I ended my last blog post by stressing my desire for freedom, and thanks to the collaboration of the people here in Spain and the four-step plan laid out by the government, that will soon be on it’s way. The central government have just announced that Madrid will be allowed to move from Phase 0 to Phase 1 of the de-escalation plan on Monday, meaning that I’ll be able to visit friends, wander as far as my heart may desire, and many other things as of next week.

For now, however, I’ve still to keep within my 1km limit, but this has been made more enjoyable my discovery of a park in my neighbourhood that is now open to wander through. This park is quite an interesting one, as it includes a few live railway lines, some wild architecture, and a huge steep hill which gives you some awesome views over the south of the city.

These evening walks keep my energy and optimism up.

The focal point of the park is a large concrete structure and metal chimney which mark the midpoint of a bridge which crosses one of the railway lines. From here, you can enjoy some lovely views up towards the north of the city, as in the photo above. Just off to the east of this structure, which interestingly also doubles as an outdoor expert-level climbing wall, lies the planetarium. I’ve been meaning to visit the planetarium for a while now, but I’ve never got round to it, so I guess it’ll have to wait until the return to the new normality.

On my way home from this park, I noticed that some train tracks in the pavement led under a set of black iron gates which had been sealed tight and covered in dark netting such as to obscure whatever laid behind them. Spotting what looked to be some train platform canopies above the gates, I knew that there was a good chance of spotting some abandoned trains in an abandoned train station, and so began my investigations in earnest.

Following the line of the iron railing, I looked for spots where the netting might have been damaged or loose, but they seemed to have done quite a thorough job of keeping prying eyes (like mine) out. They didn’t fully succeed, however, as I eventually found a couple of gaps, and managed to snap these awesome photos of this closed train station and the rotting rolling stock within.

After some later investigation, it turns out that these platforms used to form part of the old Delicias station, whose new incarnation is where I used to get the train to the office from before lockdown. The old Delicias station is now partly used by the Museo del Ferrocarril (Railway Museum), and party left as storage for old abandoned trains.

On these walks to and from the park, I also found a couple of architectural gems hidden in amongst the generic-looking blocks of apartments which make up a large percentage of my neighbourhood. How lovely would it be to live in a pretty little two-storey apartment in the centre of Madrid, or have a balcony on such a lovely and intricate facade?

Another day I returned to said park a little later in the evening, which provided some lovely evening lighting. This time, I took a few more photos of the large concrete structure which forms part of the bridge, an even a panorama of the views over the south of the city from aforementioned embankment.

In other trips out and about, I headed back up to the main train station, Atocha, and wandered some of the more historical streets of Madrid. I do love my neighbourhood, but it’s always lovely to pass through the beautifully rough majesty of the city centre.

When not out and about, my culinary experiments at home continue, this week with an Italian-style flatbread covered in mozzarella, pesto, dried tomato, olives, and parmesan. It reminded me somewhat of a white pizza, or perhaps even Germany’s flammkuchen, but either way it was delicious.

With that little update, I’ve to leave you until next time, as this weekend I’ve some admin that I’ve to get on with and a lovely steak meal to cook. Keeping with the tradition of my last two blog posts, however, I’ll leave you with a song that I’ve been listening to. This week, it’s time for a Spanish classic, Rocío Jurado’s “Déjala correr”, an absolute belter that always leaves me with goosebumps:

Just over two weeks ago was my birthday, and for some reason I woke up with a song that I used to listen to years ago in my head. In this French song, “J’ai pas vingt ans”, Alizée sings “j’ai pas vingt ans… on est vieux à vingt ans – moi j’ai le temps!” which roughly translates as “I’m not twenty years old, we’re old at twenty – I have time!”

I think that I was reminded of this as this, my 25th birthday, marked quite a milestone for me. I suddenly realised that I was suddenly closer to thirty years old than I am to twenty – just like Alizée sings: I’m not twenty!

As you can imagine with Madrid in lockdown, celebrations were rather light on the ground. I did, however, have the pleasure of opening some cards sent to me from all over the world, and a box full of edible goodies that my mum sent over from England. After these few minutes of indulgence, I logged on to work, but was interrupted shortly after my morning meeting. A delivery man was then at my door, handing over a box from some colleagues which contained a lovely letter, a triple chocolate cake, some candles (24 instead of 25, but that was my fault for not responding to a sly message asking how old I was to be), and a bottle of cava to celebrate the occasion!

This lovely surprise came only days before a key date that the whole of Spain had been waiting for: the first day that we were allowed out for a walk. We had the first of May off, which was a lovely way to relax after a busy working birthday, and I took the opportunity to throw myself together a mask, made from a spare pillowcase as suggested by my auntie!

I spent half an hour braiding some spare wool I had lying around for the strap.

This day off was rather productive, but in reality we were all looking forward to the day after, the 2nd of May, which was the day we could finally step outside without going to the supermarket. For this, the government have set time slots for elderly people, parents with children, and then the general populous. With myself falling into the latter, I am allowed out from 6am – 10am and 8pm – 11pm, and naturally I managed to sleep through the morning slot of the first day.

