and entertainment choices – all the things I thought were the minimum for the good life, before Coronavirus captivity both narrowed and expanded my views.

I’m looking at photographs on a beautiful website called Cloistered Life. The nuns appear to live exclusively in ‘the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’. In her whitewashed room, a Sister kneels beside her narrow bed with its drab wool blanket, to pray. Above her, blessed light pours in through white-curtained windows. It is a scene from a medieval Book of Hours.

In another picture, a nun sits on a dark wooden bench, in a garden carpeted with lawn and furnished with flowers. Sunshine tints the mellow stone wall behind her copper-gold. Tranquility breathes from the very photos. Here in their different silences, “Vultum Dei Quaerere,” the nuns ‘seek the face of God.’ In the quiet of this warm-day siesta hour, I glimpse the healing force of peace and contemplation.

Back to the real (surreal) world, where to date nearly 3.5 million people have been diagnosed with COVID-19 and more than a quarter of a million have died. There is grief, anger and worse to come. Yet fragile but positive outcomes are also emerging. For the first time in 30 years, it is possible for the people of the Punjab to see the peaks of the Himalayas, over 100 miles away. Up to 100,000 deaths could now be prevented if China’s slowdown continues to clear away the deadly smog hovering over its industrial regions.

Towns and cities all over the world – even some banks and businesses – have breathed life on the embers of community spirit and some are practising practical compassion for vulnerable individuals. Hard-pressed workers are catching up on sleep, regular meals and family life. Yet I and everyone I know talks about ‘getting back to normal,’ as soon as may be.

I long for Spain’s ‘estado de alarma’ to pass. I envisage a fresh morning and café con leche by the fountain in the plaza, our streets full of familiar faces again, the shops full of exciting ingredients. People smiling again, shouting greetings across the road, kids playing, dogs walking their people into town. Perhaps one day, I will have a good laugh with my brother and sister once more, all sitting together in a favourite London bar.

But behind this healthy wish, I harbour a shadow desire - that things will never ‘go back to normal’. Greed of gain of those already drowning in wealth; politicians mouthing dangerous platitudes to hang on to power and governments that have been hijacked by corporate interests; healthcare that is more ailing than the patients who need it; a new cohort of slave-labour emerging from a numberless desperation; travel anywhere, everywhere and for no good purpose. The resumption of the oblivious rush to the deeper doom of accelerating climate change.

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone,” wrote French philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623-1662). However that may be, I hope that when I emerge, when we all emerge from the ‘war on Covid-19’, that ‘peace’ and its attendant unleashing of appetites and activities, does not turn out to be the more dangerous outcome after all.

One of the Poor Clare’s four vows is the vow of poverty: “we are emptied of things to be filled with eternal riches; we are set free from slavery to materialism, secularism, and consumerism.” Denied the happy distractions of getting and spending, I have found the past few weeks to be surprisingly rich in moments of joy. Forced to turn inwards, I have found, at times, a “heaven and earth in little space.”

¹ https://cloisteredlife.com/introduction

² https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/inside-the-cloister

 

100 Days of Solitude: Week 4 of social distancing in Spain - Easter Memories

PHOTO: Costaleros carry a sacred statue of Christ through the streets of Malaga. (With thanks to Fred Shively, 2013)

 

WEEK FOUR/Estado de Alarma

Sunday 6 April

Heading into Week 4 of the Great Seclusion which is also ‘Semana Santa’ or Holy Week here in Spain. Here there is less focus on Christ’s joyful resurrection on Easter Sunday, rather, a darker homage to the Passion, his last hours and Crucifixion. In the many solemn processions that take place during this week, the lifelike Jesus figure is mostly depicted as hollow-eyed and hollow-chested, bedaubed with scarlet wounds, often followed by his despairing mother, both dressed in exquisite velvet and gold.

Semana Santa is also the week every year when even the smallest towns and one-bar villages in the Alpujarras region of Granada awake from their winter hibernation. Although it is often showery, there is usually plenty of sunshine too. Hotel, bar and restaurant doors are flung open to welcome the crowds of visitors from Granada and abroad, and our eco-tourism season starts with a flourish.

