Diary of a quarantine: chronicles of the coronavirus

BY JOSÉ LUIS PIEDRA. Finally we see some light at the end of the tunnel in this long nightmare and the hope of breaking the damn virus seems to be making its way, or at least controlling it, which is already a lot. A whole motivational breath after the boredom of more than a month and a half of home confinement.

During this long seclusion I have been reminded a lot of that movie from the 90s 'Caught in Time', in which the actor Bill Murray lived permanently on the traditional groundhog day in the United States. And it is that something similar I have experienced in many of these days where the weariness of the routine wreaked havoc by having reduced the inevitable daily life to the habitat of my house. Time had never imposed its rigid tyranny with an overwhelming monotony before which it has been impossible for me to resist as it is impossible to escape from the physical limits of my house, except for essential purchases like everyone else. And all this is flooded daily by the informational monitoring of the health crisis, perhaps excessive and which has become an obsession.

The condemnation of always repeating the same day and always with the same theme, the coronavirus, as in the Bill Murray film, the groundhog turned into the curse of a health crisis whose magnitude nobody expected and which reminds us that the most The most important part of life is life itself, the life that thousands of people have unfortunately lost due to this diabolical virus. With this perspective, the unbearable routine even becomes sublime and you end up embracing the blessed daily life as the great virtue that life bestows on you. Especially when you have the fortune to face the confinement accompanied by the greatest treasure that it has given you, my two children, a 14-year-old pre-adolescent and another 18-year-old adult apprentice.

There is no evil that does not come for good and with them in this time we have strengthened our particular family unity and improved our coexistence, not exempt from inevitable conflicts with so much time together. I have also seen an improvement in shared responsibility in the performance of household chores, where they have been much more involved than before. I think that this confinement has served to accelerate their maturity and even in my conversations with them I have sometimes felt that they seemed to be talking to adults, especially when we were referring to the harsh reality that the pandemic is drawing on us.

Our great concern every day was, without a doubt, my mother and grandmother of my children, who at 90 years old still clings to life with commendable vitality in a nursing home. The dramatic havoc that the coronavirus is causing in these centers made our fear grow, fueled daily by the incessant and mournful news that came from these centers.

The daily video call with the grandmother thus became the most anticipated miracle of the day and it was like buying time with the hope of the long-awaited tests that, fortunately, were already carried out two weeks ago and whose positive results gave us allowed us to relax our fear.

The confinement, certainly, has been more bearable by being able to enjoy a more or less spacious house and with areas, such as a patio and a roof terrace, that connected us outside. The truth is that I have been privileged thinking about how hard it has been for many people who have not had that possibility due to residing in smaller apartments and condemned to less comfortable conditions.

The day to day has been, as for any journalist in this time, marked by the permanent informative follow-up of this crisis that has become obsessive, to the point that my children have come to censor my dependence, inviting me to disconnect from time to time. And it is that these days we have been focused on a carousel of figures, measures, plans and other emergency actions as if it were a war, always attentive to the daily report with very harsh results.

My commitment these days to teleworking has not been anything new because I have been doing it for a long time since I am always away from the newsroom from Seville to follow up on Andalusian political activity. It is true that the confinement and information absorption of this crisis has gotten me hooked, to which is added the difficult separation of the work and the personal with the diffuse borders of sharing the same space.

Yes, the face-to-face press conferences of yesteryear are missing, since sometimes the telematic appearances of political leaders in this new remote format have become endless and tedious, without the spark of hand-to-hand encounters . I still remember the last face-to-face press conference in the San Telmo Palace of the Andalusian Government two days before the declaration of the state of alarm, in which the worst was already heralded with a reduced attendance of journalists, aware that the situation looked so wrong as the evolution of the facts later demonstrated.

Caught in the routine and in the health crisis, the days have gone by glued to the laptop, to social networks and WhatsApp -what would have been of a confinement like this without these means-, without forgetting the daily logistics of the home, the cleaning and cooking in which I have made a lot of progress. All this with the ritual of applause at eight o'clock, a moment of neighborhood coexistence with talks from the rooftops that have served to unite us more in these difficult times in which social life has only flowed through technological means.

Without being a homebody, I think this confinement has been more bearable than I expected, even though my wife always ironically reminded me that the roof was never going to fall on me because of the little time I spent spending at home calm because of my always restless and active spirit. My metamorphosis into a homebody by force would perhaps have been a great gift for her.

But the worst part of the confinement has been the limitation of my passion for practicing sports, which I have tried to cope with as much as I can, even playing soccer with my children in a small patio, where I have run less than 60 meters every day square which made me feel like a laboratory mouse in the curl of its cage or like an inmate making repeated turns in the prison yard. And it is that, as a journalist friend said, life sometimes makes you a prisoner in its prison with invisible bars.

For this reason, I have received with unusual euphoria the glimpse of freedom that has finally opened up to go for a walk and run. For a few days I have been burning all the adrenaline accumulated in this prolonged imprisonment with the hope, like everyone else, of overcoming this nightmare in the future.

I danced in front of the camera

BY TXEMA MARTíN. I have made the account and I have been locked up for exactly fifty days. I am lucky to have spent these fifties in a big house, with a small garden and a mother, who could also write her own confinement diary. Mine is not going to be like that, firstly because telling about today would be boring and existentialist, but also because at this point it comes out to write about confinement in the past, despite the fact that we are still part of it and we don't know what it means to us. is left over.

My confinement would have been different if it weren't for the courtesy that SUR gives me by allowing me to be their collaborator. The days of the week would have been mixed up if it weren't for my commitment to submit articles to this newspaper three days a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. This is one of my greatest pride, having colleagues who are currently giving the best of themselves to offer it to society. The shipping days and the irremediable melancholy of Sundays have forced me to keep up with the days -although almost always I should have sent the articles before- and, above all, to carry out a scrutiny of the news that has been greater than what I would have liked. I also don't know if anyone has been able to really disconnect. I tried it falsely the fourth week, when after finding out about a couple of misfortunes and noticing the pain around me, I disappeared from Twitter, a social network that by that time had already become a hate machine, at least once. part, which is always the most visible. On the other hand, I think I missed the 8 o'clock applause for two days.

Mine has been, in a way, a conventional confinement. I have not bought rolls of toilet paper in bulk, but I have made biscuits almost out of nothing that have been able to change lives and some pasties that turned out great. I have tried to innovate on hot dogs and perfect my breakfasts. I have collected a lot, and I have suffered several memory shocks opening boxes that had been closed for twenty or fifteen years. Almost all my past has paraded before me, as they say it happens in the danger that precedes death. I have found many letters and it has been difficult for me to recognize myself in the addressee. I have also remembered many events, more good than bad, and I have realized that it is not only others who are getting older.

The culture and entertainment section of my confinement has not been very original either. I have lowered the three skyscrapers that formed the readings that I had pending. I have read Cristina Morales, Bret Easton Ellis, Tatiana Tibuleac, Chris Ware, Piedad Bonet or Joan Didion, and obsessively read several poems by Antonio Gamoneda. The last book I opened should have been the first: this week I finally started Thomas Mann's 'The Magic Mountain', in the edition that Silvia Grijalba gave me, and I don't know how I have the courage to say that I haven't read yet. I've seen quite a few films, including botrios but also several good or even very good ones, like the Argentinean 'Rojo' or the French 'Vivir hurriedly, loving slowly'; I've drawn from Hitchcock and Aristarain and I've also taken to science fiction, as if I didn't have enough with the news, nevertheless resisting the temptation to see 'Chernobyl' again but giving in to seeing 'Veep' again. Orphaned of new series, in the first weeks I was hooked on 'The Act', a stupendous eight-part horror soap opera.

I've been to parties by video call, popping bottles with joy, and I've rigorously 'streamed' an electronic music festival from the living room. In particular, I am proud to have danced several times in front of a camera. I reread what I have written and discover that, told like this, it might seem that I have enjoyed a very happy confinement, but I have had days in which I have cried with or without reason, I have had and continue to have strange dreams, I have missed too many times and I have not been able to stop exercising, especially for my back. It makes me very sad to see that this country will never be united, although I have also felt appreciation for many strangers. I don't think we are going to learn too much from this beyond each one's ability to resist and I refuse to think that life is going to change us forever and for the worse. I prefer to lean towards the positive, trust our resilience and revel in the possibility of a beautiful summer.

The World Through Two Rectangles

BY RACHEL HAYNES. If I had to give my coronavirus confinement a geometric shape, it would be a rectangle. Or rather, two.

The first is delineated by the frame of my terrace and its content is the view from there, which has been my only first-person view of the outside world in the last seven weeks.

At first the image could be a still photograph: the sea, which I glimpse when I turn my head to the left, the mountains that form the horizon in front of me and the roofs of the houses in front of me change little.

But day turns into night -forty-something times since this started-, the weather changes from rain to sun and the color of the shopping carts of the people on the street keeps changing. All real clues that life is still out there.

Good thing I have the other rectangle, my computer screen, to fill in the gaps. Thanks to my work colleagues, journalists both here in Malaga and around the world, I see what does not fit into my real vision. I know that Calle Larios still exists –even if it is without people-. I know that there is still sand on the beach –although it is occupied by seagulls and hit by waves-. And I know that there are still patients in the hospital, cared for by the heroes whom we applaud every afternoon.

And thanks to this rectangle, and another smaller one that is my mobile phone, I can continue doing my work from home. I can assure you that this information that my colleagues communicate to me also reaches tens of thousands of foreigners who live in the province of Malaga and beyond. Readers who suffer not only physical confinement, but also a language barrier that separates them from the news around them.

But when I take my eyes off my rectangles, I focus on the human triangle that we form here at home. A husband who does go out and bring food, encouragement and news from the neighborhood, and a 14-year-old son, who manages his study routine responsibly, lives his confinement through his own screens and is, like all those who follow growing, further proof that time has not stopped. Seven weeks goes a long way in that adolescent career from child to adult.

I have to refocus my eyes on the screen to see the rest of my family and friends. Curiously now, everyone is at the same distance – which could be called Zoom distance – both those who are here in Spain and those who are abroad.

I am writing these lines on May 1st, but when I read them to you I will surely have gone out for a walk. I will have reached the beach, I will have made a 360 degree turn and I will have verified with my own eyes that the world that was not visible from the rectangle of my terrace is still there.

Confinement and autism

BY EUGENIO CABEZAS. On Tuesday, March 10, I went to school to register my youngest son, Víctor, who is supposed to start first grade in Infant in September. I remember that when the principal came in he asked me, Eugenio, you who are a journalist, do you think they are going to suspend classes? I remained silent for a few seconds, not knowing what to answer, but I told him: "It seems that everything points to yes, look at Madrid or Italy." In just four days everything precipitated. Since then the days have become a loop in which it is difficult to know what day of the week it is.

Although teleworking is not new to me, as I have been like this since in 2006 I started as a correspondent for Diario SUR in Benalmádena and Torremolinos, still living then in the capital of Malaga, before coming to my hometown, Nerja, in 2008. Yes, it is having to organize the week without school classes or afternoon therapies for my eldest son, Hugo, 8 years old. Since before he was two years old, he has been diagnosed with autism. He barely speaks, just a few words to ask for what he wants.

If this situation has us all plunged into uncertainty and fear, it is not turning out to be easy for him either. His sleep problems have worsened. The lack of a daily routine is taking its toll on him. At home we try to get him to do the tasks that his teacher Ana, from the specific classroom, and his speech therapist, Rocío, send us, but it is not easy. Even so, we are achieving many achievements. When we notice that he is very restless, we take him for a walk through the Verano Azul park and the urban channel of the Chíllar river. I don't wear any blue ribbon, as recommended by the autism associations, because I don't think it has to be marked.

When the children still couldn't be taken out on the street, a couple of times I was scolded by passers-by. It was very unpleasant to have to explain my son's disorder to him. A Local Police patrol confessed to me one day that they received a call and, since the agent who answered her recognized me from the description he gave, he said to the lady: "Do you know why that father has gone out with his son?" ?» With Víctor everything is much easier, although at the same time, absorbing. 'Dad, the train', 'Dad, the ball', 'Dad, play the Wii'. The mother and I take turns being with him. He knows that there is "a bug" on the street and that is why he cannot go to daycare. "There is no school," he repeats.

As if all this entertainment weren't enough, at home we also live with a dog, Tino, a 5-year-old Labrador Retriever who, contrary to what one might think due to his age (he would have to be at least 35 human years old), looks more like a puppy. He always wants to play, especially if he hears the word 'ball'. Then comes the time to take it out on the street. When the ride is shorter than usual, it stops dead, pulling me toward the park and the beach. Like his 'brother' Hugo, he doesn't understand pandemics either.

In this roller coaster of emotions, what I miss the most in this quarantine is the gym, which in July it will be twenty years since I started going. In fact, these seven weeks are the longest period in these almost two decades that I have been without "moving irons", as the veterans used to say when I started. To replace it, I have used the exercise bike that we bought a couple of years ago and that until now we used as a coat rack. I would also like to swim again in the Torrox indoor pool with Hugo. In this we are like two drops of water. There is no place where my eldest son is happier than splashing in the liquid element, with his peculiar style behind his back.

Although these weeks of confinement have been cool and rainy in the Axarquía, I also really miss bathing and swimming at the beach. In fact, I think I have broken with a personal tradition for at least a decade: diving at least once every month of the year in the Mediterranean. I hope all this ends soon and we can enjoy the beach again this summer. Even if they don't tell me, I know that Hugo and Tino are looking forward to it too.

I'll leave you, it's noon

BY JUAN CANO. Following in the footsteps of one of my colleagues, I am going to take this more than as a diary, as a confessional. I admit it, I'm a bit of a hypochondriac (yes, I know you already knew that). Or better apprehensive, which seems less serious (this reminds me of the Latvian and Lithuanian friend Pablo Aranda). If you read the RAE, the first sounds like illness and the second, like a state of mind, so I'm apprehensive, because if I think about it a lot I end up having both. Or none, because the truth is that the definition does not fit me because of "extremely pusillanimous", with what I like a sarao. Although defining yourself is better left to others, it's ugly to talk about one, especially if you're a journalist. It's funny, now that I think about it. With a couple of glasses of wine (never behind the wheel, which already cost Aznar a displeasure to say something similar) you forget even what hurts you. I still haven't taken to the drink with this coronavirus thing, at least not definitively, but if one thing is clear to me, it's that, when everything returns to normal, I won't have a blood test for a while. Yes, I confess, I am afraid of the result, although I put little on my part. The confinement has given me the kitchen (for visiting it, why are we going to fool ourselves) and for punishing myself. And I'm not talking about push-ups, precisely. At home, lunch has suddenly become so important that we start planning it the day before. The same as shopping, although there I get a lot more stressed (any day I go to the supermarket with the wetsuit and diving goggles). I always follow a ritual that helps me calm my neuras: the cold packs on the one hand to disinfect them before putting them in the fridge, the frozen ones on the other... As I take my time, I usually go at ungodly hours, to avoid the queues, and I always look for the same cashier, Auxi, who understands me, doesn't rush me and even helps me classify the items. The rest of the purchase ends up in the storage room, in quarantine, like Amazon packages, which remain on the terrace for a week (any day an eagle or a kleptomaniac magpie takes them, now that we are all locked up and nature begins to recover what is theirs, although this would still be theft because I have paid for them). The thing is that I always detect a fault in some part of the process -usually it's the mobile phone, or the glasses- and I think "Juan, we've already messed it up". And if I start sneezing... If there's something about this coronavirus, it's that you have time to think too much. And when I do, I conclude that, at this rate, for the virus to enter the house it will have to do so by climbing, although I am sure that soon they will discover a new property and the one who has to go to the storage room is me. I remember the A.D.C. era, Before the Coronavirus (the acronym is not mine, I borrow it from my brother Lillo), and it was all a rush to heat up the tupper and run away. Running, running and running, and always to get to the same place. And now comes a bloody virus, with which I am afraid, it is not clear if it comes from the pangolin, the bat or the raccoon dog (look, I like to eat, but I swear I have never tried them in my life), which What is certain is that it comes from China (I've never been there either, and I'm going to do the same as with the blood test, I'm going to leave it for a while), and it repositions us all in the world. About how important personal hygiene is, something as simple as washing your hands. In caring a little more for our elders, as they did for us, even though we no longer remember because we were too young and still innocent. And in that the superheroes are not those of the comics. Now that we all went out at eight o'clock to applaud the toilets, I think about the cuts, which forced many of them to pack their bags, and that they even had to expand the crime of attack (sorry, the goat throws the mountain) to punish the aggressions they sometimes suffer. By the way, my cousin Vanesa, who is a nurse and emigrated to Milan to find a life a few years ago, began to let us know in February that what was coming from there was coming here, but we didn't see it coming. Here is the last confession of the day: when he warned me about what was happening in Italy, at the beginning of March I bought water for three winters. No, he didn't give me for the toilet paper. It is clear that since I am from Almería and we have a desert there, I am more afraid of running out of water; subconscious stuff. With the toilets it happens as with the elderly. Taking care of the one who takes care of you, or has taken care of you at some time, should not be a norm, but a vocation. In short, and to take the positive side of pandemics, perhaps all this has served to remind us of what is important: health (I didn't need it, honestly, I already had worry as standard) and spending time with family. I leave you,which is noon

Days of computers, telephones and readings

BY ÁNGEL ESCALERA. The human being has an amazing capacity for adaptation; gets used to everything. That has happened to me. Although I have been in confinement for more than a month and a half, the days have passed quickly. In this time of confinement I have tried to remain calm, despite the fact that this is difficult in the journalistic profession, for the good of my mental health. I look back and it seems to me that it was yesterday when I started teleworking. If something defines this method that allows you to fulfill your work activity, it is that it leaves no room for boredom. The main feature is that you spend hours in front of the computer and pending the phone. They are the tools used to carry out the task that must be carried out in this strange stage, in which we are involuntary protagonists of a pandemic that will continue to be remembered a hundred years from now when no one will remember us anymore. We have become part of history without asking for it.

