another day, another lemon puff

low-maintenance planting

We normally start the day with a crossword.

"What's up with you?"
"This tea looks funny"
"What do you mean funny?"
"It looks like washing-up water"
"Oh stop being fussy!"
"I'm not - I just think if you're going to make me a cup of tea you should put the tea bag in it"
"!!&$!?*&%#!£!! And what did your last slave die of?"
"...........Insolence"


In an attempt to keep fit/stay healthy/break up the day/justify another biscuit
we fit in to our hectic circadian schedule twelve minutes of exercise courtesy of Mr. Motivator.  Mr. Motivator, or Derek now that we're on first name terms, used to do an exercise slot on breakfast TV back in the day.  Now he's in his late sixties but happily uploading his Daily Dozen workouts (12 minutes, twice a week, but we forgive him the misnomer) which are recorded in his kitchen with him and his wife doing the routines and trying not to kick the washing machine, the corner of which is always just projecting out into the front left of picture.  We hold canned chickpeas whilst we exercise instead of weights.  To be perfectly honest, I detest doing exercises like this - I'd much rather be playing a sport - but these days there doesn't seem to be an alternative and we spend the rest of our days in a prone position.

We wake one day and the sky is full of clouds.  It's the rainy season but Baja California rarely gets any of it.   The dark clouds provide some relief from the hot sun, but it's an illusion.  The air is heavy, humid and hot.  By mid-afternoon it's 40 C.  

Marie celebrates her quarantine birthday with Juan

Juan and Marie, our cycle-touring neighbours, sometimes suggest a Friday evening drink on the shared patio.  We tell them our plans:  we have decided to leave Mexico and return to Europe.  We want to carry on cycling but not here.  We have too many doubts about the situation here.  We are waiting to see what restrictions are being lifted in Europe and where we could go.  We are also looking at flights.  Usually, looking for flights is a cheerful  pastime full of hope anticipation and excitement but at the moment it has an obsessive and somewhat desperate feel about it.

quarantined in La Paz

Good news!  We are orange.  Not literally.  But the federal government has designated certain states as orange which allows the state government to relax some restrictions.  This means that the malecon is now open to cyclists and most of the beaches are open.  Restaurants too - although this doesn't impact us as we rarely eat out.  Social distancing rules still apply and numbers are restricted at the beaches.  

We suddenly feel like we're on holiday.  In the early morning we cycle down to the front and ride out to a beach.  There are quite a few locals exercising and riding bikes, jogging.  At the beach, some swimmers.  The sea is cool and there's a nice breeze first thing.  Ooooh, we could do this every day.

The strange thing is that the Covid cases are not going down here.  The situation isn't better than it was when the quarantine began.  The government simply amended the criteria by which it defined the 'traffic light' system of re-opening. Bad news masquerading as good news. Red to orange.  You know when you've been tango'd.