Not this year. Was there ever a Semana Santa like this one in modern times? No firecrackers, no church bells, no processions. Just a heavy silence and empty streets under sombre skies.

On 3 April, Spain recorded 950 deaths from the virus in 24 hours. Meanwhile, to date there are more than 10,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Andalucia alone, with 800 deaths. The outlook for lives and livelihoods is gloomy. Resurrection is postponed if not cancelled outright.

 

Monday 7 April

For nearly four weeks, I have only spoken face to face with Fred. Even my friend and faithful dog-sitter comes to the door in a mask now. The first week, shopping in town was an adventure. Now I’m starting to dread turning the corner into our sparsely-peopled main street. I don’t know most of the faces behind the masks and in any case, casual chats seem out of place. You must process purposefully round the little supermarket and get out as soon as you can – the next six customers are queueing outside, and the six after them. My town is turning strange on me, and getting home is a relief.

 

Wednesday 9 April

At the beginning of the so-called lockdown, I made great plans to get fitter, thinner and smarter before we were liberated. I carefully allotted time to become eloquent in English and fluent in Spanish, to read important books and work out. After all, I’d have all day! Instead, we often get up at the unheard-of hour of 9.00 am (after going to bed at 1.00 am). At 11.00 am I’m still in my pyjamas at the uncleared breakfast table, messaging and answering emails. Domestic pottering, washing and dressing brings us to lunchtime. After lunch, I oversleep my nap alarm, and wake with a pounding heart to rush to the screen and get some writing in. Exercise is rushed if done at all, Spanish garbled or shelved. When we can all go out again, the days will be even shorter, and so will my list of sketchy accomplishments.

 

Friday 10 April

Housework today is (literally) cursory. Anything larger than dust motes has to be coaxed into the pursed lips of the vacuum brush attachment, and I have to stop at least once to prise soft tubes of compacted dust from the long pipe where they have no business to be.

I’m also texting and responding to messages the whole time. I find a cache of photos in my phone and share them with the family: Mum carefully sorting onion skins at the dining room table, for the last time, to colour hardboiled eggs a deep lacquer red…every year they would go into a decorated basket with Cadbury’s Creme Eggs. Mum and my sister’s partner Alan beaming over their gold-foiled chocolate bunnies…Mum plaiting the sweet yellow dough for the Armenian Easter choreg bread flavoured with mahleb, an aromatic spice made from crushed cherry seeds, and with masdak, pine nut resin.  The air of anticipation in the run-up to Easter Sunday and its foodie celebrations. These bright scraps of memory pile up against the global grey reality until it is all too much and I leave the phone in another room for the afternoon.

My Aunt Jasmine's Armenian Easter bread and eggs coloured with onion skins

Easter Sunday 12 April

“Krisdos haryal i merelots!” Christ is risen from the dead! I would hear Mum on the phone greeting relatives in the traditional Armenian phrase on Easter morning, or replying: “blessed is the resurrection of Christ!” (“Orhnyal e harutyun Krisdosi!”)

There is no-one I can say it to now, but in our family clan WhatsApp today, nearly every household posts photos of their excellent version of doughy choreg or coloured eggs.

In the absence of Easter eggs to break my four month-long chocolate fast, Fred bakes deeply delicious double chocolate brownies. In the evening we watch the 1959 version of Ben Hur, starring Charlton Heston. As kids, we’d watch this every year, along with Spartacus and maybe even The Robe, whatever was on the three channels we could choose from.

Ben Hur was our favourite. Every year we’d shout for revenge when Messala’s wickedly barbed chariot wheels shaved scarily close to Ben Hur’s chariot and his four sweet, brave white horses. We were horrified at the sight of Messala’s bloody wounds after the race. Our skins crawled when Ben Hur descended into the Valley of the Lepers to rescue his mother and sister. And most of all, we would be in bits during the Crucifixion scene, each of us dashing away furtive tears to avoid being jeered at.