As I said, new technologies make our work easier, but at the same time they make us depend on them for almost everything. What a horror when the system disconnects us and leaves us with the word on the key! In those cases, we feel powerless; our work is paralyzed and we don't know whether to pull our hair out or throw ourselves to the ground. Luckily we have effective technicians who solve our problems.

Okay, what I was getting at. My life during this quarantine (which has already lasted more than 40 days) is centered on both a love and hate relationship with the laptop and the phone. The sound of the notifications of the messages that arrive keep me in constant tension and get into my rest hours, because I dare not turn off my cell phone and leave it out of service (punished in its box), although I must shamelessly confess that more At once I felt like crashing it against the wall, especially when it rang at ungodly hours, as well as giving the computer indefinite and unpaid vacations. I haven't, of course. Without them, in the current situation, I would be more lost than the famous rice boat.

So, as the saying goes, if you can't beat your enemies, join them. So I pamper the computer and take care of the telephone as if they were faithful inanimate companions that make my existence more pleasant, despite the fact that on occasions I curse them in Aramaic, or in what I believe to be Aramaic, a language I speak of. I haven't the foggiest idea. I'm not going to have it. Of that I am as sure as that the coronavirus has caught us like cicadas, singing so happily and without seeing what was coming our way.

As I spend many hours sitting down, writing the information that is published both on the SUR website and in the printed edition of the newspaper, I try to do some physical exercise and relax my muscles throughout each day. I am a good walker, a vocational walker. I walk to all the places I can, which are many. Now, in the absence of a street, good are the corridors and the living room of my apartment to make the 20 meters home. At least I move my legs or my legs move me. Depending on how you look at it. And it is that the one who is not consoled is because he does not want to.

At night, before sleep leaves me groggy like a famous boxer, I dedicate myself to a hobby that combats any hint of tedium: reading. During the confinement I have read the novels 'Alegría', by Manuel Vilas and 'El mapa de los afectos', by Ana Merino; Now I'm with 'El caballero encantado', by Don Benito Pérez Galdós, who this year marks the centenary of his death. With Galdós you learn more about the history of Spain than with the books of many brainy historians.

I have also reread a work that is very relevant to what we are suffering in these weeks of confinement: 'The plague', by Albert Camus. On page 33 of the edition that I have in my library there is a sentence that, although referring to the inhabitants of Oran, the city where the plague epidemic is taking place, perfectly summarizes the health crisis that the world is going through in this leap year of 2020: "They thought they were free and no one will be free while there are plagues." Well that. That we are nobody.

A confined pregnancy

BY ÁLVARO FRÍAS Today has been a good day. Who would have thought when Carmen and I got into the car this morning well separated and covered with gloves and masks. When we have walked down a deserted Larios street, where only a few of those anonymous heroes who wear uniforms and who take care of us every day stood out. When we arrived at the gynecologist's office and the few couples that were in the waiting room looked at each other suspiciously.

Everything has changed when at last, on the tiny monitor where the ultrasound was displayed, we have "seen" (I have to admit that at this point in my pregnancy it is still hard for me to see the image clearly) little Elena. Later, the doctor has told us that everything continues very well and, then, it has started to be a great day. Because no matter how little I see of that little girl, from inside there, I am happy every second.

Also to his mother, of whom I am proud for how well her pregnancy is taking into account all that the coronavirus has changed in our expectations. There are no walks along the seafront to show off that beautiful belly, nor caresses from the family to feel the constant kicks of the little girl (not to stop, I just hope that she will be calmer when she is born). It is the worst part of all this, in a hyper-communicated society, in which we are in permanent contact, all the advancement of technology cannot transmit the warmth of that embrace, for now, prohibited to ours. But we're fine. Healthy, and for that we must give thanks.

Carmen puts up with that relative company I keep for her. Because, let's not fool ourselves, teleworking does not stop. I spend hours in front of the computer and connected to my other half, my Juanito, with whom I prefer not to count the hours we talk at the end of the day. I must admit that they go by quickly, between the daily work and that little bit of sport that I try not to leave any day because it makes me feel very good, it clears me up.

When I stop to see what will happen after this, it is inevitable not to think about the little girl. He will be with us very soon and then the burden of the situation that we will face due to the happy virus steals a good part of my thoughts. But there is no fear. We are fortunate for the arrival of Elenita, with her and because of her we will be able to do anything. Furthermore, we are not alone, we have the help of our own, some of whom, unfortunately, already take care of her from heaven.

Crazy goose traps

BY FRANCISCO GUTIÉRREZ Who would have thought that we would spend months cooped up at home, barely leaving to do the shopping? When all this started, we had hopes of being able to celebrate the communion of our little girl. There was more than a month to go, and they sent us home for two weeks... Illusions! The dress is waiting hanging in the closet. The communion date has passed, we have celebrated our eldest daughter's birthday at home, as a family, and there are still two more that we will have to spend in the privacy of the family. It's weird not being able to go out to celebrate a birthday.

Walking with Clara will be a breather, now that they are allowed, but she is reluctant to go outside. We have all settled into living and working within four walls and the outside scares us. No wonder: what they told us was like the flu has ended up with thousands of lives, jobs, hopes and future projects.

Lockdown has brought us new challenges. That of teleworking, a euphemism that we can translate as computer and telephone open all day. My boss is almost one of the family. "Barreales calls you," my daughter tells me when the phone rings. It can be at breakfast time, at lunch or after dinner. None of us have work hours. The other day, a colleague asked Bori for a photo, at one in the morning! "Have you seen the time?" asked the photographer. "Sorry; Damn teleworking!" He replied. Yes, teleworking has put an end to our schedules and is on its way to making us lose our sanity.

In this health and social crisis we are seeing the value of information, newspapers and journalists. Like the rest of my colleagues, there is rarely a day that I do not have to dedicate time and effort to clarify information that turns out to be false. The most recent, that the Government eliminated the early retirement of teachers. One more hoax. Society seems to value the role of the media in this crisis, but what will happen next? Dark clouds in the form of closures and layoffs loom on the horizon. Working with that uncertainty generates restlessness. It is in the hands of those who today value our work that we preserve it.

As in many families, the parents have to act as the little one's teachers, printing worksheets, explaining the lessons and helping with homework. Or of playing the role of intransigent parents when we try to maintain sleep or study schedules but, above all, the challenge of not losing our temper, of keeping calm, of achieving a peaceful coexistence of five people in a 90-meter apartment. meters. Although with a terrace overlooking the sea. Yes, we are privileged, living in Malaga and with the beach next door is a real privilege.

In our campus, Carlos, a boy from block 6, puts on music every afternoon, after the applause. We've had theme sessions, movie music, children's songs from the eighties. After so many years living here, you meet unknown faces on the terraces, people you've barely met on the street. Or young couples, perhaps newcomers. We miss the lady from the sixth floor of block 4. She went out every day, with her long black hair and a light blue robe. We are already concerned about his absence.

Days before the coronavirus exploded in our hands, David, a retired Canadian man, came to our block, to our same floor. He came to Malaga because he likes the sun, the heat and walks on the beach. We see him walking around the house and going out to the terrace, from which you can see the sea. He is alone. Young people from our campus do the shopping for him. And I pick up your trash. If we can get something good out of this situation, it is the value of solidarity.

Among the few exits is going to the kiosk. My daughter Clara reminds me of it every Saturday. He has taken to the childhood hobbies of SUR. He especially likes Sudoku. On weekends we take out the ludo board or the 'crazy cakes'. He almost always beats me. From a very young age she has been a great cheater. He already did it a few years ago with his grandmother Sule (RIP). Now, like my mother, I look the other way or pretend to be clueless when he counts too many, skips a penalty box or advances from cake to cake without getting the score. Between extension and extension of the confinement we continue to play, losing me most of the time. Everything is for my daughter's smile. And hoping not to fall into the square of death, in which a virus is now drawn, which would make us go back to the starting point.

Teleworking and silence are overrated

BY FRANCISCO JIMÉNEZ. I have to confess that, at first, I got a taste for this confinement thing. Not because of teleworking, which was obviously overrated, but in the absence of street, what better than squeezing this kind of forced parenthesis in the daily grind to enjoy the family to the fullest. Having breakfast, lunch, snack (I have snack again) and dinner together is wonderful. With three kids at home, the goal was to try to relativize everything that is happening and keep them entertained. You know, board games, drawings, cooking for a while (my new specialty is churros) and before bathing a little sport in the living room. Nothing special, the same as in any home, but the truth is that between work, school, extracurricular activities, the super schedule of birthdays every weekend and that the five of us are not exactly hermits, dedicating a day to being locked up at home was not in our plans.

And less than a month and a half. Neither go celebrating your birthday without stepping on the street. Nor experiment as a hairdresser, both with a machine and with scissors. The first one who dared to put himself in my hands, the middle 8-year-old, spent two days with his cap on each video call with grandparents, uncles and friends. Good thing Communion had already been postponed. Experience is a degree, and the leap in quality was noted in the eldest, aged 10 (now 11), who saw his wish of having a line at the height of the temple fulfilled, taking advantage of the fact that not going out was going to take a long time. It wouldn't do so badly when the little one, with his 6 years old, cried for me to cut the ends of his blonde hair. Instead, mommy doesn't dare. And well what it does.

I insist that teleworking was overrated. Journalism is practiced in the street, so any outing to do a report becomes a morale boost between hours and hours glued to the phone and computer. Honestly, I don't miss the Newsroom of the newspaper, but I never thought I could miss those who filled it with life so much. The other family, with their advice, their laughs, their experiences, their confessions... In short, that's what we got.

How long? One is optimistic by nature, so to avoid any threat of seeing the glass half empty on a personal and work level, I have bought into the philosophy of thinking about life day by day. Or game by game, as they say in football. At home we are also soccer fans, so the hallway is now our pitch. At least until I give it a fresh coat of paint. At the moment the rooms have already fallen and this weekend it will be the living room. That room that has become an office all day (blessed teleworking), a classroom in the mornings and a games room in the afternoons. Oh, also in a night camping area. All mixed up, and all together. In a large family where the word silence does not exist, finding a corner to concentrate on work is complicated between school doubts and internal disputes between the trident, but in the end I think I have succeeded.

Now we start dating. The first family outing was Monday morning. I can't think of a better way to celebrate the 11th birthday of the eldest. The work laptop turned off 24 hours for the first time in a month and a half. "Well, the day has been pretty good," he commented before going to bed. Children's ability to adapt is incredible.

What I fail to understand is that optimism that in recent days the central government and the Junta de Andalucía have been in charge of conveying. With thousands of daily infections and an endless list of deaths, our leaders are already beginning to talk about going back to school, about the opening of stores and that in a few weeks we will be able to meet again (not too much) in bars. Blessed bars. Oh really? It's okay to think about the 'after' and about that 'new normal' because the livelihood of many families depends on it, but that message they transmit can turn against us in the form of relaxation on the part of the population. I hope it's not the story of the milkmaid.

A breather on the terrace

BY AGUSTÍN PELÁEZ. At home we are three teleworking, my eldest son, my wife and a server. The minor, who is studying Industrial Engineering, has also been confined at home since the start of the state of alarm. He has taken it so seriously that he does not go out to the street door. At most, it looks out on the porch. Sometimes I think that when she goes out she's going to get sunburned, so I'll ask her to put on some protection. Although he is the first to tell us that it is good that we get the sun because of the vitamin D thing. They are both of legal age and sometimes they behave as if they were parents, but in general we get along quite well.

Occasionally we go out to do the shopping. It is done by the person who has the most time at the time. We do the same when we throw out the garbage. During these more than six weeks of confinement I have discovered the terrace, an underused space in the house until now. I go out to breathe air. Living a stone's throw from the sea, sometimes you can even smell the sea water. And then I think that I will not resign myself to sunbathing surrounded by screens, because that more than going to the beach must be like getting into a sauna, but of course, who was going to say that less than 45 days ago we were going to have to be confined beset by a microscopic virus that has not only changed our lives, but is capable of ending it.

My eldest son remembered that when he was a child his grandfather told him that a scar he had on his belly was the result of having been in the war, that he suffered a shrapnel in the heat of combat. The reality is that it was from appendicitis, but he loved those grandfather battles and commented, out loud, how little glamor he will have when he tells his grandchildren or his children that back in 2020 we all had to go to the supermarket with masks and with gloves, and that we couldn't get closer than two meters from other people because of a virus.

The terrace is the space where every day, at 8:00 p.m., I appeared to applaud the effort that many people in this country make to protect the rest of us, because there can be nothing more heroic than the work of the toilets to protect and cure infected people without adequate means of protection; the work carried out by the State Security Corps and Forces, that of the members of the Armed Forces who have helped to disinfect essential infrastructures or in the work carried out every day by supermarket employees, that of farmers and ranchers and even the truckers so that we lack nothing.

I remember that when I was returning from the last edition of Fruit Attraction in Madrid, in October 2019, to which I had been sent by SUR to follow the presence of Malaga agri-food companies at this fair, already on the AVE back to Malaga had a group of Japanese tourists in my car. Those days I had a bit of a cold and started coughing. With all concealment, the Japanese who was closest took his backpack and after washing his hands with a hydroalcoholic gel that he was carrying inside, he put on a mask. Of course, I was not offended. I found it somewhat curious, even exaggerated. The man was a bit older and at the time I thought he did it thinking that he didn't want to ruin his tourist trip because of a cold. Now I am the one who makes sure that nobody coughs nearby when I go to the supermarket, the bakery or the kiosk. By the way, it is a burden to wear the mask. My glasses fog up and there is nothing to remedy it, I always end up taking them off. Luckily for short distances I manage, but since I'm myopic, from afar I don't see a cake.