This meant that I’d another day to kill, which I proceeded to spend cleaning my flat and further perfecting my Spanish omelette (after my last attempt). I think I’ve finally hit the nail on the head, with the centre of the tortilla de patatas just undercooked enough to be slightly liquid without seeing too much like pure raw egg.

A siesta on the sofa was needed after so much omelette.

That evening, however, I was ready to go at 8pm, leaving my flat for a casual wander for the first time in over two months. With an time limit of one hour and a maximum distance of 1km set, I knew exactly where I wanted to go: down to the river. The scene of many a picnic and summer’s evening spent reading, the river is my little slice of nature a mere ten minutes walk from my flat.

I did know, however, that the green areas along the banks of the Manzanares River would be out of bounds, as they are classed as part of a public park, and all of Madrid’s public parks currently remain closed. This didn’t deter me, though, as I knew that the area nearby the Matadero Cultural Centre and the bridge which spans the river and park would provide a lovely spot to watch the sun set.

Once I’d crossed the bridge, I knew that I was coming to the end of my 1km limit, and so began to double back on myself. On the way home I passed such lovely sights as a couple of baby rabbits enjoying some time outdoors with their owners, the pastel-pink sky over a huge abandoned market which is finally going to be given a new life, and a full moon looking down over the illuminated fountains of my neighbourhood as the sky turned dark.

To celebrate this lovely wander around streets that I hadn’t seen for many weeks, upon my arrival back home, I decided that it was time to make good use of some goodies that I had ordered from Lush. Lighting some candles, setting my lighting just right, popping on some slow music, and covering my face with a face mask of a different kind (a lovely peppermint-scented concoction), I converted my flat into a spa for the evening and pampered myself for an hour or two.

With the weather perking up and the streets pretty much empty of cars, there’s really never been a better time to explore the city, and after seeing many families and groups of friends cycle by along the empty roads, I knew that I had to make the most of the opportunity and try and figure out how the road system and crazy roundabouts here work.

Now, I’ve never been the biggest fan of cycling, but after seeing the streets once filled with cars now replaced with people walking, jogging, and cycling, and the usual din of city traffic replaced by the chatter of conversation, people playing music from their windows, and even a family singing karaoke from their balcony, I suddenly found myself turned into an advocate for pedestrianising as much of the city as possible.

The lovely atmosphere was only highlighted by said couple’s choice of song, “Resistiré” (“I will endure!”) by Dúo Dinámico (yes, this does mean the “Dynamic Duo”). This empowering hit from the 80s has become the hymn of the lockdown here in Spain, with people across the country singing along to the uplifting lyrics, which I have roughly translated:

I will endure! In order to keep on living!
I will bear the punches and I'll never give up!
And although my dreams may break into pieces:
I will endure! I will endure!

With such uplifting moments outside of my flat, I have also been trying to keep myself happy whilst indoors with my one true love: food. Besides the odd takeaway, it’s up to me to recreate some of my favourite dishes that I usually would eat out, and so I the other day I turned my hand to some ramen, which I have to say turned out rather splendidly!

Just yesterday, I thought it’d also be nice to head out and explore as much as the city as possible in the dark, and so I headed up to the northern boundary of my 1km limit: Atocha. Madrid’s main train station was stood very quiet, with all but essential trains currently out of service, but looking resplendent with a new lighting setup against the night sky.

To finish off this blog post, I think we all deserve a good laugh, and so I’ll share the scenes from last week’s quiz that I undertake with Abi and Danni. We decided that we should all go in costume, partly as a creative challenge to use materials available to us during lockdown, but mainly just for the laughs. As the three of us have been watching Tiger King on Netflix (well – what else is there to do?), me and Danni decided to drag it up, with Danni as Joe Exotic and myself as Carole Baskin.

If you’re not familiar with the series, Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin are arch-enemies who both own/owned wild cats, and my challenge was to transform myself into the latter. Anyway, lets get this over with: here’s a real photo of her versus what I managed…

It might not be the best costume ever, but with strips of bin bag for hair, some homemade pom-pom earrings, post-it and sweet wrapper flowers, all topped of with my first ever attempt at a full face of makeup, I thought I did an alright job given the provisions I had at hand!

You may have noticed earlier that I didn’t mention what Abi would be dressing up as for the quiz, and that’s because she kept it a secret right up until the last minute: me and Danni had no idea what she’d appear as once we fired up the video call! As you’ll see below, I think it’s fair to say that she didn’t disappoint; she turned up as a tiger and perfectly completed the hilarious trio!