And so to bed, three thrilling hours later, comforted by memories and scattering a faint trail of double chocolate crumbs.

100 Days of Solitude: social distancing in small-town southern Spain, Week 3

Eds studying botany at the casita

 

WEEK THREE: 29 March-5 April 2020

 

Sunday 29 March

I don’t much like Sundays; the one day of the week we usually stay at home, not seeing or being seen. It’s a day when domestic chores loom large, and when I miss far-off family and friends more than usual. Today I realise that not only is every day now Sunday, but that many millions are having another week of Sundays too. We are all in the same boat. Somehow this is cheering.

Back in February, some lovely friends left us the keys to their holiday casita in the near campo. A tiny cottage in a huge garden studded with olive and orange trees and swirling with wildflowers. Beautiful junky treasures of furniture and garden décor, and a couple of mismatched sunbeds. Fred and I would take Eddy in the car, together with a picnic lunch. We’d enjoy the warm bright afternoon, and come back as the sun was setting behind the tall eucalyptus trees at the edge of the gardens. Our ears would be filled with birdsong and cock-crow, and our bags with endless oranges.

But we haven’t been since early March. It’s just too far to take my disobedient knee for a walk, and we are not allowed to drive anywhere now, especially together, without good reason. Without a garden or terrace space to our flat, the casita would be a delightful escape. But like other simple pleasures, it will have to wait.

Luckily an active friend who lives in a flat in town is able to get there at least twice a week, with Eds in tow. She says it is keeping her sane and that’s great. Anyway, we like to think of Eds galloping around the grounds, then coming to rest in his favourite clump of wildflowers, basking in the sun.

 

Tuesday 31 March

The rain started at first light. Fred and Eds splashed round their morning route, but by the time I went out for food, the sun was shining, and the mountains around the town had a fresh topping of speckled white.

Gloved and masked, I hobbled to the nearest supermarket. (I tried a ‘simple’ Tai Chi class online yesterday and tripped over while Parting my Wild Horse’s Mane). Each week there seems less to buy, so menus and shopping list get altered on the hoof. Rejecting the last bag of pink rubber commas masquerading as prawns, I hook the last pack of salmon fillet instead. Half a chicken again, good for two or three meals, and – small victories – in the permafrost section of the freezer, a rogue packet of Hot X Buns! I am keeping them for Easter Sunday, when I can once again spread them with proper butter after my Lenten dairy fast.

Fred collects the bags and hands me the rubbish to take up to the public bin; soon I’m back indoors again. I’ve felt ill-disposed to socialise today, even from behind my pastel pink mask. Sad at the weight of uncertainty and fear all around us, at livings and lives lost or in limbo. The rising death rate in Spain is the highest behind Italy and the damage to the economy incalculable. Even when this emergency phase passes, as New York governor Andrew Cuomo says: “life won’t be going back to normal, but to a new normal.”

Wednesday 1 April

Up four times during the night to try and stop Eddy’s exuberant snoring. At 5.30 am I give up and get up, and we self-isolate on the living room sofa. Wedged in along the length of my legs, his liquorice nose tucked between my feet, he settles down to sleep without another sound. I doze and half-dream about the new supermarket aisles that will be set up for biohazard products; masks, gloves and gowns, hand sanitizer and wipes, electronic thermometers…special offers on family packs.

Late in the afternoon, out with Eds, a warning thunderclap sets us hurrying home.  Too late to miss the sleet-storm, pelting us with needles of ice as we run back. From the safety of the living-room windows I watch the sleet billowing across the dark greens of the far trees, the sun dazzling through the nearer eucalyptus, leaves electric green, sparkling with a million diamonds. It’s my happiest moment in three weeks.

 

Friday 3 April

Happy Birthday Mum! She would have been 91 years old today. I’m glad she didn’t live to experience all this – in spite of her blindness, deafness and increasing frailty, Mum remained highly sociable and hospitable to the end. She would not have been able to connect at all via social media. I bring her photograph into the dining room, put it next to the single splendid red rose our tiny balcony ‘garden’ has produced, and light a candle for her.