The worst thing I've had is not having been able to say goodbye to a friend who has left forever during this period. I would have liked to hug his wife and his children and accompany them.

I miss visiting an oil mill, a greenhouse, an avocado or mango plantation to see how they are doing and talk to the farmers about this or that variety of fruit or vegetable, when they plant or how the harvest is going, visiting La Mayora, the market of a port in full auction, see a farmer in his day to day to talk to me about his work. I have a long list of 'agro' companies that I would like to meet in situ and that I hope to visit soon. After several years writing almost daily about agri-food issues, I often think that I don't know how to think about anything else. For me, who am from 'Provinces', it has been a discovery. I love it and I enjoy it, because it is an exciting sector from which I learn, surprise and admire every day. I think they should also be applauded on a daily basis, because there are many producers who are having a hard time due to the closure of the hotel and restaurant industry, but they continue at the foot of the canyon.

Most of the time that I have been in SUR I have spent writing from the Vélez delegation, without the noise or heat of a newsroom covering you. Perhaps for this reason, when I go to the newspaper in Malaga I try to find a computer located in a quiet area and I almost always go, if there is a free space, to the space where the colleagues from the German edition and computer science are. Now, after so many days of confinement, I tell myself that the next time I go I will place myself in the heart of the newsroom. Until then, there's also that applause every afternoon from my terrace for all my colleagues, whom I admire a lot.

And then? Later we'll see

BY MANOLO CASTILLO. I don't know how to describe this confinement because I never imagined seeing ourselves in this situation. Maybe because I'm not a big fan of science fiction movies, although from now on I'll start to see them with different eyes. I saw 'Contagion' and it seems incredible to me how in 2011 it was possible to narrate with such verisimilitude what we are experiencing in 2020 with the coronavirus. Nothing can seem impossible to us anymore.

I have to admit that voluntary confinement has been one of my favorite hobbies for some years now. Lock myself in the house with mine and my things. That is why from the first day of the state of alarm I knew that the difficult thing was not going to be 'being' but 'being'.

When smoking was banned in public places in 2011, I thought it was going to be practically impossible because of the Spanish way of being. And made a mistake. Now, the test has been much greater and it has also been passed. Thinking of almost an entire country locked up at home might seem implausible, but it has happened. What I think is that we will only see the effects of these weeks in a while, because everything has been so surreal and bizarre that it cannot be innocuous. So many days with so many people doing such strange things must be something that marks you forever. It is as if all of us had suddenly taken part in a movie, as if deep down nothing was real, as if all those characters that appear almost daily on our television were fiction. It has been as if the spirits of Instagram and TikTok had taken over Spanish homes and everyday life itself was a 'storie', with its 'likes', its comments and its 'emojis'. We turned the kitchen into a 'Master Chef' set as well as the living room into a 'cross fit' track. We have not taken the car, we have not gone to a restaurant or a bar, we have not had a beer with friends, we have not gone for a walk. If you stop to think, this has been, and is being, very crazy.

And among all things, we have realized, once again, that things are not as they are and that they can be different. We can work without going to work and we can live without leaving home. And without football, something that in some houses will have been a kind of X file. The impact has been so great that I fear that there may be many people who do not have much interest in ending the confinement and think that they are at home anywhere. There will be those that anguish or children between 0 and 10 years old will have consumed all the energy. And there will be those who when they leave the house will feel strange.

Of course, no one wins when we are obedient. We have assumed all the orders without question, despite the numerous contradictions. The big question is: And after all this, what? Well, we'll see, a phrase that has become the mantra of confinement. This Sunday seemed like the day of the Three Kings; they let the children take the parents for a walk. And tomorrow, well tomorrow we'll see.

PS Telecommuting is really an evil invention. It is turning the computer, the mobile and your head into the point on which your entire house revolves 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 30 days a month.

Rear Window

BY JAVIER RECIO. I have become a voyeur. I recognize it. Curiosity got the better of me, I don't know if it was due to my condition as a journalist. This confinement, of which the forty days that at first seemed sufficient have already passed, has allowed me to discover my neighbors, whom I previously ignored, perhaps because darkness always reigned when I got home after work. Not now. Now I spend many hours next to a window to which I repeatedly turn my gaze to see who knows what, because I already have everything more than scrutinized. Well, I confess, I look to see what my neighbors are doing, who logically are also confined.

I don't use binoculars like James Stewart in Alfred Hitchcock's magnificent film, although I must admit that I get paranoid as this magnificent actor did. My house is surrounded by five others. And to snoop around (smell or 'goler' in malaguita) I usually go to the window, or rather to the windows, to scrutinize what my neighbors are doing. The residents across the street just had a baby and I know that around eleven in the morning they always take him out for a walk among the four dogs they have. The kid looks like he's comfortable, because I've never heard him cry. Around five in the afternoon they go to a dividing wall that she has with another neighbor to hang out for a while, although the conversation almost always revolves around the same thing: how handsome the boy is. I confess that at that time I open the window to listen and, if possible, listen to see if they release any gossip. But nothing. They don't crack. Meanwhile, Coco, my dog, also knows the hours as she comes out of the porch and turns her head up to see if I say something to her or, rather, if she hears the chain rattle, which is synonymous with giving her a walk. Out of my curiosity I have something forgotten. What a dog it is, the dog will think of me.

On the east side of the house there's a neighbor who's always in the garage doing I don't know what. It is seen that he likes DIY and he also has a very strange device that allows him to fly thanks to a large fan that is placed on his back. My daughters, ages 21 and 15, say it's weird and reminds them of those actors in Sunday evening movies who end up committing crimes. I doubt it, although in the end I don't let myself be carried away by Stewart's suspicions, knowing that he is a policeman and that he is also a great guy. Rationale please. I watch the neighbors on the west side through the bedroom window, where I go to stretch my legs. Okay, I've been caught, I'm going to look. They are a couple of Belgian foreigners who have just bought the house and who are thinking of getting rid of the ants on their 2,500-meter plot. I have remembered San Agustín (now it has been good for me to study in Los Olivos), who told a child that it was impossible to get sea water in his little bucket. Well, these are all day fumigating that they fumigate you. Foreigner things. Two young people live with them, who I have already found out are 27 and 23 years old. My total ignorance of their French (if I had studied at the Lyceum...), made me believe at first that they were their children, until one day I saw how they were making out. I finally know it's his son and his girlfriend. What a crappy spy I am. I need too much time to find out things well.

Lastly, from the bathroom window on the south side of the house, I look at a mixed family, made up of an Australian and a Galician woman who have two small daughters, who have also moved there a few years ago. months. It is clear that the unconsciousness of the foreigner prevails, because in the middle of March I saw the little ones bathing in the pool when the temperature rose somewhat, very little. It must have also come up to the father, the Australian, who bathed naked. Must be a nudist. I started to think if I did the same in my pool, although I ruled it out because he could also see me at any given moment, although I think that in the comparison it would not come off badly... Just kidding, I've come up. Which is not a big deal either. The truth is that I am entertained with what could be a rural remake of the great film by the master of suspense, which could be called 'El visillo alhaurino'. I'm not bad, although I miss sending oral WhatsApp messages to my colleagues, whom I see in the newsroom from my indiscreet fishbowl... Cheer up everyone, there's less to go.

One day less for the madness of normalcy

BY JUAN CAMACHO. It matters little how many days we have been in quarantine. There are already many. Too many.

It all started as an adventure. Undoubtedly it is, but the excitement of starting something unknown has been fading with the passing of the days, giving rise to uncertainty and fear.

In the old days, the epicenter of lives was the home. Today, in most cases it has become a place to sleep and little else. Of course, the proximity to the leisure centers is essential. When I grew up in Marchena, 60 km from Seville, in a time of bad roads, my parents opted for a large house where time had its own rhythm. Where spending days was a delight, lying in the patio with columns, on the tiled floor looking for the sun that entered through the "candle" (canopy that at a great height covers the blinding sun of the Sevillian countryside). So I had dogs. At different times. 'Nova' and 'Bulky'. Black English Cockers. My father, a lawyer, attended his clients with parsimony and infinite patience in his office: seekers of the misery of dead relatives, scavengers, predators... in short, people in search of the hope of ripping off the problems that tortured them and depositing them in the lawyer's office. But when all that pack left, he would lock himself in his photographic laboratory or dedicate himself to reading, writing, painting or playing the guitar. My older brother had his painting studio. My mother was the soul of the house. And my brother Ricardo was loved and supported by everyone. I saw everything from below. It was the little one.

Working at Diario SUR as an advertising consultant means always being on a roller coaster of emotions. You can't always market the products you want, but you always have to be at the foot of the canyon. Trying to come to grips with the soul delivered to a common cause. Companions make life so much easier. We are a group of professionals who always leave room for a few laughs, giant chocolate palm trees or churros. And everything, this wonderful atmosphere that often gives air and meaning to work that is much harder than it might seem, has faded into the background with teleworking. The moments of relief are now occupied by making breakfast for the three puppies of children that we have to take care of, inventing a new game for you, thinking about what to eat today, resetting the Netflix password (bless him) that Pablo is 3 years of age he likes to knock every two by three, to enter the school website to see the homework that they have that week or to go to Banco Santander that is coming out of the door of my bedroom-office on the right, which is where my wife has established her teleworking.

The extraordinary integrity of the children deserves special mention. I admit that mine are very lucky to have a small garden where, when the weather allows it, they can play and let off steam. Invent worlds. Create tsunamis. Build walls with your imagination that save you from the pandemic and the hysteria of the elderly. But the reality is that they haven't left home for a month and they are suffering from this whether they realize it or not.

Making the extraordinary something everyday has become a very tough demand; now we not only work from home for eight hours and we act as parents the rest of the time. Now we are full time (with ERTE included): advisers, parents, teachers, doctors, psychologists, cooks, cleaners, gardeners and on rare occasions, when strength and desire allow it, lovers of your partner.

These days I remember the movie starring Bill Murray: 'Groundhog Day', although the real name was 'Groundhog Day', more than other infected and virus ones. It's the closest thing to one of my days. Always the same. At least Bill could go outside. Now I don't have a dog, I only have three children and a splendid wife. So I have to stay at home with the children's screams of joy or anger, I can't distinguish them anymore, while I look out on the terrace and see people walking with their puppies, wishing that the food was over so they could go to the Maskom with my mask and my gloves like a surgeon before open heart surgery, although I have it "shrink".

From this confinement room from where I see the lights of the ghost airport with hardly any planes, the night repairs the resentments of one more day, one day less to return to the "madness" of normality.

Journalism from 'The Batcave'

BY EMILIO MORALES. On March tenth I turned thirty tacos. It was Monday, and I thought that the best thing would be to throw a party in style over the weekend. What I didn't know is that there would be no more weekends. I have been living in a downtown apartment for a long time with two childhood friends, and when the idea of confinement floated over my head, I reflected for a second: I have two options, to live locked up in an apartment for a month with two colleagues who are sunk, damn it, in an ERTE, or going back to my parents' house, where there is a beautiful garden and above all, 'the Batcave'.

The Batcave is a gym my dad set up in our garage, and it reminds me of when Batman would socially withdraw and start training quietly. A 'spinning' bike, the bench press and the pull-up bar are my battle companions, always accompanied by my mobile phone. Actually, I have been teleworking for many years, and with regard to my work I am used to reusing spaces in my house converted into improvised offices. I am chaotic, and I never write from the same place, I even make many of the calls while riding my bike -I have found the perfect position so that the mobile does not fall after several accidents-.

I feel lucky to be able to tell stories in this time, and they are often the ones that give me the fresh air I need. Although, I don't want to deceive you: I'm fine. Thank God my family is not affected by the virus, and it is being a curious experience to return home without counting the twenty-something. I consider this a gift, months in which to be able to live with my parents without the onslaught of adolescence, and getting to know each other in a different way. Good vibes are in the air, especially in the kitchen. We miss my brother, a resident doctor in Seville, one of those who, as my new section says, is on the front line.

Right now I have my mother in front of me, an English teacher in the fourth year of ESO. I have listened to a reading about South Korea 37 times, but she seems to keep her vocation and corrects her students virtually with great affection. My father just came up from the Batcave, an hour and twenty he says he's been. Excuse me, my cell phone rings. I have to leave you. Teleworking things.

...And after confinement, what?

BY ANTONIO GÓNGORA . Quarantine confuses a lot of people. Ideas, plans, perspectives and even health change as the weeks go by. Some days you think that the confinement should continue longer to guarantee security, while others you want it all to end, although you don't really know why. The coming normality will be new, different and with certain similarities to this period of confinement. Until there is the right medicine or vaccine, the fear will continue to be present to make any movement, regardless of restrictions. We all wonder when we will be able to do certain things that we have in mind, which were common until March. This permanent restlessness, perhaps also due to an excess of responsibility or concern, affects you in many ways, which prevents you from enjoying essential tranquility.

I believe that despair does not fully respond to the always undesirable confinement, but rather goes further and will not disappear with the new 'freedom', but will continue until there is no medical guarantee that allows us to return to real normality and have the necessary confidence to safeguard security at the highest possible level (we all have very vulnerable close family or acquaintances, especially due to age). The precautions for not getting infected when leaving home can become an obsession. Even the masks and gloves seem insufficient to you to go to the supermarket. Fear is not only free, but it comes and goes.

I try to work remotely from home in the most comfortable way, but it's not easy. I have made a 'tour' through the areas that I like in search of the place that most attracts me. And there doesn't seem to be any suitable one. I was used to working from my home on specific occasions, but the circumstances are what have changed. You never manage to disconnect completely nor do you finish the day before (in my case, rather the opposite). The problem remains the same: the restlessness that keeps you more aware than ever of any personal or informational movement.

And deep down I consider myself privileged, because in other professions everything is more complicated. There are many directly affected at this time due to health and economic issues, but the side effects directly affect children, who will finally be able to get out, and adolescents, who are hardly talked about and who are surely suffering more this lockdown. They are in the moment of their life in which personal relationships are fundamental, vital. And it will surely take some time until this communication is possible, like that of the rest.

It seems that the end of the lockdown does not end the problem. Only and exclusively an effective vaccine will end this nightmare. What is unknown is when that will happen. Meanwhile, I keep looking at my house for the place where I feel best to telework, something that can last much longer than the state of alarm. Now we await the arrival of football and the start of work for Málaga. Except for a setback, there will be matches, but they will be without spectators in the stadiums, without an atmosphere. Television will once again be essential while we wait for the liberation...

One day less

BY MARINA MARTÍNEZ . "Hello, hello / I'm at a place called Vertigo". And there the U2 resound while I keep going around. More than vertigo for what is coming, it is dizziness from the walk. Until you get used to it and end up walking around the house for an hour with the Irish, Coldplay, the Rolling, Lori Meyers or Vetusta Morla in your ear. An eclectic mix, best for walking up and down the promenade, and beyond, as I have always done in the pre-lockdown era. Now I only imagine, there is no other. Like seeing the sun every day or walking along the seashore. Anyone who knows me knows that I can't live without them (I'll talk about chocolate and Russian salad later). Well these days, neither sea nor hardly any sun. It seems that an astral confluence has lined up to take everything from us at once. And here that affects. Especially if you have grown up and live in Torremolinos, as is my case. Not to mention those foreigners that you come across with white socks and sandals, which is not a cliché, I attest. Well, even that is missed in an area that not even on the worst days of winter could I think of finding myself so silent.

I see the picture on the way to the supermarket. An odyssey, by the way. Just thinking about preparing to go out is lazy. Although to protect myself I have never had a problem. When the masks were scarcer, my mother, who is valid for everything, worried about making me a homemade to get out of trouble. But neither with one nor with the other is it pleasant to go shopping, really. Between that, the queue to enter and the tension that is breathed inside with the happy safety distances, you return home with an anxiety attack, as Miguel Ángel Martín (@tunomandas) rightly says, the actor from Malaga who has won over half the country with his particular diary through social networks. (I include myself, by the way).