And so we conclude yet another edition of blog posts from lockdown: I’m surprised how much content I have to post despite feeling that I spend all my life in my flat: a sensation which is, to be fair, mostly accurate. To sign off, I return once again to the Alizée song that I mentioned at the beginning of my post, and a line which she sings in the English version of the song which I find very fitting given my birthday situation and the current lockdown:

Keeping with the rather reflective mood of my last post, the title of this post was inspired by a little outing that I have had today. The sun has been out, the trees are as fertile and as green as can be, and the temperature has settled at a perfect spring temperature. This all served to put me in a good mood, and an unfathomably random song popped into my head. The song in question isn’t even a “real” song, it was created as a parody of cheesy musical songs for the series “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”, and is called “Just Go On”.

We’ll never stop,
we’ll keep on moving forward,
even if we don’t know what we’re moving toward.
They say life’s too short,
but they’re wrong:
it’s so long!

Sometimes the only way to go
is to just go on.

With this upbeat message in mind, I thought it’d be nice to share some of the photos which document the various weeks of this confinement, which will be a welcome change after my last and rather text-heavy post. As you’ll see, these photos vary from photos of Madrid in bloom, life in my flat, some of the food I’ve been enjoying, and even a few silly screenshots from calls with friends.

We begin, though, with the last photo I took as I left the office the day before lockdown began. I was one of the last to leave, and so had the task of turning everything off and shutting up shop, which left me with a rather dark photo.

I left the office with nothing more than my laptop that final day, but it soon became obvious that I needed a few more bits and bats: paper samples (for sending things to print), Pantone swatches (for colour matching), and even my office chair: all of which were graciously sent to me by Erretres. With these new additions to my house, it was time to rearrange the space a little in order to create my new home office.

The home office setup – as pretty as it may be – soon became tiresome after a few weeks of remote work, and the weekly trip to the shop became the highlight of the lockdown. This 20-minute wander was made even more enjoyable as Madrid’s winter slowly turned into spring, with the bare trees before we entered quarantine now as lush as ever, and the sun returning to bask everything in a gorgeous warm glow.

Back in my flat, there have been numerous video calls to keep me entertained, with group catch-ups, one-on-one conversations with old friends, and even a weekly quiz which is always a highlight. From this odd capture taken with the Cake Club girls, to the hilarity of me, Abi, and Danni discovering FaceTime animojis, no video call is ever uneventful!

Easter, which should have been spent with Luisa exploring the crazy processions that take over Spain’s Semana Santa (holy week), was a much more quiet affair. It was improved greatly, however, by a surprise selection of British Easter classics (albeit in miniature) that my mum sent over from England!

It’s not really Easter without gorging on Cadbury’s.

Speaking of food, I’ve also (like many of you out there) been taking the opportunity to improve my skills in the kitchen. Instead of taking on such challenges as banana bread or sourdough, however, I had my eyes set on perfecting one particular favourite of mine: la tortilla de patatas (Spanish omelette). A relatively simple dish of only three ingredients (potatoes, onion, and egg), the trick lies in perfect cooking time/temperature, the right amount of salt, and – most importantly – the difficult flipping of the whole tortilla in order to cook the other side.

This might all sound rather simple, but the simplicity of the dish means that it takes a lot of practice to get it to taste just right. A key aspect of the tortilla is how cooked the egg is at its centre. Amongst Spaniards it is widely agreed that the centre of the omelette should be poca hecha – lightly done, meaning that the egg is left semi-raw and runny in the centre. Gauging this without being able to see the centre of the heavy omelette is quite challenging – but I think I have finally gotten the hang of it! Here, then, I present to you my best stab at this traditional dish:

With so much time on my hands, I really should have gotten round to making a face mask a lot earlier than I actually did, but I got away with using my coat’s high neck (thanks Norway for your excellent coats) to cover my nose and mouth whilst I undertook my shop. As the temperature gradually rose, and the city got dustier and dirtier as non-essential cleaning works were put on hold, I soon had to cave and throw myself a mask together from a spare pillowcase!

Other activities that have been keeping me busy and sane include deep-cleaning my flat, as well as the rare moments at work where I’m occupied in doing activities which don’t necessitate that I sit behind my laptop all day. These included matching colours from the aforementioned Pantone swatches for a brand we’re developing, a process which requires natural light, and so I spent a good ten minutes or so the other day leant out of one of my windows!

Also a shout out to my apple plant in the background (on top of my air con unit), which I have been growing from some apple seeds in an attempt to feel like I have accomplished something during this quarantine.

I have only included this photo because I was proud of how clean my place looked.

As the lockdown has worn on, my weekly outings have been keeping me going, and I’ve been trying to switch up my route to the supermarket in order to mix things up a bit and see some new sights. This has led to some odd sights: outdated advertising, dirty cars, and the odd abandoned item in the street.

I’m sure that this event was cancelled but I’m not sure what happened here.

I’ll bring you all up to date with the latest development in Spain’s lockdown procedures in my next blog post, but for now I shall just leave you with the only bit of physical company I have had during these last six or so weeks: a chocolate bunny that was on offer after Easter was over!

Yeah, he was a bit creepy. I ate him as soon as I could.