We find the last dozen paper muffin cups and Fred bakes orange and vanilla muffins, a wonderful taste of spring on a cool, grey afternoon.

 

Saturday 4 April

I overdo the social media contacts this morning, and spend the rest of the day avoiding the screen – any screen. I hear about people in difficult situations. Couples that were only staying together by spending most of their time apart, now held captive by coronavirus. A friend with MS who went back to the UK to help her mum, who has cancer, and is now stuck there while her partner carries on alone in Spain. A friend in the UK whose elderly father from our neighbouring village is in hospital with Covid-19. Will she see him again?

We talk to good friends in the States. Jovial as ever, they tell us how they were hurried out of Wal-Mart on Monday as soon as the ‘shelter in place’ order went out. They’d been buying baseball bats, in order to defend their home from the law-and-order fallout they anticipate once the immediate emergency is over. Meanwhile, they were waiting to take delivery of a gun, but with demand far exceeding supply in their state, they hadn’t been able to pick one up with the groceries. This is a professional couple living in a pleasant Maryland suburb. Anticipating the desperation of those left to fend for themselves. With the 10 million jump in unemployment registration over the past two weeks, perhaps they are just being pragmatic.

The Spanish government will now extend the ‘estado de alarma’ until 26 April. Although the rate of deaths is slowing, I don’t think anyone is surprised by the extension. I would like to know when people will feel safe to sit at the same outdoor tables again, or go to the hairdresser, or get on a bus? I think it might not be the same day the government tells us it’s OK.

100 Days of Solitude: social distancing in small-town southern Spain, Week 2

With thanks to Matthias Boeckel and Pixabay for the picture of chive blossoms

 

WEEK TWO

 Sunday 22 March – Week Two, Day 1

I wake as daylight fills the bedroom window. For a moment, everything seems fine, then again, that startle of recognition: “This is really happening to us right now.”  This ‘after-the-bomb’ slow-motion transformation of our everyday routine and lifescape. People with shuttered faces hurrying past shuttered shops in deserted streets.

On the news, Chinese families emerge from their 'house arrest' for the first time in eight weeks. You can see their eyes smiling above their masks, as they take in the sun and fresh air. What will be the first signs of hope here? Perhaps our first coffee on the terrace at Galindo’s, every table full of friendly faces upturned to the sun.

Luckily, Fred has channelled his creative energy into cooking and baking. He is my secret weapon for making this situation much more than bearable. Today’s Sunday roast chicken will be turned into Monday’s curry and Tuesday’s stir-fry (helped along with a tub of Pot Noodles).  Even better, the last two prune and walnut muffins he made this week are crumbed into today’s classic Apple Crisp – a triumph!  I tell Fred there is no-one I would rather be trapped indoors with.

Tuesday 23 March – Week Two, Day 2

We’ve decided to plan menus more carefully and shop just twice a week for groceries. This morning’s ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ mission: go up the hill to the car, drive to vets for giant bag of wheat-free kibble and special diet tinned food for Eds. Stop at pharmacy for one missing medication; Fred assures me he will be a goner by Thursday teatime if it is not replaced. Drive past street door and dump food with waiting Fred. Park car even further than usual, walk to greengrocer, leave bag to collect on my way back. To supermarket to order half a corn-fed chicken for Friday. Return home via greengrocer’s, with siege provisions for rest of week.

Wednesday 24 March – Week Two, Day 3

There is a knock at the door after breakfast. Yolanda, who lives in our block, and who I never spoke to before yesterday, presents me with three handcrafted cotton face masks. A manly blue one for Fred, pink for me, faced with pink gingham, and a little baby size one – maybe it’s for Eds! How kind. Three guesses what I put in the inner panels to insulate the masks…

I think about getting the vacuum cleaner out and doing the rugs. Unfortunately, though the time available for housework has expanded significantly, my interest in doing it has remained exactly the same size as it was. The vacuum cleaner is left undisturbed, gathering dust.