In SUR we also have our newspaper. Although to me it's actually kind of like groundhog day. And saying this in a world like journalism is already difficult. That we are still journalists at home? Of course, at home and wherever the news catches us. But going out, hitting the streets and interacting with people is also vital for a journalist. And I would add something else: share writing with a great professional and human team. And ours is the best, everything must be said. From Local and Culture to Web, Art, Photographers or Sports. Consulting, debating, referring and laughing together cannot be replaced by even the best app. That this is another Between video calls and whatsapp there is little respite. You get lost for a moment for a basic need and you have lost the thread of one of the multiple groups (which, in turn, are also reproducing). Costs? Yes, but it's the only way to be constantly connected. In general with all the newsroom, and in particular with my section colleagues. Editing and closing for more details. Thanks to them, the confinement is much better. Although we lack Antonio Ortín's fillers, José Miguel Aguilar's pats, Rafa Ruiz's hugs, Pedro García's "other butterfly thing" or the paraphernalia of gadgets that he assembles and disassembles every time my inseparable Rafa arrives and leaves Cuts. At least, every afternoon we see each other at our virtual meeting. And it is appreciated, the truth, in the solitude of each of our corners almost hermits.

My great friend Sergio Lanzas says that he reads us in these newspapers and he thinks we are fictional characters. I would say science fiction because we have had to experience an unprecedented situation. Still, we can feel lucky. For being healthy and because we are not on the front line of fire like so many professionals who risk their lives every day to save others. We are an essential activity, yes, and that says a lot in these times. But we must admit that it is not easy to coordinate and make a newspaper from such an extensive map of houses like ours, things as they are. Fortunately, or not, we are connected almost 24 hours. You know, journalism does not understand schedules. Not having the computer at home either.

Between the issues to be written and the editing and closing of the newspaper and the supplements, which occupies us until well after midnight, the days go by. Of course, in a sneaker at least. I do not reach Piluqui's level of styling (perhaps it sounds more like Pilar R. Quirós to the reader), but I refuse babuchism, and of course pajamas. Also days off. If this quarantine is teaching me anything, it's that you always have to be presentable. A video call usually falls that catches you treacherously and it is not a plan to go in a robe. The reputation on the ground at a stroke. That and the battery of the mobile, that there are days that it is necessary to charge up to two and three times. Interviews, Meet meetings, WhatsApp video calls... non-stop. And on days off, with friends, and in many cases, also colleagues. As long as you're not busy cleaning, ordering drawers or making a recipe like Dani García's cheesecake (I had to leave sooner or later).

Yes, I am also one of those who is taking the opportunity to resume my love of baking and even to make bread at home. Although it is getting more and more difficult. Yeast and flour are precious goods today, as was toilet paper in its day. It doesn't matter if we don't eat pickles. They will never be like the ones that Francisco Griñán offers us at lunch next to the drinks machine and various temptations, but with the Russian salad they are luxurious. Anyone who knows me also knows that I am an unconditional fan of this dish. Like chocolate. That is why I miss my visits to the Uvedoble tavern so much, for the Russian one and for that kinder in three textures that always falls for dessert. It will be the first restaurant I go to when the ban is lifted, I already promised Willie. Much to Antonio Jiménez's regret, his Ta-Kumi will have to be second, as there is also a 'monkey' from Japan. Like me, I know there are many who are trying to save in order to make up for lost time and somehow make up for those closings. I have a friend who has even managed a piggy bank to reserve what they will spend on eating when we can.

We have already given up the bikini operation, not the hospitality industry. Quite the opposite. It is key in our economy. And there is also a desire to return. There are not a few who remind me through social networks or WhatsApp. In mine there are groups like 'Jalandomochis', 'Disfrutones eater' or 'Michelines', with that I say it all. I, who also usually write about gastronomy, feel a great emptiness (also in my stomach). I usually go to one restaurant or the other, talk to them, keep up with what's going on, discover new projects... and, suddenly, I stop. It's still hard to digest. Like thinking about my last getaway to Madrid with friends back in late February. It will be true that destiny exists. What we have agreed! Just three weeks before everything changed. Like one before, when I was having a massive birthday with another of my inseparable friends from the newspaper, and now also from life, Ester Requena. There we share hugs, kisses and even dishes. The normal. We could never have imagined that seven days later would be the abnormal.

Since then, the coronavirus has taken over the vast majority of pages. Almost everything revolves around the same theme. And unfortunately I think that this will continue to be the case for a long time. I hope it's fair enough to let us get out of the well with dignity... and not to hate the Dynamic Duo too much. The quarantine anthem is already getting out of hand. Before 'Resistiré', I prefer to say «one day less». That is my anthem. This is how I say goodbye to my colleagues every night once the newspaper is closed in that hotbed of whatsapp in which good humor is never lacking. It's not for nothing, but we are the best at encouraging ourselves. We know that the important thing is to be well, the rest will come. We are convinced. So, I'll change the U2 song: from 'Vertigo' to 'Its a beautiful day'.

From 'Beauty and the Beast' to 'Wonder Woman'

BY ANTONIO J. GUERRERO It's 6:30 in the morning. I wake up like my normal days from the stress of my intense life. This time I don't have to choose the sweatpants or the shirt: it's time to find what mask to wear. They give me 4, 5 and 6 and I can't stay in bed anymore. Wearing a sweatshirt, I turn on the light in the living room and the day begins in the newsroom that I have brought to the apartment. I no longer go out in the morning to see the sun rise in my Antequera, going from Santa Eufemia to Portichuelo, going up and down slopes to take the picture every morning with the silhouette of the Peña de los Enamorados and upload it to Instagram, shared by hearts from all places.

While the computer turns on, the light from the gooseneck illuminates the doll my daughter left on the couch last night. And that's when I keep dreaming. This situation is allowing me to spend all day with her. Every night, before dinner, he offers Lorena and me a magic show or a dance to a song. Without expecting it, the other afternoon she asked me to rehearse with her, a song we danced to together when she was barely 2 years old: 'Beauty and the Beast'.

She begins to guide my steps, showing me the way with incredible choreography, with the door closed so her mother can't see us. And the premiere arrives. I didn't remember that you could be so happy, with the simple fact of dancing, even if you act like a beast. When you are about to continue with the dream, the mobile begins to vibrate. It's time to put on the mask of today's day to day.

I know I'm weird, I use Twitter lists and select what to read. I start with the national press, to focus on the province, fellow journalists, references, friends (I am not going to quote you in case I leave someone behind, but you are the ones I like or retweet first thing in the morning). Then, I try to put my gloves and mask on correctly when passing over the political class. If I understood them little before, now I no longer understand them. And, with the door closed, while I read whatsapp, I receive the first call in the morning. This is a front line professional at risk, he's had another bad night, he needs to blow off steam like when I call them. He had to be next to a person who left us. One more. And she just got home and didn't know who to cry with. His children have not been able to be in his exhalation, but they gave him their hand at the moment. And they won't be able to see him to say goodbye. And we cry together, not knowing what to say to each other, but with the end assured: We will go out and win! We both know what it's like to win a battle.

After breakfast, my daughter's teacher has already sent her homework and she starts doing her homework, always with her mother by her side (I know, I admit it, I need to improve my conciliation, it's my pending task) and I hear her continue learning to read. She turned 5 years in confinement and she asks when we can celebrate her birthday with her family and friends. How big are the little ones! But 10 o'clock arrives, time for the videoconference for the municipal press conference. You see the same face in all the colleagues: they have slept badly, they are worried and they want to see us before the politicians. From the City Council, they try to give their share of the day. It's time to write, advance to the digital and see what can be left for the paper.

New change. It's time to go for a walk for that unique photograph of the half-empty streets. I have had to look for the snow at the beginning of April or the empty churches with their streets and squares in the middle of Holy Week. With the mask on, the gloves and the bottle of alcohol, I merge work with shopping. It is a ritual to buy the newspaper at my friend Juanma's kiosk, the fruit at the store in my work neighborhood, and the bread and meat next to the house. There is tension, stress, fear, anxiety. There are fewer of them, but there are still many older people without protection. Better not to talk about the days of pensions in banks. Distance please!

And midday is arriving, the Board offers the daily data and two or three times a week it gives the official data, of the health area of the Antequera Region, the one that so much claims to recover the city and that now returns to look for Hope in your hospital. Progress of the update, shame to see the death toll to which must be added those of other endings. But, what a great pain not being able to say goodbye in person, nor being able to hug your family or be with them at your farewell! And you get up, I hug my wife and I kiss my daughter. We do not know what we have until we lose it!

Noon, you receive an email from the daughter of Francisca and Rafael, or a call from the friend of Santiago and Lourdes: they want to say thank you and share good news! And you recover the smile. It's like Journalism: looking for stories on the street and not letting yourself be captivated by official announcements, which only share what they want when it interests them, if they don't advance it on their social networks. And you call them, you get excited to feel that they don't mind saying that they have had the virus and want to send a message of optimism. Or that friends offered him the wedding that they had to cancel. What a boost of morale to put yourself in front of a blank page and be able to write different stories, where you merge Journalism with Literature!

After lunch, a little nap is enough for me. I rest more than at night. And that moment of shock arrives that must be followed. And you write, call, look, read, contrast, listen and write. And without expecting it, the joy of the house invites us to go out on the balcony. It's 20 hours. I am one of those who applaud, waving the Antequera flag in the wind and I even got carried away at Easter to give a mini-pregón to the neighbors. What good people! Many of us have met these days. And, meanwhile, little Eufemia leaves her shyness, leans over the balcony, claps her hands and whispers to me: «Dad! Why don't you put on your Darth Vader helmet and kill the critters with your lightsaber? I look at her, I'm excited and I promise I will.

It is time to let yourself be carried away by the child that I still have inside, and look at that other mask and go out with it and face COVID-19. Meanwhile, I open dolls from my collection from 1977 to 1983 (collectors like Moret know what that means). She asks me and I do whatever she wants. I only have the dog thing left... Time to time.

And that's when my feeling changes from the 'princess' to my 'guerrilla', the one who takes her 'Wonder Woman' doll and simulates her battles, with the rest of her toys. It's time to put down the trash, shower, have dinner, the show of each day and go to bed. We pray, reading the story every night and the little girl sleeps. Meanwhile, in the living room, our improvised newsroom, the blackboard remains, with the date of the day written by her, a drawing of the "little bug" and the note of the day: the family, memories, animals...

And night comes, with the masks to choose for the next day: the one that protects us from the coronavirus, the one from the journalist job, the one of the father with a camera and mobile in hand or the one of Princess Leia's father, the from Star Wars, who is excited to see how the 5-year-old girl looks forward to the day she can celebrate her birthday with her friends and family and go out on the streets again. While adults protest everything; they, the little ones, want to go back to school and they are giving us a lesson on how to redirect this society: hope, sincerity, imagination, applause, smiles and the desire to go out into the street. I continue the confinement: will I learn from this new battle? We will try it with Journalism as a standard and nothing more, but nothing less, said my teacher and father Ángel Guerrero. And, of course... the sun always rises... in Antequera!

Rediscovering past hobbies (with comfortable clothes)

BY ANDREA JIMÉNEZ I moved into this house just a month before the state of alarm was declared. I was adjusting well to my new neighborhood, it seemed like a gift to be able to live just a few minutes from Pedregalejo beach and its bustling atmosphere. Now it seems crazy to think of seeing those terraces so full again soon. In my first month here (or in my last weeks of freedom, depending on how you look at it) I enjoyed my new location as much as possible: walks and meals near the sea, which I love. And suddenly everything changed. Now more than ever, I am grateful to be a journalist and to be able to tell the stories that have arisen from this exceptional and unknown situation. There are many people who are leaving their skin and there are many volunteers who are helping in what they can from their homes.

Telecommuting keeps me busy, and it's making the days go by rather quickly. In my free time, I have rediscovered my love of video games: the Nintendo Switch is saving my quarantine. What was one of my biggest hobbies as a tween (back then the first Nintendo DS) is back these days, the only difference being that now I don't have my parents at home to scold me for playing too much. Although I don't know if they would do it right now, you have to show some solidarity with the children and with the situation.

But don't worry, parents, I don't just spend my spare time playing video games. In addition to housework, I have done my first culinary steps, I have organized my closet, I watch movies and series, I read books and I make video calls with my family and friends, whom I miss a lot.

My closet rearrangement has a clear premise: comfortable clothes first. Wide leg pants have taken over. After a month, this look is starting to tire me, and there are days when I wake up wanting to dress a little prettier, like the 'influencers' I see on Instagram, I don't know how they do it. But it doesn't last long. At most, I wear a dress that is comfortable.

This house is bright, which is much appreciated these days. Luckily we have a terrace, a space that has become the weekend dining room and a (small) corner to think about what we are experiencing and what is to come.

It seems that the confinement will be extended for another fifteen days (I had it clear). Well, that's what it's up to. My craziest outing will continue to be to throw out the trash, while I think about being able to go back down this street and take a walk on the beach. And drive to San Pedro to see my family. I think nothing will be the same after this, our way of thinking and living will be different. I hope for the better. For now, I'm staying at home, where I don't live alone. Fernando, my life partner and now on TV, accompanies me on this daily adventure with Trufa, our dog, who doesn't understand what a pandemic is.

This has reset us from top to bottom

BY SERGIO CORTÉS I am privileged: I have a job, I have a modest chalet with a patio, I have two "grown-up" daughters and I don't I have direct relatives or friends infected by the coronavirus. I can't complain in the slightest. I put all this in the balance when, in this long month of confinement, I get to reflect on how life has changed us at the stroke of a pen and, above all, how it will change us even after this is resolved... when it is resolved . The optimism that I have as standard collides head-on with the enormous uncertainty that grips us these weeks. I miss so many things and so many people that I begin to assume that nothing is going to be the same. Because the days are now longer (and not precisely because of the time change) and I wish like never before that the sun would rise, that there would be clarity, that everything would be clear. And in that, it should be valued, I am (we are) also privileged to live where I live.

The confinement has forced us to vary habits, to reinvent ourselves, to prioritize the break, to value the closeness of the family, to meditate on the accelerated rhythm of our lives and, I think it is not kitsch, to long for a kiss and a hug. But also, accustomed as we were to living exclusively in the present, it has forced us to consider the future. The near and the far. From when will we return to our workplace or when will schools resume at how much will the economic recovery cost.

The confinement is also testing our ability to withstand countless situations, each one in its own time, but honestly I do not give the slightest importance to any discrepancy due to coexistence or teleworking. Is it logical to do so in the face of the loss of so many lives day in and day out? It is what infuriates me the most: seeing how he tiptoes over the daily death toll (transferring it, for example, to how many daily plane crashes would have to occur and I get scared) and, above all, trying to assimilate that his relatives they cannot say goodbye to them.

The feeling is that no one knows for sure what the enemy is like. There are more and more doubts about the symptoms, about whether it can also affect young people or people without pathologies, and even about the effectiveness of bicarbonate. Theories and more theories, musings and more musings, predictions and more predictions. That is why we put ourselves in the shoes, especially, of the toilets and we go out to applaud every afternoon. Because suddenly we have appreciated that they are there (when they have always been and will always be) and because we know that they fight with a slingshot against a huge adversary. And I'm not just saying this because of the media, but because of the difficulty involved in ignoring all the evil of the virus against which it is being fought.

It is evident that we do not forget the police, the military, supermarket employees, home delivery drivers, truck drivers, farmers, food and distribution companies, or those also exposed in pharmacies (like my 'brother ' Paco) or the gas stations. But I wake up every day thinking about the newsstands, about those people who allow our teleworking in SUR to have a real impact, about the work of this family reaching everyone. And also in our web subscribers, minute recipients of our effort.

