Day 65 - "Stealing from the sun"

Spanish Practices

Day 65, Tuesday and Phase 1 of the unlockdown, today stealing from the sun and the return of the peseta.

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Day 65 Stealing from the Sun

We are in Phase 1 of Unlockdown – it is Tuesday and the weather is improving, bringing with it our hay fever. We both suffer from it, I have to say that I didn’t really suffer in the UK, but although we live in the coast, it really gets me for about a month a year.

Some of culprits include the blossom from Olive trees, they do say if you consume the local honey it can help with immunity to hay fever. The local honey is delicious, a bit like a floral toffee. It comes in quite plain jars that have been filled from a great big vat of the stuff.

It is a bit like the water, which tastes delicious if you go to the spring just outside the village, we lived in. Whilst we were living in the village we filled used water bottles with the water, it had a clean sweet taste to it.

I do ponder that with a solar panel array, some batteries, collecting rainwater and going to get spring water, we could almost live off grid. Many rustic fincas do, they get their water from a spring have solar energy and a cesspit for sanitation.

Up until recently it was quite difficult to live off grid as the Spanish Government decided they owned the sun and that should you dare to put up a solar panel, you were heavy taxed and had to compensate the old state power company for “stealing from the sun”

The European Parliament forced the Spanish Government to overturn the tax and now you can put up solar panels, but you do not get compensated for over producing electricity and putting it back into the grid. So, there is a device that, in effect, wastes the excess energy that you produce, stopping it returning into the grid.

Southern Spain is the perfect place to have solar power and on grid installations are becoming much more common, they are the ones that make hay whilst the sun shines and then rely on the grid at night for power.

Day 65 and I have been on a rubbish trip, normally Chris does this, but as I have put on at least 4 kilograms in the last few weeks, I have decided that I really ought to start increasing my exercise regime.

Oddly rather like the excuse that it is Christmas.. so I WILL eat that piece of cake, the Virus has also given some of us an excuse to have that extra glass of wine, eat a whole packet of crisps.

Now I am beginning to notice that my tee-shirts have either shrunk in the wash or are not fitting me as well as they should, I still can’t go to the big Hypermarket and buy more, not in Phase 1.

Tuesday and the big news is that the Government want to make mask wearing obligatory in all confined spaces, so banks, shops, anything inside, and also outside where social distancing is not possible.

I really don’t like the intrusion of my civil liberty to choose what I wear, but on the other hand if it stops me unwittingly passing on the virus then it is no different to being made to wear a seat belt in a car.

But it will be very odd to see newsreaders on the TV wearing masks, having worked in a TV studio, they are very confined spaces! Also, we are allowed in phase 1 to meet up to ten people on the terrace of a local bar or restaurant, that must also mean wearing masks. It is going to make eating and drinking quite difficult.

I think that is the trouble with making anything ‘obligatory’, it often leads to ill thought out law making.

The Bank of Spain has today revised its impact on the virus, they believe the economy is expected to slump anywhere between 9 and 13% with public debt running at 124% and economic activity not to recover until late 2021.

Once again, the Governor of the Bank of Spain is suggesting that Europe helps out with a ‘risk-sharing’ scheme to mitigate the chances of countries like Spain or Italy failing financially.

Well Europe didn’t help Greece out and I guess the same will happen again with Spain, it will be asked to make the country more efficient, offer more opportunities for self-employment, reward its citizens for success rather than punish them with some of the most draconian tax payments in the world.

Somehow, I doubt that either of those scenarios will happen. It is a country that has had persistently high unemployment and relied heavily on international tourism to prop the economy up.

I also doubt we will see the return of the much-loved Peseta, where five thousand pesetas could get you a very nice full English Breakfast with coffee and a small house in the countryside.

There are plans to include International Tourism that would return when the country reaches Phase 4 in mid-June, which would also allow country-wide travel.

Who knows we are only at Day 65, and the days have turned into months, that might well turn into years too.