I have found a hair colour I can live with, a dark blonde shade. According to the picture on the box, I will emerge as a pouting beauty with rippling golden tresses. I think it is just a serving suggestion.

Thursday 25 March – Week Two, Day 4

I talk to a friend living in London. She admits to being quite relieved at the lack of social obligations – nowhere to go, no-one to see. She can watch Holby City guilt-free; pollution levels are way down; people are rediscovering a sense of community; we are seeing how much the NHS really matters. The clamour of sports and celebrity trivia has dwindled to a whisper. If we are fortunate, we might look back on this strange few weeks and months and think it was not all bad.

Friday 26 March – Week Two, Day 5

I’m out with Eds for his teatime walk, and juggling a bag of fruit and veg from Antonio, whose stall is at the end of our block. I hiss my order at him as I go past with the dog, fling money on the counter and collect the bag at speed on the return leg. Often a local policia squad car is parked across the road, watchful. Hopefully this doesn’t count as a shopping trip, as I have the dog in tow. And Eds will never blab.

On this rare rainy afternoon, the Lujar mountains are slate grey against the pearl grey sky, white clouds billowing across them, a magical frame for our small, sleeping town.

It’s a local fiesta today, when the Alpujarras’ patron saint, El Cristo de la Expiración, is paraded from the church at sunset, accompanied by the Virgen de los Dolores. It is a matter of pride to Orgiveños that the ensuing hectic release of firecrackers, the ecstatic crescendo of  noise and dense smoke, are unrivalled in the many similar ceremonies that take place in Andalucia around this time. This year, it is all played out as usual, echoing eerily through the deserted high street.

Saturday 27 March – Week Two, Day 6

Every day this week has produced a record number of coronavirus fatalities for Spain. Madrid is the epicentre; here in our little town, the only infections we know about have happened to three members of the post office team. And yet the possibility of infection seems to lurk around every corner, the invisible item given out with the change in every shop. Our ‘estado de alarma’ seems to have been in place for a long time already, but we all know there is a long way to go. 

100 Days of Solitude: social distancing in small-town southern Spain

WEEK ONE

Sunday 15 March – Day 1

Our 'estado de Alarma' has already begun, eased in on a Sunday when shops are always shut anyway.

Today I went out only to take the dog for a walk.  The first rain in weeks had revived all the green growing things. Intense perfume of orange blossom with whiffs of wild garlic, raindrops still glittering on leaf and flower, the mild still evening. I could have walked for hours in near solitude. Stripped of possibilities for being anywhere to meet anyone, time feels expanded, I am less restless than usual on a Sunday. Should I feel this good?

I'm sad for our local bars, cafés and restaurants. They are the best part of our town, each with its own personality presiding over it, grumpy and grudging or warm and welcoming. Some, already trading on slim margins, will have closed their doors for good.

To bed, where all the baffled hopes and plans of all my family members, friends and complete strangers weave a veil of worry around my head.

 

Monday 16 March – Day 2

Cool and showery, this morning’s grey sky sets the new tone. Armoured in my beacon-red puffa jacket, I set off with shopping list and bag in hand. I need to reassure any passing Guardia Civil patrol that I am just an anxious housewife out to get basic supplies for my clamouring family.

On his usual corner, Andy, one of our street entrepreneurs, is scowling into a rubbish bin. He usually has a cheerful greeting to share, but this morning, he doesn’t even see me. The police won’t let Andy stay on the street all day now, and anyway who will pass by to give him change?

In my local mini-supermarket, staff are wearing masks and gloves. Usually, it’s a social hub, but no-one is even making eye contact today, as if glances could transmit. Shelves are still half-stocked, though choice is already more limited. I buy sliced bread, a big jar of Marmite, more baked beans and coffee.

I planned to use these weeks to get slimmer, fitter, by exercising every day. I would step out in Holy Week, toned if not exactly tanned, wearing my skinniest black jeans and a black vest, transformed. Instead, I go back to the supermarket this evening and buy a huge bag of salt and vinegar crisps for me, and the Thai flavour for Fred. And I seize the last-but-one packet of frozen crumpets with a secret, savage joy.