I miss so many things... While the calls and WhatsApp messages follow one another in marathon days that don't seem to end, I miss my house in Doctor Marañón, the one where I have spent the most years of my life , with my Rosaleda in front. I miss all my colleagues, those with whom I share a parking space, talk at the reception or the administration, greet each other in the coffee corner, and joke and debate anywhere in the newsroom. The coronavirus and confinement have reset us from top to bottom. The 'memes' of the first days have already been drastically reduced and our ability to endure is permanently tested. I strive to change work tables and find time to go out into the yard to walk, to choose which book to read and to try to fulfill the entrusted domestic chores. My wife, Marisa, is a perfect coordinator and my daughters, Alba and Yaiza, are busy with their homework at the University and their fourth year of ESO. All the machinery is perfectly greased to make this unexpected and unusual trance more bearable.

That's why, above all else, I'm not complaining. I think of my mother (cloistered at home with such a full schedule that she always has), of my friends with young children, of those who live in confined spaces or of charity, of so many whose employment situation is precarious or in danger. I put all that in the balance and I am privileged. I have learned more than ever to value what I have.

Jorge, Adolfo, journalism, the house and me

BY VANESSA MELGAR . I have a 20 month old boy. The end. This is how concise, and intense, my quarantine diary could be. Jorge is brimming with energy. "You'll find out, now!!", the experienced mothers told me. "I'm finding out, now," I say. I imagine that the umbilical cord has not been cut and that it discharges me through it. It's a cyclone. Disorder and order. He brushes his teeth and hands in his own way. She also smears herself with body milk whenever she considers it (she has enviable skin) and eats with only two spoons. The yogurt reaches her bangs. My washing machine works overtime.

But Jorge also spreads joy and with it he colors our quarantine, that of Adolfo, my partner and his father, and mine. He is a soldier, from the Marine Corps, and there are days when he is on the front line. He and his colleagues, the toilets, the civil guards, the police, Civil Protection volunteers, transporters, cleaners, cashiers... we must thank them very much, not only in the form of applause. To the unsupportive... (cuss words).

I continue to work at home, as a freelancer and as before this nightmare, from a room set up as an office (when I get tired, I go to the living room with my laptop or to the terrace... blessed terrace). I communicate with colleagues from the newspaper by phone, WhatsApp or email. I miss the street. Going out, with my backpack with camera and notebook, and not knowing what the day will bring you. Now he is less adventurous, with Jorge's responsibility. I'm missing Ronda in mini-spring, before max-summer. At this time it is especially beautiful. La Alameda is my favorite place, but also Calle de la Bola. Like Jorge, they pour out joy. They are boisterous. Now they are mute. Professionally, I have recorded many moments but there are two that have overwhelmed me in a special way. The first was when it snowed heavily in Ronda and early, it was dawn, I entered the Alameda. There were no footprints. It was the first person. The silence was eerie. I looked out onto the balconies and the image of part of the completely white Serranía impressed me. It was another world, like the one that was revealed to me on the first day of the state of alarm, on Calle de la Bola. Not a soul. All closed. You could hear my footsteps and the birds sing. Also another world.

I'm going to miss May in Ronda, the month in which everything seems to be celebrated: the 101 kilometers of the Legion, the historical recreation Ronda Romántica, the pilgrimage in honor of the Virgen de la Cabeza, María Auxiliadora, the Royal Fair of May...

It is tiring to write practically only about the virus, although, fortunately, in Ronda and the region, the incidence is being much lower and the work pressure, therefore, also; but I recognize that the quarantine is helping me to reconcile with the profession. From my home bubble and abstracting myself from the ugly that surrounds this job, typing is sweeter, calmer, more idealistic... perhaps it has always been like this and life, at all levels, does not have to rush so much, not lose From the point of view, the important things, like seeing Jorge grow, realizing beforehand that he has to renew his wardrobe because his pants are already too short. pamper yourself I now even have a personal trainer, with whom I practice cardio and Pilates. There are days it kills me.

I've always loved writing about human subjects. These days there are stories that make you smile and even move you. I like connecting with people. Sometimes we get lost. I adore people who are media-educated, those who consume information from serious, reference media, such as Diario SUR, those who know how to put garbage aside. I hate social networks, which I consume more now, since they are a work tool. I write most of the news for the website, at noon, when Jorge sleeps. I miss paper.

I practically don't watch television, although I love Vicente Vallés. I have cried with the pain of those who have lost their family and friends in these circumstances. It's hard not being able to say goodbye. I have discovered myself in the most empathetic quarantine, also more perfectionist and active. I have moved furniture and pictures, I have painted the living room and I have even ironed the bedspreads of some beds. I have made the wardrobe change. I have cooked carrot cake, brownie and sponge cake and spoon tortillas, with chard and cod, typical of my town, Algatocín.

Reconciliation is difficult. Knitting the Vanessa mother, journalist and housewife is not successful most days. We organize ourselves well, but the house is exhausting and squeezes to be aware of everything at the same time. I don't like routine. I want to go outside and drink coffee while doing an interview. Then I connect again to life, to the reality that surrounds us, I feel lucky and the coffee, which tastes glorious, I drink at home with my family. We're ok.

A proper room for claustrophilia

BY MARÍA DOLORES TORTOSA . "A woman needs money and a room of her own to dedicate herself to literature." This phrase by Virginia Woolf in her essay on women and literature, 'A room of one's own', made it clear to me when setting up the house that there would be a room just for me, with my books, the flower prints, the stone collection and shells and travel memories. The work of a journalist has taken me to other rooms with books and solitude, but the confinement due to the coronavirus has caught me in this first room of my own. The intermittent absences have turned it into a bit of a loft for 'things'; and not all the books are in it, distributed between Seville and Antequera, but there is not much time to read or write novels either. The reality of the coronavirus, "erratic" and "unpredictable", to borrow Woolf's words referring to inspiration, has me, like all my fellow pens, I suppose, hooked from morning to night to the Internet. Sometimes listening a press conference without journalists, others a parliamentary debate with almost no deputies; or watching videos and more home videos of politicians from all parties with their speeches without questions (and without answers) and reading and reading, but not the wise men and women of my library, but the same statements from all administrations and organizations that arrive by email or messaging networks. I already knew teleworking from home as a correspondent for regional political information for a decade in Seville, but this telematic and virtual journalism that we do today while confined is a novelty. Has it come to stay like Covid-19? Aww...

A single-issue journalism. It is boring, if not because this crisis takes the form of a 'thriller'. The plot twist at the end of each chapter hooks you into the next. All pending the curve of infections and deaths, hoping for a happy outcome, knowing that it may not be. I don't know if the daily communiqués from the Government and the Junta are like war reports, but they seem to be. The working day begins with them in front of the laptop screen, mobile phone and tablet...

I confess that I also avoid the 'whatsapp' memes of groups of friends, although I have not yet fallen for the gamble of posting photos from when we were younger on the networks and complying with the maxim that any past time was better. Of course. You have to find escapes from the drama. I imagine those moms and dads in the houses as the protagonists of 'Life is beautiful'. They are my heroes, like the hospital, supermarket, police and field staff. And my father, barely recovered like no other at home from the death of my mother so few months ago. We have discovered the 'google meet' on his birthday this confined April and he tells me every day the hundred laps he takes in the hallway with his tuned-up walker. 'Resistiré' has been the tune of his life and I hope he continues to resist much longer. Every day I applaud for all of them, but there are times when eight o'clock passes. My street is discreet; I know that there are others who organize fairs. These days the one in Seville would be taking place...

We all wonder how the coronavirus will change our lives and if we will return to the habits of before. For now, just going to the supermarket causes me anguish. Imagine going from hospital to hospital with a family member with a chronic and at-risk disease several times during the month of confinement. It's like going to the front. I have lived it and I confess that what I wanted most was to return home and to my own room. Will we get so used to this that we end up feeling claustrophilic? The imagination does not give me for novels, but it does to make bleach fumigators and protection gadgets. What would my mother, who knew I was conceited, say if she saw how I have lost my sense of the ridiculous since the first day I went out wearing gloves to wash the dishes. Right now I'm looking for a large plastic jug to cut up and put on my head as a protective shield.

The power of breastfeeding (or the blessed 'boob moment')

BY REGINA SOTORRÍO This is my second quarantine in 2020. The other one is called Leo and he arrived in January with 3.5 kilos of weight. Just when the postpartum stopped hurting and the hormones were already asking me to go out, we locked ourselves up at home again. "This was not the plan," I often tell him in those moments that we share just him and me every two or three hours, the blessed 'boob moment'.

I confess: sometimes I take it too long or provoke it before its time. With her "older" sister, barely two and a half years old, fluttering around the house, those minutes with Leo clinging to my chest have become an escape valve. Even Candela already understands, more or less, that "mom can't" run after her or throw herself on the floor to play kitchen if her brother is on top of her. That's why, as soon as I see the opportunity, I take refuge in the wonderful power of breastfeeding to get away from the chaos and reach for my mobile to connect with what is happening out there. And that's when I hallucinate with what the SUR Newsroom is capable of doing. The hundreds of WhatsApp from the newspaper chat take me back to the maelstrom of journalism, at a frenetic pace from which no colleague gets off these strange days. How I would like you, the reader, to know the amount of hours and effort (professional and personal) that goes into each text.

I follow them from a distance from my maternity leave bubble, with admiration for their impeccable work, with great pride in belonging to that team and with a certain nostalgia for not being with them taking the informative pulse of a historical circumstance. I miss a buzz and a tension that I know I'll miss later, but that's the human condition. And I miss them, a lot.

Back in my world, the day goes by in an endless loop of boob-pee-poop-gas interrupted by a new game every ten minutes and children's songs in the background that later appear in my dreams. To give this confinement more excitement, we have removed the girl's diaper. At the cry of "pee" all activity comes to a standstill to begin an obstacle course to the bathroom. Every time we reach the finish line on time it's a party. When we don't make it, you can imagine what it takes. Luckily, I have the best possible quarantine partner, a steward father who doesn't "help" around the house: he makes life at home work. As I write this, the good father (as my good friend Laura Baena, the boss 'Malamadre', would say) is preparing the second cake of the week (and, mind you, it's Wednesday) with the two dwarfs in the kitchen. This time it's chocolate. Good!

The confinement has added another routine to my days: the video calls every afternoon with the grandparents. It is curious that now we see each other more than before, but so much screen has its dangers. The older one has awakened a kind of 'fair monkey' complex, or perhaps it's just that the girl has turned out to be an artist: as soon as she hears the phone, she begins her special song and dance number. "Look what I'm doing!", he shouts on each call, whoever the interlocutor is. And for the little one, his grandparents are those faces poorly framed in a mobile that tell him over and over again how big he is for how small he is. But there is good news that I repeat to myself like a mantra, there is one day less. One day less to walk (wow!) with Leo, to once again share a table and debate with my classmates and, above all, one day less for you to give me all those hugs you owe me, mom

The profession goes from within

BY ANTONIO ORTÍN I have to admit that at this point, with a month of confinement behind us, living has become a roller coaster . Because it goes for days. It is true that the collective push to see the toilets, the security forces, delivery men, supermarket employees, etc. without daring; even the fact of participating in the daily applause on the balconies and being sheltered at home with my family is the best support. As a good friend says, the main vital 'axis' is strong. The bad thing is the uncertainties, the pain for what is happening and, worst of all, the fear of what is coming our way “when all this happens”.

But beyond the transcendental, it is also true that the experience has been a logistical challenge. Because locking up a large family with three teenagers in an apartment is testing our organizational capacity and, as politicians say in that corny fashion, the 'seams' of the home. It must be appreciated, and a lot, that Nicolás, 17, Cayetano, 15, and Gonzalo, 12, are doing really well. There are times, obviously. The hormonal explosion exerts its overflowing energy from time to time, that is inevitable, and causes some friction. But in general, you can't blame them for anything. I can't imagine his father as a teenager in this situation. They have understood well that everyone's health is at stake.

So, well, we're dating I think successfully. The secret, if there is one, is that from day one we have imposed a time routine that greatly facilitates the distribution of tasks and internal discipline of operation. The living room of my house has become a space for 'networking', with the never well considered corner for the ergometer, where my son Cayetano continues to crush himself every day as a rower. Add to that the fact that Nicolás, the eldest, has part of his room converted into a production studio where he develops his career as a DJ under the name of Nortin. If before I spent hours on it, now I have lost count of the work it does. And little Gonzalo, who burns his incombustible energy in the hallway at home with the fitness classes that his surf teacher, Nacho Fernández Urdiales, teaches him via Skype during these days of quarantine. One day we will have to tell the immense work of this man with the youth of Rincón de la Victoria.

Anyway. From the morning that Cristina, my partner, starts the 'office' of her company, Intermástil, official Toyota forklift dealer, until I close the latest edition of the newspaper at night, this is non-stop. In fact, I can't understand how being at home all day now I have less time than before the confinement. By the way, no matter how much the teleworking gurus say, for a newspaper it is worth a provisional solution. But little more.

Editing and closing a multimedia process like that of SUR, with the web constantly updated and the pages pushed to the limit of updating with the night closing, are subject to constant changes that require continuous flows of communication. And teleworking slows everything down quite a bit. It is very screwed not to lose the thread of eight or ten internal WhatsApp groups, to be aware of the last hour via Twitter or teletypes and to advance in the edition. No, it's not the same as a newsroom, even though my living room, at seven in the evening, is an incessant noise of keyboard rattling with Radio 5 All News in the background until dawn, in which the Rotativa confirms that it has it all. No, it's not a newsroom, although, what do you want me to say: one is a journalist in Martiricos, in the jungle or in the back room of your house. This profession goes inside.

For the rest, what has been said, we are getting ahead with a certain routine. The day starts with 40-45 minutes of sports. An abs session that I complete with core, strength and flexibility work that my trainers from the Real Club Mediterráneo have given me. It is the umbilical cord that keeps me attached to one of my passions, one of my escape valves to daily pressure: swimming. How I miss the water and the good times with my team of veterans of the club, now that we have learned to value all those little things that made us so happy and that we do not always appreciate in their fair measure. But hey, let's go back to everyday life, and I'm getting transcendent again. Well, that little bit of work, together with the smell of bleach that the chlorine in swimming pools evokes in me, keeps my memory fed. Anyway, everyone has a stone and mine is that, what can we do?

Then it's time to start the house, leave lunch planned and get the troops on their feet so they can connect to the virtual classes with the institute before starting the computer to advance articles and reports; a very valuable time prior to the first videoconference of the day, the page setting, which already puts the turbine of the preparation of the newspaper at a thousand until dawn. What I do appreciate is the fact of being able to have lunch and dinner every day as a family, one of those gifts that life, formerly known as normality, deprives you of. Even the debate between my children to see whose turn it is to clean up and scrub the kitchen sounds like heavenly music to me in these times of pandemic.

What I don't find so pleasant is the visit to the supermarket. We have it organized to carry out an operation every week and stock up until the next one. But I have to admit that it has become a burden. Only the protocol for the preparation of masks, gloves, the provision of bags and the list so that nothing is forgotten is already a tension. And then, that feeling that you go out into the street with the fear with which you would step on Pripiat, the ghost town of Chernobyl. Even shopping, which I've always enjoyed, I now live as if any of the other customers pose a threat to my health every time they approach me at the egg counter. I don't know, it's unsettling.

And that from Monday to Friday. On the weekends that I don't have to work, we break the routine in the same way that we did before. A special meal and a lot of family entertainment, which includes the recovery of movie classics such as 'Casablanca', a game of Monopoly (I've played again after years!) and a billiards tournament in which, allow me to be immodest, I'm really good. There are also times for everyone to have their space.

We have opened our hands a bit with the authorized time of video consoles, Nintendos and others.

For my part, to the essential reading time (I have just finished a formidable biography of Unamuno by Colette and Jean-Claude Rabaté and I am reviewing a magnificent Contemporary History manual coordinated by Javier Paredes) I have added a review of my disco . Some classics have been revived and others have lost their value. But anyway, that's another story.