Rain stopped before lunchtime, but the bright air has turned sharply cold, with a sawtooth wind. I need comfort food to face our sad, diminished streets again.

Tuesday 17 March – Day 3

I’m starting to understand that the next two weeks are going to feel like one very long Sunday. Don’t think about it.

Poor Antonio – our greengrocer is wilting more quickly than his unsold lettuce, without the rain of social contact that he flourishes in. I usually hear his voice below my bathroom window every morning, booming out greetings to passing drivers and pedestrians, or hanging out loudly with ‘the Choir’ – five or six of his old friends, who gather around the bench opposite his shop.

Today Antonio is wearing a mask as well as gloves. He says almost no-one has been in, and is taking an unusually gloomy view of things. He could be right – there are fewer people than ever in the street, and no-one I know. When you do see someone, you feel abashed, furtive, as if they have caught you outside after curfew.

When I get back from walking Eddie, I see a message from a friend who lives in town. She’s getting cabin fever after a whole day indoors, so I offer up Eds to her for a bonus walk after dinner. He looks at me reproachfully, but I tell him we all have to do our bit right now.

Wednesday 18 March – Day 4

Reader, today we defrosted the freezer. Over the past year, a mini-Ross Ice Shelf had formed above the top drawer. After a long morning spent pouring away ice-melt, swabbing everything dry, and throwing out age-old packets of petrified proteins, we gazed on our depleted but orderly freezer with quiet satisfaction.

Later, I worked out how to use liquid detergent in the washing machine. I’ve had a big bottle of the stuff in the laundry for months but couldn’t work out the Spanish instructions. It took an hour, plus washing out the dispenser and polishing the top of the machine. And I caught up with all the laundry. By the weekend I will probably be scrubbing behind the toilets.

Thursday 19 March – Day 5

Sounds that don’t soothe: In the big villa opposite our dining room, someone is busy with power tools. I shut the windows tight against the fitful rattle and rasp of the drill. Later, our upstairs neighbour seems to be hacking at furniture. And every breakfast-time, a shower door (?) slams repeatedly, directly above us. Owing to the strange position of our corner flat, we are not even sure exactly who counts as our neighbour on one side. We are only sure that we wish they hadn’t started DIY projects this week.

Our US client sends a kind email, also asking us to hold all marketing activity on this year’s event until further notice. As for so many others, the next few months are shrouded in uncertainty about work and pay.

I delete my Guardian news app, which I have been checking around 20 times a day to get my next fix of shock and awe. It had to go and I feel better without it.

Saturday 20 March – Day 6

This time last week, I was sitting on a busy, sunny terrace having coffee with a friend, who was going to drive back to the coast afterwards.  It seems like another life, and I suppose it was. Yesterday, Spain suffered its highest 24-hour coronavirus death toll, with 235 fatalities and almost 20,000 confirmed cases.

In our small local supermarket I assess the remaining shades of hair colour with which to rescue my greying roots. Black seems improbable, blonde, impossible. I decide to let it go. When this is over I will emerge like Mrs. Rochester from her attic, clawing long grizzled locks aside and frightening the young.

With work currently on hold, I’ve tried to create some kind of daily timetable, to stop me binge-reading Edith Wharton novels on my Kindle App. There is Domestic Chores Hour, K.I.T. with Family and Friends Hour; Writing Hour ( or ‘Not Writing Hour’). Followed by Fitness Hour and Spanish Language Hour, then Dinner. Followed by Collapse In Front of Netflix Hour (actually 2.5 hours on average), and so to bed.

In practice, all these Hours tend to seep into each other, and I find myself doing KIT with FF in response to a random WhatsApp message, when I should be doing Domestic Chores, and so on. Anyway I should have plenty of time to refine and perfect my self-immolation routine over the next few weeks.

I reinstall my Guardian news app.

 

What Lies Beneath: The Mercury Mines of Timar

From the busy streets of Orgiva, the deep silence of Timar is around 20 kilometres and a world away.

Winding up the A348 Alpujarran mountain road in the direction of Torviscón, the busy shops and offices, the cars and people threading the streets of Orgiva are soon left behind. The hills sharpen to crags, the road narrows and climbs. Already in this April-in-February weather, the verges are starred with delicate yellow wildflowers, a type of asphodel.

Half an hour or so brings us to the village of Lobras. Of its 120 inhabitants, none are outdoors on this dazzling morning. There are two fine old parish churches here, and traces of its Moorish past. A little further on, and we are in Timar.

I read that the huge mercury mines at Almadén, in Castilla-La Mancha, produced more mercury than any other place on earth over the 2000 years that they were worked. From 1910 to 1936, Timar was also an important centre for mercury mining. Italian and Spanish companies built factories here; the Italians at the edge of the Nieles ravine, the Spanish on the hillside at Cádiar. In its underground labyrinth of galleries, men cursed and sweated and sickened, hacking at the glistening cinnabar (mercury sulfide). Flung the rock into steel cages, which clattered through fiery ovens. Cooling and condensing, reacting with oxygen, the cinnabar released sulphur dioxide and vapour, cooled to liquid, quicksilver, mercury. 

I try to imagine the scene, the flame and fume, the galleries ringing with the clang of iron tools and the shouts of men. On this genial spring day, the only sound is a soft breeze ruffling the leaves of the eucalyptus. Almond blossom from candyfloss trees scents the air with a hint of marzipan. The mighty Moorish fortress on the highest point, El Fuerte (the Strong), is reduced to a single crumbling wall, melting into the mountainside. The mines have left almost no trace.

At the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris, American sculptor Alexander Calder was commissioned to design a streamlined fountain for the Spanish Republican pavilion. In place of water, it flowed with pure Spanish mercury. Calder’s fountain gleams on today, at the Fundació Juan Miró in Barcelona’s museum, its deadly beauty now contained behind thick glass.

You can visit the handsome little ‘Museo Malacata’ in Timar, next to the church square. It showcases the tools and traditions of mercury mining, as well as other local crafts, weaving, silkworm breeding and ceramics. Open by appointment: call (+34) 958 768 107, Monday to Friday, 9.00 am to 2.00 pm. Or outside hours, 679 038 079.

 

Made in the Alpujarra

I wasn’t planning to go to the Féria. I’d seen the collection of rather soggy plastic structures around the sports ground this rainy Semana Santa (Holy Week). Local kids were expending their abundant energy in between cloudbursts and I had no wish to try out what looked like a mini-fairground. Why would I go to Féria? Ten days after knee surgery I am barely hobbling around the flat.

But Fred called me this morning. “You have to come to the Féria,” he said, his words tumbling over themselves in his boyish excitement. “There’s loads going on here, there are bees, and jewellery, and, and...local craft beers. And there’s chocolate!” Suddenly I felt a surge of wellness. As if on wings, I glided out of the flat, along the street and down the long ramp to the indoor sports hall.

Fred’s enthusiasm was justified. Orgiva’s 24^th Festival of Alpujarran food, drink and handcrafts has been filling the huge, brightly-lit hall with excited stallholders and visitors – up to 20,000 people are expected to sample the goodies on offer this weekend. “Made in the Alpujarra” showcases many classic products and produce –plus a few surprises.

The Asociación Disfruta Sin Barreras (Enjoy life without barriers) is a familiar sight in Orgiva’s indoor eco-market.. The charity brings together mixed groups of volunteers with “differently-abled” members from all over the Alpujarra. The groups enjoy days out with a purpose, gathering local herbs and flowers to dry and sell on their flourishing medicinal herb stall at the eco-market. They plan outings from the remoter villages into Orgiva to visit the theatre and socialise over coffee and tapas. It’s a joyful project. Visit their eponymous Facebook page to find out more.