In short, this is how we get through the confinement as best we can. Thinking a lot, yes, about how everything will be after this. What will we find ourselves out there the day after quarantine and we leave this domestic refuge.

So this was telecommuting

Beep!...beep, beep!...beep, beep, beep, beep! and the sixteenth notes chain a monotonous and irritating repertoire that won't let up until after midnight. On the small screen, the little icons dance up and down while lines of words about to be born flash in green. Sometimes at such a dizzying pace that I end up replying to a message in the wrong way. Excuse me. Before, I thought that WhatsApp was nothing more than a form of free torture that served others to fill their spaces with vital boredom, but in the face of this uncertain panorama, I have ended up respecting it. Like other things. So much so that, as a work tool, now it ends up being as vital to me as the hands or the glasses, the pen or the computer.

In a newspaper, communication flows are so constant and necessary, that without them it would be unthinkable that the daily miracle of seeing the simple blank paper structured into sections and turned into news, telling some scoop, would take place at night. vivid and profusely illustrated stories, opinion, chronicles of balls in play, or neat cultural brushstrokes.

Accustomed for almost a quarter of a century to the human warmth, to the hustle and bustle of the Newsroom, to shared stress, to working side by side with my colleagues in the Editing team, I think I still feel a little in shock when we meet again every afternoon in a brief videoconference to outline the contents (tragic, also sometimes hopeful) of the news and the Closing of the newspaper. I've already gotten so used to their pixelated faces from their bunkers, as if they really lived confined to their mobile phones, that all previous routines taste like science fiction to me. The same thing happens to me when in the few free moments that I don't dedicate to stretching my legs on the way to the bakery or the supermarket –with my rose bush fumigation mask that doesn't really protect from anything and my little blown-out gloves that are but serve as props– I morbidly leaf through those prematurely aged newspapers that I brought with me when I was still thinking of painting the ceiling of the laundry room. I am disturbed by the reckless proximity with which the characters photographed with their bare faces posed. Arriving at the long-suffering pages of the agenda that contained the exhibitions that I missed and the billboard that gave us so much work, everything seems so unreal and incredibly remote to me, despite the fact that the last projectors went off just a month ago.

If for many its living rooms are to a large extent the sanctuary of television, in my case it was of my books and reading habits, until circumstances forced me to seclude myself for the duration of the quarantine, which will not be forty days–, and to give up the place of honor at the dining room table to the ostentatious work computer, which absorbs time in such an unspeakable way, and from which I check pages and headlines in slippers, fighting not to end up turned into a Robinson Crusoe even though my hair grows for hours.

Even if it's hard for you to believe it, only Paquito the chocolatier manages to punctually pull me off the screen every afternoon for a good quarter of an hour, when I go out into the garden and take the opportunity to breathe in the spring. The reason is that a roar of pre-recorded applause and a street medley seasoned to make matters worse with patriotic hymns shoots its generous decibels from the day center for the elderly, currently disused, in front of my house. It seems that my neighbors have already stopped seeing the grace of the show, as there are more and more casualties in the appointment of the balconies, while their dogs confined to the patios bark furious and scared as on stormy nights.

Before returning to my guard post, I briefly visit the fridge and I don't usually feel like anything I find and for which I endured so much in the supermarket at the beginning of this nightmare. Not even dark chocolate. I sit down again in front of the computer and the telephone, which has again loaded countless new messages and burns to the touch, without getting up until it is time to turn on the lamp, and that pinch in my stomach returns that will not leave me until the program that we use to put texts on the internet mark the end and we say goodbye exchanging a graphic and silent salute of applause on WhatsApp, somewhat more comforted after that day, never exempt from shocks, and which seemed to have no end.

Equal distribution of tasks at home, but I take 'Maya' out of it

BY J. RAFAEL CORTÉS. Those who know me well know that at work there are two things that I cannot miss: music and my 'gadgets'. I like working in the newsroom listening to good songs in the background and surrounded by the craziest 'pots', pens and all kinds of mobile or sound gadgets that make my colleagues laugh. But without a doubt the other mainstay of my daily work at the newspaper is precisely them, all that great team that gives life to SUR and that is now also part of my family. The other day I had to go to Doctor Marañón to pick up some things and that lightning visit to the completely empty building was overwhelming, almost terrifying, like the situation we are experiencing. A global health crisis that in my case has also meant the loss of a very close relative, a great person whom we loved very much and whom we have not even had the opportunity to say goodbye to as he deserved. But we must move forward…

Now those of us who make SUR work from home, although without losing contact, which especially in these times is more important than ever: whatsapp and videoconferences have replaced that permanent relationship with them, but above all with 'the three in raya', as those of us who share that corner full of Covers in which we sit every day affectionately call ourselves.

In my particular confinement, where I share teleworking with my other large family -my wife and my daughter- those of us who take care of editing, closing and supplements in SUR work side by side these days to coordinate our work at the same time that we 'invent' a leisure guide... to be at home. And it is that with the aim of offering proposals to enjoy the weekend, the FIND supplement was created 13 years ago, although since its creation we had never faced this challenge: Maintaining the leisure agenda for days off when the state of alarm forces us to be locked up at home. The imagination and, in my case, the hard work that musicians from Malaga do while maintaining their activity during confinement with concerts on the Internet, new record releases and all kinds of creative proposals, is facilitating this work.

These are challenging times, and another of the challenges we face these days is family life, although that is not a problem for me either. We are only three, well four if we count 'Maya', a Yorkshire who has been with us for six years and who makes us love her. Here the distribution of household chores is equitable. We are three to share equally: cleaning, food, shopping, various household arrangements... Everything is distributed proportionally, but I always take 'Maya' out for a walk. Well, that's when he leaves it, because every time he sees me with the chain and putting on my mask, he hides under the dining room table, his impregnable corner. And the garbage is also my thing!!!, that somehow I have to compensate for the fifteen years that I haven't taken it out...

The rest of the time at home, when the three of us aren't teleworking, we spend chatting, watching the current series (my daughter is still determined that we watch 'The 100', although I'm more into 'This is Us') , playing ludo, cards and even bingo... and at eight in the evening, everyone applauds. An ovation for those who continue to fight the battle against the virus and an emotional memory also for the loved ones who have left us because of the damn pandemic that keeps us confined after a month. A time in which, the truth, has not given me time to get bored, but to long for my life before.

What else do I miss? Well, my swimming sessions in the gym, the walks on the beach, the gastronomic getaways with the 'Jalando Team' and that normal, everyday day-to-day that I try to compensate by filling my new work corner with photos -and 'gadgets' , which of course is temporary.

Birthday with a beard in confinement

BY LUIS MORET. Silence. Much silence. Even in the center of the city you can hear the birds. There is even one that hoots in the distance that I am not able to identify. I think that this absence of noise throughout the day is something that I will not forget during this time of confinement. Especially the morning. I had only experienced a similar sensation a few days in the field, but now it happens here. Welcome, even if you miss the other, with what you have of human activity.

The days go by with the routine of intense teleworking and the house turned into a mini-newsroom for two. It took me a while to find the right place to turn it into a job, but I finally have it. The dining room table. First it was the kitchen, but, of course, there, he was eating all day. Now in this room, where the name alone reminds me of the art of good food, I am more comfortable, but I continue eating. We will also remember these days for the permanent presence of the computer in the dining room -the statue, Susana calls me, my companion in fatigues and also in work- the beard, which I only left once 30 years ago; the frantic races of my son Javier, who is training for a triathlon, like a circuit through the living room and the kitchen, and the applause at eight, among other things.

In what we call the office, Susana closes her door to telework and a life-size poster of a 'stormtrooper' from Star Wars reminds us to try not to disturb. In addition to working, she tries to maintain order in a house with two men who are not particularly diligent. Since yesterday he wouldn't let me open the fridge. The surprise was inside. A 'piece' of carrot cake made with 'Maripuri', that's what he calls the Thermomix, which was scrumptious. Along with this, gifts of confinement, and the desire to blow out the candles. If it is fulfilled, the quarantine will soon end.

These behind-the-scenes images will stay with me forever as scenes from a long confinement that has spanned from Father's Day to my birthday. I will not be the first nor the last to celebrate it locked up at home, but what are we going to do. I remember the last one with a surprise party and friends and tears come to my eyes... Anyway, there will be time to repeat it. Thank you all -friends and colleagues- for your messages. I found this one very gratifying, which I hope they would really include in the state of alarm decree. «Birthdays in March and April will not be counted. They will keep the same age.

The thing with the beard may be due to leaving a photographic icon of the quarantine and also to see how it would look. I also think that my imagination was playing to see if when my hair grew on my face, the head was encouraged to grow hair due to the symbiosis with the lateral-lower part. But it will be not.

The days and nights go by and on occasions I have imagined myself on board a submarine or a spaceship to better overcome the confinement. It was a technique that he used when in times of activity on the street he could not sleep. But now to sleep there is no problem. Is it because of the absence of noise?

In the absence of masks, I have reserved my imperial stormtrooper helmet from Star Wars that I think can do a great job. Before showing it off I'll have to see if it's authorized, but I think it protects it. At least with the annoying cough that I have had to deal with at times, which makes you imagine everything. But, of course, it is best to think that it is a cold. In the end, nothing to worry about.

This April 11th birthday was marked as the first date of possible lifting of the state of alarm measures. It would have been a great gift, but it couldn't be. All those who meet on April 26 will have thought the same thing... but it already seems clear that there will be many others who will have to celebrate it between four walls. To them too, happy birthday of confinement…. And keep eating!

We disintegrate into fluff

BY JUAN CALDERÓN. For those of us who live from one place to another from the time we get up until we go to bed, this confinement has its good and bad things. Just so you know, I cross Malaga from end to end every morning. I live on the other side of the Guadalhorce, in Churriana, the forgotten Málaga, because really for many Málaga ends in the river, and if they rush me at the airport. Beyond that is another world. The foreigner almost. So the quarantine is saving me a lot of kilometers every day and a good dose of stress. That's about the little good I can get out of this. But of course, when you have a seven-year-old girl and a four-year-old boy locked up for more than a month, well, you can imagine. That thing about stress that I was telling you about, well, I have it triggered. We go from fight to fight, but in the end you stop to think and it is that you cannot demand anything of them because they do enough not to ask to go out on the street. It's funny, my kids haven't done it once in this time. The same means that my wife, much more her than me things as they are, we are doing half well. Having breakfast, lunch and dinner with everyone together is a blessing because I have never been able to do it since they were born; is what this profession has. Those moments are not paid. It strikes me what level of rapport and understanding they are achieving in these weeks, despite that hand that escapes, the pulling of the hair that flies or even the bite to the arm that the little one lets go from time to time.

We started by putting them on a schedule, but this has already been unleashed. It is increasingly difficult for them to have a certain discipline, but it is normal. We have done all kinds of crafts, but we spent a few days painting stones and making shell pendants that we had collected from the beaches when they could be visited. One day I brought several buckets full of stones to put them in the planters, boulders that we are now decorating. And there they spend the entertaining hours. Rarely did something as simple as a stone go so far.

As I was telling you, I live in Churriana, which is a neighborhood with the identity of a town because in reality it once was, so one doesn't know whether to say my town or my neighborhood... Here, next to the airport, the hum of airplanes is constant. Those who are not from here, foreigners from the capital, always ask me the same thing. "But can you sleep with the noise of the planes?" And the truth is that one has it so internalized that he doesn't even listen to them. I'm telling you this because at night when I go out to see the little dog we have, which is another cyclone that drives me crazy, pee a little bit because if you don't do it on the roof, you can't hear a thing. The silence is total and utter. In the background you can see the lights of the airport, but you can't hear anything at all. Never in the 43 years I've been here have I felt it. It turns out that in the end, what disturbs us is silence.

I live in a casa mata, which today's real estate agencies would sell us as a chalet or a duplex, which is cooler, but underneath I have a "Chinese" that sells everything. The commotion that there is all day is tremendous with the kids inside and out, motorcycle goes and motorcycle comes, the one that stops with the music on top... I thought that 'my Chinese', I call him that because despite the years I don't know his name, he was going to get me out of any trouble in confinement. You know, important things in these situations: popcorn, pipes with salt, an ice cream, sweets, toilet paper... But the Police came at the beginning of the state of alarm and told them that they had to close, which I don't understand why the Chinese They have replaced neighborhood stores and that forces us all to move. "Go Chino, machine, close so you don't see the one you've 'lied' with the coronavirus," the agent told him while I watched the scene from my balcony. What fault will my Chinese have!

I live on one side of the street and on the other is the house of my parents and my sister. As there is no transfer of cars and the silence is total, well we speak loudly. They leaned on the wall and we on the balcony. The scene is very curious. Voices come and go in times of social networks... The movement of applause has allowed me to meet some of the new neighbors. It has fabric because I have lived on the same street for forty years. I feel sorry for my mother, because I know she is wanting to give my children one of those tight kisses that only grandmothers give, but find out when we can do it...

Telecommuting is the scam of the century. I live glued to the laptop from the time I finish doing things around the house until I go to bed, and I have to admit that it is difficult for me to maintain concentration to write anything. There have been no hours or days off since this started, and the problem is that you don't know how to stop unless you throw your mobile out the window so as not to listen to WhatsApp or see Twitter... Sweeping has become a obsession. I don't understand how we generate so much fluff from one day to the next. I think we are disintegrating in the form of fluff, so when I finish breakfast I take the broom to see how the matter is and see how many grams of us are on the floor... When I finish I show the dustpan to my wife. "Look, it's amazing what we've released." Total, that sometimes I sweep two or three times a day.

The other day I went to the newspaper to pick up my monitor because I was going to throw my laptop out the window. I entered the newsroom and the world came crashing down on me. The silence was total, when normally that is a chicken coop with 'la Requena' speaking to everyone, Barreales yelling at the locals next to him to come over and with Recio from the other end sending 'Guasas'... I recorded a video giving me a walk through the places of each companion and I was saying their names with a little joke to lift the spirits. I shared it in the group we have because I thought they would be excited. My companions were not there, but I saw them there. I left with tears jumping thinking when we will get together again. Hopefully it will be sooner rather than later. Take care. Kisses for everyone.

My new friend the robot

In front of my son Álvaro's miniature processions, which do not lack a single detail.

BY PEDRO LUIS GOMEZ. The worst thing that I have from this confinement is that I do not distinguish the days (apart from the fact that I cannot go running). Come on, I don't know if it's Monday, Saturday or Sunday, no matter how hard I try. Never, not even when I had an ulcer operation 30 years ago, have I been without leaving the house for so long, specifically since the 12th, when they contacted me by mobile phone in Los Manueles, where I was eating with a group of friends (Miguel, Manolo, Paco, Federico and Victoria, on a summer day in Playamar), that a person with whom I had lunch on Saturday the 7th had the damn bug and had tested more than positive, and as a precaution I hardly said goodbye and came to my rooms that are said to await events... In other words, on this Holy Thursday of my loves it's been a whopping 29 days since I've set foot on the street, because this is fulfilled or he's being an asshole, and things are not for that. I have a piece of paper that tells me that I can go to the newspaper, but I have taken a liking to teleworking, and videoconferences, probably because they are forced to hang...

The one who has it worst is my youngest son, Álvaro, who at 12 is old enough to be within four walls. He is annoyed, like his father, because he has been a first class brother and enjoys thrones and Nazarenes like few others. He asks me if there will be thrones in September, and I tell him possibly yes, but there will be no Nazarenes and I talk about the liturgy, but don't think that he assimilates that very well... He has also made his peculiar miniature procession, a tradition that began when he was just four years old and is renewed every spring, all by himself. He is also a colossus in Fortnite, and as the coach of Málaga, laugh at Guardiola...