Florentina Cocina is a mum-and-son outfit based in beautiful Laroles, high up in the Sierra Nevada and famous for its chestnut trees and delicacies. Alejandro and his mamá produce a rainbow of sauces and salsas, all homemade, all free of animal products. Some are daringly labelled 'picante' and create a mild buzz on the palate rather than clobbering your taste-buds.

Knowing my love of loud buzzing stinging things, Fred deliberately walked me past the Alpujarra honey stall at Miel Sierra Nevada. A large glass panel on the counter was alive with bees on their annual weekend out to promote their fragrant product range. On the other side, a large and luscious honeycomb glistened. In between, glass jars of amber, carnelian and pale gold honeys wait to be spread on toast or blobbed into herb tea.

It wasn’t all about food. Cabinetmaker Pedro y Hijos is showing stylish and original furniture, ranging from vintage to futuristic. 80 percent of the pieces from this local workshop are makde from reclaimed local olive wood, the rest from sustainable (non-tropical) hardwoods. On the stand is a pair of doors from the now defunct Hotel Suizo in Lanjarón. Made from chestnut and adorned with local ‘primitive’ carvings and traditional metal ‘rejas’ (decorative bars), the doors were created for the hotel when it opened in 1903. A coffee table rests on a massive twisted olive trunk, grown right here in Orgiva.

Finally, chocolate! Both Chocolate Sierra Nevada and the Abuela Ili stalls were luring visitors with a riot of flavours in chocolate and turron, dipped fruits and gourmet ‘bonbons’. Flavours include Alpujarran amber beer, Olive Oil with Fleur du Sel, Gin and Tonic with pink peppercorn, white chocolate with apple, walnut and cinnamon, and white again, this time with pomegranate. Or mango. Or wait a minute, lime and pistachio. I spent a good 20 minutes in happy confusion, before buying the Abuela’s chilli chocolate for Fred, and for me, a slab of milk chocolate with kikos, (salted, toasted, crunchy maize snacks) as an Easter treat.

Tomorrow, Easter Sunday, is the last day of the Féria, and it will be open all day until 7.00 pm. It's in the large indoor sports hall at the sports ground, more or less opposite the Correo/Post Office, as you enter Orgiva from the Lanjarón side. Celebrate Easter here in true Alpujarran style - highly social, noisy, colourful and delicious. And remember, Féria is also an effective pain reliever for tortured knees. Not many people know that.

 

Alpujarra water gremlins at work

About two weeks ago, we noticed a smell of damp plaster in Fred's office and our big living room at the end of the hall. Our Spanish friends said it was just stuffy from winter and we should air the place. We duly flung open windows, relished the early warm spring and breathed deep.

The smell got stronger. A small patch of mould appeared above Fred's office desk. "It's where he breathes/vapes" said the clued-up locals. We sprayed the mould and it disappeared. Easy!

The smell got stronger still and last week, the plaster started to bubble unmistakeably. A few tears of water rolled down the office wall, straight into the plug sockets above the desk. This past weekend, two loud crashes announced the decline and fall of two framed posters, sliding down the wall and petulantly smashing their glass into a thousand shards. I was going to call M. Night Shyamalan with a new movie idea. (Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Split, Glass, and now Water Gremlins).

Water began to pool, seeping at Olympic speeds until we were mopping on the hour almost every hour. Yesterday, the electricity kept cutting out every 10 minutes, then every five. We called in the cavalry. Our excellent landlord was on to it straight away. The insurers sent a builder and plumber round within hours. We kept smiling as they picked and hammered a large hole in the dividing wall and handed each other tools and advice through it.

Water ploshed and plaster flew (that wall is/was painted a tasteful cafe´con leche colour). The guys resisted all offers of tea, coffee, chocolate biscuits or even water. Within three hours, the water gremlins had been banished, and the walls in both rooms sported fantastic mushroom designs in fresh plaster. I am sure we will not even notice these in a day or two. 

Now we just wait two weeks and it is said that a painter will appear as if by magic, to make it all lovely again. The water gremlins have been wrung out - for now.