In these days of isolation I have made friends with a lot of 'glovers'; They are all magnificent guys, helpful to the maximum, and I make a request to the companies: do away with the bicycles, it is inhumane for them to do the delivery on them, especially if they have to take packages to Cerrado de Calderón, because it is like the Tourmalet on the Tour . I have already told them that if they send me a 'glover' with a bicycle, I will stop using the service. This is what I have done with Uber Eats, because two services arrived in a row with exhausted cyclists and there is no money to pay for it nor should it be allowed, and I am not willing to collaborate in that exploitation. Overall, between one thing and another, I'm surprised at how long I've been cloistered but I break down if I look at what we have left.

I would tell you that I am usually pessimistic, but until late May we won't be able to set foot on the street, and if not over time. Hopefully I'm wrong. I am writing this on a very strange Holy Thursday for everyone, but for the person who writes this, who has spent his whole life seeing the Christ of Mena every year, since when I was very young my grandfather Pedro took me to the walls of the Guadalmedina where we used to fight for a hole to see the legionary transfer, it is very difficult to assume. There are traditions that hurt when they are not fulfilled: every morning like today, at 9 o'clock it's ready, at 11 o'clock in the Plaza de Santo Domingo, the transfer; then visit Esperanza and finally buying French toast at El Colmenero and then having a vermouth at El Pimpi and having tapas in Santiago or La Reserva or Chinitas... I've stayed, we've stayed, without all that, and when Those things, which once seemed insignificant, which are now valued in their true importance, disappear from your life, the truth is that it is hard to assimilate it.

Anyway, I thought I was going to give myself time for everything: work, finish my sixth book, run on the treadmill, tidy up my room, check overdue papers, watch movies on the different 'smart' portals, and read books.. Well, either I'm very clumsy or I don't measure time very well, but the truth is that all I do is work and cook. The kitchen relaxes me, although I am as "acceptable" in it as horrible in the order, and when I finish any dish it seems that a cyclone has passed, now that yes, I cracked a "Pedro Luis chicken" of first, and a paella of vegetables influenced by the wonderful Piti (Count Ansurez), the one who makes them best in the world. Be that as it may, the only positive thing about this 'provisional prison without bail' that we are enduring is that I have discovered my food processor, Gourmet 5000, which had been locked up in a pantry for seven years, and after being released, has now become my inseparable friend , because he even talks to me: you have to see the conversations we have...! And if someone who reads this newspaper lends me a hand, I will be infinitely grateful: when I put it in the oven, right off the bat, it stops and an E2 appears on the screen, which means I don't know what about electrical issues, but I don't care ...

And as you know, it usually rains when it pours, because my fixed oven in the kitchen has also broken, and look here, not even San Pedro comes in to fix anything, that bug is evil with greed... And in those I am, looking for the solution of the damn E2, another virus. The worst of all this is that a lot of friends have suffered from the bug, and three of them have unfortunately died. I couldn't even go to see them off, and that's not fair. That is the worst part of this whole story, that we are talking about daily life when many, too many, have met their deaths, besides that it was not their turn in theory. Finally, I'm done. I go back to the kitchen, to see if I can fix the damn Gourmet 5000, my new and great friend, who, as such, usually makes me mischief, because it is already known that almost everything is allowed in friendship... Holy Thursday without my Christ of the Good Death in the streets. Ugh, what a mess. I ask Him for everyone. Let it be light. And a lot of health.

The April slope

BY JESÚS HINOJOSA. As the days go by, and much more this week, that cry with which the foremen of the thrones encourage the bearers in the last moments of the procession comes to my mind: «Up, up, up! , up up!". What a cost this April, we don't even remember January. We have already consumed a good part of our strength and we still have a long way to go until we arrive, in this case, not at the closure, but at the exit. That day when we can breathe the air of the street, even if it is behind a mask and trying not to touch each other.

Nothing will ever be the same again, but I hardly have time to think about the future of the coming weeks and months between calls to older brothers and WhatsApp messages from my colleagues at the newspaper. This teleworking thing is looking more and more like a 24-hour pharmacy, only that the shift is always the same. There are no thrones on the street, but the 'Pasión del Sur' supplement arrives at the kiosks every day and the 'younger brothers' team has to be at full capacity, especially now that we have our admired Ángel Escalera giving his all with coronavirus information. Pedro Luis Gómez, Antonio Montilla, yours truly, and even the 'honorary younger brother', Antonio Roche, we miss his signature in this year's nostalgic brotherhood chronicles.

Like many other confined Malagans and Spaniards, I already have certain routines that I repeat every day. Some of them help me move my skeleton, even if it is only to assemble and disassemble every day on the table in the living room the keyboard, the laptop and the mouse, arranged on the bulletin of a brotherhood as a mat (I will not say the name in case She might feel offended, although now that I think about it, there are many times when they have used newspaper pages with my information to polish a cane or remove wax from a tunic).

I'm glad that one of my last outings before this closure was to a department store (yes, El Corte Inglés) to buy a razor with which to shave every week. I never thought I had the skills for that, but the truth is that I'm not bad at it. I think of my poor hairdresser and of so many freelancers for whom this slope is going to be especially hard.

How hard these days are being the farewells of loved ones. I was touched by one very closely in this past week of passion, although it was not due to coronavirus, and the truth is that it is difficult to live through a moment like this in this situation of forced closure. I especially remember the one that my Clarisas nuns from the Divina Pastora church have voluntarily and now I admire them even more. When will I see her again? Her, I mean. I still don't know, but I keep the last photo I took of him with my cell phone in the shadows of his dressing room like gold on a cloth.

"Up, up, up, up, up!" Health, love and hope to all. There is less left to finish climbing the slope, we are getting closer to the starting point of something new that scares us but that we will have to face with enthusiasm and optimism, we have no other choice. I never thought I would say this, but I can't wait to see the laundry basket overflowing with ironing.

Adara's mother in 'Survivientes'

BY ESTER REQUENA. «Editing a general information website these days is like riding a roller coaster. Curves and curves and curves do not stop appearing... What vertigo». The reflection is not mine, it belongs to Mikel Labastida, my counterpart as editor of the Las Provincias website, from our same editorial group. And yes, that's how I've also felt for a month, on a continuous roller coaster... to which we must add the express adaptation to teleworking and communicating with whatsapp. Much more than before. I haven't counted them, but I think they can easily exceed more than two thousand a day (plus the calls from Boris Salas, don't miss them, otherwise I'll worry). And I'm not exaggerating. I never thought I would miss my table at the newspaper so much and seeing my colleagues every day, even though we share our virtual laughs. As I remember, if some of you took home your chair, I opted for the footrest, because I am small and I need it to sit well. Things that are 1.58 tall.

The damned virus has me so obsessed that more than one night I have had nightmares thinking about having to get up running in the middle of the night to change texts and pieces in SUR.es. It is what a web in continuous change has 24 hours a day and more in these times of crisis. And to 'help' to get along better, one day my mother jumps at me saying that I have a bad face and that I look like Adara's mother in 'Survivors'. Yes, what you have to hear in full confinement... It doesn't help that he has said goodbye to sheet metal and paint either. Comfortable clothes and clean face are my uniform. At this rate I forget to walk in heels. I so envy people who dress up to be at home, but it doesn't come out. Like doing sports. I have tried, but in the 25 days that we have been in a state of alarm I have only managed to do something for two days and only 15 minutes (I hope my trainer Guille from the Malaka Tribe does not read this, because if not when he returns he will torture me to squats). So it takes me longer to put on my sneakers than to shake like 'Fame, let's dance'. And seeing, without leaving your chair, the thousands of exercise routines that fill social networks does not lose weight. Word of follower of several fit accounts. And let's not talk about cleaning and ordering. People are leaving their houses nickel-plated and mine looks like the final battle of a war is being fought. I realize that every time eight o'clock strikes and I see that it is increasingly difficult to get to the terrace to applaud... and to attend the mini-party that my street neighbors throw for 15 minutes every day. We already have up to three Djs for the whole street that alternate and you can even make requests. We have danced from 'Paquito el chocolatero' to 'Asejeré'.

At least work helps to cope with this strange and atypical Easter. I am so focused on the figures of the coronavirus and its effects that I am not aware that there are no processions in the street. When all this happens, the duel will surely come, because in 'normal' circumstances today I would have everything ready to go out with Fusionadas one more Holy Wednesday. And we would give each other lots of kisses and hugs at the end of the penance season because that's where my other family is, along with the inherited family and the one from the newspaper. And we would shed many tears of emotion, but they are pending for October. Like the reunion with my sister and my nieces Isabel and Inés, who live outside of Spain, and that the coronavirus leaves them without vacations on the Costa del Sol and without an upcoming visit date. Blessed video calls that are a daily energy boost with your progress for a titty as heavy as me!

Meanwhile, riding the roller coaster of non-stop information, I get a bit of my 'grinch' vein in the SUR Digital group. Luckily there is a great team in it and we end up laughing at everything, although we are aware that all this is going to mark us a lot in the future. But that will come later. For now, just say what we repeat to ourselves every day: "One day less."

My state-house of siege

BY PILAR R. QUIRÓS. I confess before Almighty God and before you, readers, that I have become an exploitative mother. So. Without contemplations. They confined us, much to our regret, like Filomeno, and I set up my state-house of siege as a military barracks. I set myself up, without giving it much thought, as Captain Maleficent, and coined a small regiment of sons/soldiers, who, as in good armies, those from developed countries, charge for their obligations. My eldest teenager, the sergeant, is in charge of lunches and dinners, at 7 euros for the complete pack per day; the pre-adolescent, corporal barracks, made the bathroom her own, at 2 euros a day; and the big boy, a private soldier, folds sheets with the captain and sweeps the terrace for another two euros so that there are no comparative grievances. The rest is a whole gear for which you no longer pay but is required in an atavistic life, from which we only get out by spending many more hours online working and hooked on school classes (those teachers are not paid) . The days, these days are falling like dominoes when they are arranged one after another. My little animals, except for some restless moments of the boiling adolescent, and the boy always prepared for a good fight for the sofas, cushions provided, are giving a lesson in knowing how to be and conformism in the face of circumstances worthy of Freud's study. Chapeau!

The first day of captivity I climbed on my heels and I had to hang my bag. Snouts, always red, and one of those cute shirts that doesn't require ironing but still works. When we began to have breakfast, the troops, curious to the point of satiety, insolently asked me: Where are you going?, the major inquired. On the street? You can't, said the second. The third continued with his tail-cao and blurted out: "Well, the heels thing to be at home...". We laughed uncontrollably and I continued doing the paripé for another hour until the other captain looked at me with the face of Mr. Bean and I got off the supers laughing. did not strain We have breakfast together, we eat together, we have dinner together like never before. Like when we are traveling. Traveling in our house, from the corridor to the living room, from there to the terrace when it's sunny, which to make matters worse has been hidden for more days than necessary. And it's these days when you have to play tough to keep the morale of the barracks high when you realize that those colleagues who sit with you every day and put together letters like you are as much your family as the ones you've locked up with. forced and that they have your blood. That insidious Albert who challenges everything to find your Yin or your Yang, who already messes me up so much that..., that Barreales who is a second part mother, that Iván who always has something surreal to tell, all at my table; with Nuria behind, who has already let me know that she misses my megabass (it's congenital flat, I was born with it incorporated as standard), Susana and Requena messing with me (I love it), that Alvarito who is going to be a father, Ortín always with that 'man what is said…'; Recio, from his fishbowl to tidy up like a smoothie, the tender churrasquita Bryan, Manolo painting with Fran the first, the neighbors Meñi and Pilar, the digital children and their memes, the ones from Sports and that Cortés always telling an anecdote, the Cano and Soto from Paleo, Paquito and Lillo as men of the weather, the German Stuber and Agui with their palms, the colleagues from Culture with whom we shared lunch and snacks and that dream team from Art and Closing, who design the pages for us and they correct even the identity card (Marinoid intoned the mea culpa). WhatsApp burns me with all of them and at all hours leaving pieces and Bori, Ñito and Pedro, with their photos and videos. But I don't see them, even though I feel them. Ángel, Montilla and Hinojosa, the younger brothers, and the master of ceremonies Pedro Luis, who these days would fill the newsroom, right in front, with incense and ringing the bell, as if we were talking through the ojopatio. We live in an underworld while a demon bug continues to grow strong outside. And then you connect the dots, and you remember them, the ones you frequent in the Casona in those gigantic corridors in which you now suspect that you were doing some sport (shhh, let no one find out), and all that spectrum of people, family, your parents, whom you see and talk to four meters away when you take home some purchases from week to week, and friends, who surround you. So many. A whole world corseted between four walls. My intention was to have written a horny confinement, almost a recess, in a humorous, scoundrel tone, but the sentimental vein came out. This weekend we are informed that we are still in the equator pass. To all of them, to my people, what I tell them whenever I can: Zus I want.

On the border of good and evil

BY MARINA RIVAS. I was not going through the best of my moments when the state of alarm was decreed, so the first night of confinement, my partner and I opened the first bottle of wine, while we came to Pedro Sánchez on television. Cause and effect. The first days were transformed into a carousel of emotions; It seemed to us that we were living a nightmare and the first existential crises were not long in coming. Everything is also magnified in a 50 m2 apartment, without a terrace and with a balcony where you have to maneuver to hang a clothesline. I don't call it home because after having gone through eight addresses, it's hard for me to see it as such.

The first week, the addition of loneliness was also at stake, because my partner kept coming to her office. But without realizing it, something that I thought was a weakness turned into a strength. I have been teleworking for almost two years now, so I know how to deal with myself and silence; I learned that talking to the walls is not exactly good and that taking a walk on the floor from time to time is more than necessary. The days passed and emotions stabilized, despite the fact that more and more negative news arrived. Suddenly, what seemed like big problems to me before the pandemic became insignificant, because what mattered and matters the most is that no one in my close circle, of those who really matter in the end, have been infected (neither my mother, a person from risk). I'm lucky.

That calm allows me to continue with my usual routine. I get up and have two coffees, one after the other and of course alone. I'm joined by my friend Sarah, who now telecommutes with me at the kitchen (office) table; Even though I've just woken up, I'm still an antisocial being who puts on my headphones and listens to 'Modern Life' until the caffeine kicks in. I am thankful that I have a job in difficult times and I dedicate myself to it as much as I can every day. It helps me to get away and with the calls and I become someone sociable again. When I log out, 'Rock FM' accompanies me and I religiously train 20-30 minutes of cardio (running down the hall like a headless chicken) and 30-40 of bodybuilding (whatever I can).

At night, after playing shovels or making a video call with my friends (scattered throughout Spain and England), Sarah and I ate dinner watching the neighbors from the building across the street cook, which is about three meters away. A marriage and a son closer to 40 than to 30 who we only see with the computer. Mind you, I'm not criticizing it. Who knows what will become of me then! Before I go to bed I watch a series (I've already finished 'How to defend a murderer' and 'Freud') or I read for a while (now I'm with 'Mein Kampf', a sinister classic) and the next day, I start again. I still miss the beers on Saturdays, the gym, the visits from my parents (from Nerja) the occasional Sunday, the company of that special someone, and of course, driving. But then I get rid of the transitory egoism and I remember that while I'm just at home, people like the health workers (among them, my father) risk their lives to save the rest of us.

A different Holy Week

BY PEDRO LUIS ALONSO. Holy Week begins, and even the good weather arrives. There are hours left until Palm Sunday, but we will not hear the bells of San Felipe Neri that announce the departure of the Pollinica. It becomes hard, especially for the 'processionists'. Actually, almost everything is hard. I would have to go back to my childhood to remember so long without watching a football game live. I have never been attracted to rebroadcasts of big time-shifted appointments. I like to stay with the sensations of the direct. I haven't seen Borussia Dortmund-Málaga again, nor Spain-Holland in the 2010 World Cup final, those kinds of events that surely won't be repeated in life.

Nor had I ever dressed and undressed dolls so many times. Actually, he had never done it before. But now, and going a long way, because I'm far from being in a concentration camp, it's time to play Guido Orefice in 'La vida es bella'. Put a good face on the storm and bite the bullet in what remains of confinement.

It's a good thing our daughter gives us life. About to turn three, on the 18th, we will celebrate her anniversary still in quarantine. She has not asked to go out yet, thank God, and her fantasies seem to be satisfied at home, where she alternates expansive phases with calm ones watching cartoons or playing with the tablet. Although most of us in SUR were already familiar with teleworking before the pandemic, it was at other times and in solitude. Now it is almost impossible to reconcile with the new reality, with those moments when she, who barely knows how to play alone and doesn't understand the importance of work in our lives, demands your presence, because otherwise she empties cupboards, puts stickers on the walls , puts sunscreen on their babies or does not stop getting on an Ikea bench to wash their hands. Her mother taught her to scribble a 'bug' on the back of her hand, and every time she washes it off we reward her with candy.

From Monday to Friday, until after dinner, it's time to exercise patience alone with her and my dog. I laugh at the decalogues about teleworking these days, at the impressive well-lit desk, at postural hygiene (the laptop on my lap and where possible). Now with my wife at home, back from her job at a psychiatric hospital. And I make a parenthesis here: mental health, that great forgotten by all, even by the EMU, despite being a center with up to four times the size of a medium-sized residence, fighting against the coronavirus with almost no material and with that impeccable commitment to your employees. I continue: that's when I try to make up for the time lost in the newspaper, with some resentment for not having been able to be one hundred percent earlier. That is also why our days hardly know any borders between rest and working days and I try to advance content to free myself for the dreaded mornings.

I live in a chalet with a garden, although not big enough to let off steam what Lana would need, who is over five years old but behaves like a puppy. I go out every day, but I reduce the distances. To those who believe that dog owners are lucky, I agree with them, but because of what their nobility and loyalty teach us every day, and not so much because of those outings, so longed for by some who believe it is a crude alibi, that before the pandemic they never went out to relieve themselves. Not even when we are sick, it is bad or we have the typical day in which we do not have much time.

At home we hardly pay attention to the times of the applause. They are hardly heard, in an area of single-family houses, but for that reason we cannot be less grateful to the commitment of the health personnel, like that of all the groups that are on the street, such as our graphic editors from SUR (Ñito, Bori, Pedro). . Would anyone doubt that any other guild would not be giving the call these days if it was the one that had to fight on the front line? We already lived it with Julen. "Only when life puts you in adverse situations do you realize your true strength," the former president of Uruguay José Mújica taught us, and I read it the other day to our countryman Antonio de la Torre, who interpreted it so well.

When I learned about the case of a mother confined with her parents, yes, but without her husband (in Italy) and with three children, two with autism spectrum, I realized that all our domestic sorrows are not at all comparable. Is what I do so much in relation to that minority of homes where that daily miracle occurs or to the war in hospitals? And what about the drama of those who have lost a close relative without being able not only to watch over them, but even to care for them during their hospital journey? Not to mention the fear about whether the virus will be able to reach one's parents (not my case, because they no longer live).

I think the most extreme situations in life put us to the test and this one is going to extract a lot of good things from most of them. At a time when it is so difficult to make time for the entire family, with couples incorporated into the world of work and little help for conciliation, let's enjoy what this quarantine gives us. When this is over we will value external leisure and friendships more. There are hours left until Palm Sunday (or it may already be when you read these lines) and this Holy Week I was especially excited about my daughter's Nazarene debut with the Brotherhood of Love and Charity. For the second year I will not carry the Christ of Expiration either. It seems that this year we will see the sun on Holy Wednesday. It has come like this. I am convinced that we must put a good face on bad (good) weather.

Meet, vitamin D and two beers

BY NURIA TRIGUERO. I will start my page in this diary with a confession. I also made a compulsive purchase on the eve of the alarm decree: wine and chocolate. Everyone has their priorities. After three weeks of quarantine, I have to say that the biggest shortage in my house has not been toilet paper, but pajamas. My eternal refusal to have a tracksuit, together with the great dirtying capacity that babies have and the difficulty to put washing machines in this rainy spring has left me in panties (literally) on more than one occasion. I admit now to my regret that the tracksuit will be ugly, yes, but it is uglier to combine sweaters with sports leggings. I was even tempted to pull my maternity pajama pants down from the loft. Do not judge me. It was at a particularly dark moment in the first week of confinement. "You have to get dressed every day, even if you work from home," you will say. Ñiñiñi. Yes, they are right. The president of the Confederation of Entrepreneurs in pajamas and without combing his hair is not interviewed with the same spirit; I say this from experience. I have disciplined and divine companions who paint themselves and even put on their heels to get in front of the computer. All my admiration. I am satisfied because I have gotten better stylistically speaking (it was difficult for the worse, it is also true) and today I have achieved an acceptable level of dignity; almost video call proof.

“21 days of full-time teleworking.” It could be a Samanta Villar program. I will give you my conclusion: it is overrated (telecommuting, not the program). Was this the new economy? Blessed writing! When we go back to the newspaper I'm going to kiss my table, my chair, the lousy and expensive coffee machine and, above all, my colleagues (we'll disinfect ourselves later). I miss even the loudest, or especially them. It's not that there's a lack of noise at home: instead of listening to Piluqui making a round of councilors to 'build' his house, I hear Emma (who is 15 months old and has five teeth) rehearsing new words loudly. The big 'hits' for now are «papa» and «ata». I think that the latter is just as much from hearing me talk on the phone with Lorenzo Amor, the president of the Association of Self-Employed Workers. "Mom" only says it when she wakes up at dawn, lucky me.

It's weird. The days of confinement pass quickly and slowly at the same time. They all tend to look quite alike; the biggest difference is whether it rains or shines. In the latter case, they improve ostensibly because we go out to the patio to recharge ourselves with vitamin D. In a house with two journalists teleworking, a dog and a girl who is learning to walk, there is no time to get bored. And less to learn Chinese, play sports, knead bread or review Bergman's filmography, as it seems that many are doing in their quarantine. What there is is just enough time to work (a lot), sleep (little), eat (that is not forgiven) and play, yes. Playing, laughing and clowning a lot: that's a must and we have Emma to thank, who fortunately still doesn't understand epidemics.

I read to my admired psychologist Arun Mansukhani the other day that it is normal to have mood swings and emotional ups and downs in these circumstances. At least it happens to me. Yesterday was a bad day. Almost a thousand people died in Spain and I had to write the news that Malaga has suffered the biggest rise in unemployment in its history. This war against the coronavirus has, as is evident, its main front in the health field. But I'm having to cover the other one, the economic one, which is also beginning to be dramatic. When we bend the damn contagion curve, we will have another mountain to climb ahead of us: that of destroyed jobs.

Anyway, yesterday was a bad day, I'm telling you. But today has been good. The sun has risen and all the writing colleagues have had an aperitif together, using a video call. It has been a chaotic and fun time that has charged my batteries. We have even received good news! And here I am now, endorphins pumping (and two beers in my body), thinking how lucky I am because I have the three most important things right now. I'm healthy, I work (a great job) and I have the best company for this confinement.

My dog doesn't know what a pandemic is

BY FERNANDO TORRES. Truffle is weird. His routine has changed little, but the confinement has hit his waterline directly: the walks, before generous and full of messages, greetings and healthy strolling, have now become a very poor walk around the block (an apple that has no much to offer, I understand perfectly). She barks more than necessary, growls at everyone she sees around, is excessively protective of the house, protests without arguments and rarely lets go of her toys, asking for a little bit of fun.

Truffle has been with me for almost three years and during this time the night out has been the perfect end to my working day. No matter what time it is, whether it's nine o'clock or closing time, nobody takes away a good walk with their phone calls to friends and family. Now I call less, because in five minutes I don't have time to say much (nor is there much to tell), and because my block is built on a significant slope, so I gasp more than I answer when my mother asks me how the day went. day.

You know those dogs whose owners always proudly say that they seem to be aware that someone is talking about them? It is not the case of Truffle. She is clever in her own way, more mischievous than intelligent and shows off a complex emotional management that these days translates into having a 15-kilo dog by my side trying to get on my chair while I type. I'm not saying this as a complaint, because I don't know if I'd be able to manage a situation in which, instead of a furry mongrel, whoever tried to get on my lap was a churumbel asking me to explain what the commutative law is. If these days of introspection and meditation are serving any purpose, it is to confirm that I am not even remotely ready for fatherhood.

In the first days of the state of alarm, we dog owners established ourselves as triumphant winners of the confinement, with at least two excuses a day to mess with the system. I have to confess that at first I followed the usual route (go down the hill, turn left leaving my old school aside, cross the bridge over the Jaboneros, reach a small patch of grass and return after a respectable 25 minutes at good speed). rhythm). Truffle. Like many adopted stray dogs, he only relieves himself on grass or dirt, traumas from worse times. The first day I saw a police car circling our private toilet, I shuddered and decided to stick to the sloping, boring block after being smacked with a smack of reality. Going more than 200 meters away from home is today a real affront, and it is not the thing to explain to the policemen that my dog is exquisite and needs a specific point to be inspired.

I think the confinement has placed Trufa in a perpetual adolescence, because she cries senselessly and when I say a resounding 'no' to her in the middle of an interview, she goes to the bedroom, angry, punishing my rejection. I suppose that my messy goings in and out (you know, journalists don't have a schedule) used to serve to regulate their mood and dose their need for affection. Now we live in a continuous loop in which there is always a moment to play, in her eyes, because she doesn't know what it's like to have to close a page. And much less knows what a pandemic is.

Paquito the Chocolatier

BY FRANCISCO GRIÑÁN. I don't know if you have experienced it, but the days are already starting to get confused with each other. And that I am obeying the experts. I do not leave the house at all on the instructions of the health authorities and my pulmonologist, who is also my sister-in-law. The last thing, it is not necessary to swear, is what weighs the most. I dress daily. No tracksuit and slippers, but clothes, clothes. Shoes included, since, as my colleague Fran Ruano reminds me, it is essential to complete the normal uniform. At home we have 70 meters badly counted for five and, although we are tight, we would not mind having even had a dog, as I counted a couple of weeks ago. After breakfast, telejournalism, teleinterviews and some morning walk, from the bedroom to the living room, passing through the kitchen roundabout, to change posture. Meanwhile, the rest of the family fights over the computer for their teleclasses, telework and teleeverything. The newspaper gave us a laptop a long time ago to take our work home with us, so I don't participate in these fights. In others yes. Especially for the remote control.

At lunches, the usual adolescent dialogue. "Yesterday I did the dishes." "Not me". "Was not me". And so without stopping and the poor dishes waiting and looking with a smeared face. How well they receive them when they are transporting a lasagna or a gazpachuelo and how little affection they have for them when they are already empty. Sometimes as a parent I sit down to a plate after lunch. In the afternoons, more telecommuting and a mandatory stop at eight to go out to the window to clap and listen to the patriotic song or hymn that a neighbor puts on. And some chat with those in front. Afterwards, sports with the family, even though my partner Alberto Gómez doesn't like it. The sport, not the family. He has called me a very ugly thing that I am not going to repeat because last Saturday I had lost a kilo. Of course, it is that I have not done so much sport in my life. With that thing about the small house, he gave us a vigorexia attack and I already know all the fittest youtubers. I especially like girl videos, I admit. It is recognized that they belong to girls not because of what they do, because I end up crushed, but because they always say: "Come on girls, one more", "Don't let me down girls", "This is the last one, girls", "I'm watching you , girls". But it's a lie, they don't see me because then they would say: "Let's see, the chubby boy in the background... keep doing it however you can." It is that they have not seen me trying to synchronize the left hand up with the right kick down. That was invented by a highly coordinated sadist. But when Alberto reads this, he will stay calm because I have already gained that kilo again. Since the last weekend, it will be the rain or whatever, I have given myself to chocolate. In ounces, spreadable, in bars, black, with milk, with almonds, with seeds of I don't know what and even that hard, the hard to the cup, but without a cup. Now that I think about it, I shouldn't have written that last one because my endocrinologist is going to read it and call me. He is also my brother in law. The next gym table I do with the music of 'Paquito el Chocolatero' that goes very well for push-ups.

For dinner, we have agreed with the children that we will not be waiting all day, so they take care of it. And every night the same: «Yesterday I did it», «not me»... We always have dinner at so many. While we wait, we take advantage of video calls with family and friends. I have not yet forgotten the image of my mother a few days ago. She has been alone for almost three weeks and she welcomed us on screen with a Batgirl mask. He enlarged the image and was fully disguised as a rigorous black bat and cape. There are things that a child should not see. Not a grandson. But I confess that I eat my mother and I would have gone with her like Joker. If dinner comes before midnight, we try to watch a movie but there's usually only time for one episode of a series. Again fight. Finding a title by consensus leaves the government negotiation prior to each Sánchez council of ministers in child's play.

The next morning, I feel like Bill Murray wanting to blast the alarm clock on Groundhog Day. The film was not titled like that, but everyone knows what it is and will have felt this pang at some point these days. Later I regret the outburst because the alarm clock is the cell phone and if I charge it it would be to jump out the window after the applause. Although at some times of the day I wouldn't mind bursting it to break this quarantine of hyperconnectivity. The days start to look like each other, but now that I've written it I realize that I don't stop all day. And that every day ends up giving you something you don't expect. So while the letter of freedom arrives, I already know the first thing I'm going to do when it comes out. Taking my mother a present: a Superwoman outfit. I'm sure it's the one that suits you best.

Retropia

BY MATÍAS STUBER. It begins to weigh me down that in the last two weeks there is only one topic that moves the world. Or rather, that condemns him to immobility: coronavirus. The paradox is cruel. As I also find it cruel that something as ugly as a roll of toilet paper has become one of the symbols of these times. When I wonder if I can still go to the bathroom without problems, I count up and I still have five to go. I hope they are enough. I look at the calendar. April 11 is a Saturday. Under normal circumstances, they would be. Although the word normal now leaves me disoriented. There are others that I did not pay attention to before and now I pray for them. Supply chain, for example. Images of stocked supermarkets in the former GDR come to mind. I thought I liked my flat, even if it didn't have a terrace. My opinion has changed. I feel like I have entered a prison, although not in the way I would have imagined. As confined by something that is invisible. I'm not wearing handcuffs but I feel like I have them on.

Quarantine has had to live it alone. The idea of going to my parents' house seduces me. I could tell I miss them. It's true. I'm worried that it's going to be a long time before I can give them a kiss. It is a temporary anguish. I think more about how well my mother cooks. An unequivocal sign, on the other hand, that they do not have health problems. I knock on wood. They already have an age and I tell myself that I shouldn't be selfish. I think a lot about my father. I imagine him tall and slender. This Sunday we would have gone together to Malaga-Extremadura. Fate has changed our determination to make plans for a hazardous future. Forever? I hope not.

I try to stick to a routine. Work saves me. On the weekends I go off the rails too much. This Saturday I got up at one in the afternoon. Come on, get some more sleep. You have plenty of time. At night I try to cook even if I'm barely hungry. Sitting all day has slowed down my metabolism. I miss going to the gym. The main problem of a life in quarantine for me is the following: since the decision to be at home does not respond to a decision made in freedom, I do not feel that it has value.

The most unpleasant thing is loneliness. When I look out the window there is no life. I return to the living room and I feel as if I were in a temporary vacuum. The days are uniform and I no longer use the words Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. I have changed them to numbers. Day 12, day 13… Being alone is not the same as loneliness. I have always been an advocate of the advantages of living alone. I talk on the phone. Two or three hours. But the presence of people in your environment is something that is perceived. It's sensory. If his absence is prolonged, little by little you feel like a ghost. I caught myself talking to myself in the mirror. I'm white like Casper. Boo!

I have proposed to read many books these days and I have not read any. I spend a lot of time hooked on Twitter. I think I have an addiction. I read what some politicians post and I get depressed. I have too many doubts. The health crisis that is going to change everything collides with a system and politicians who are used to something else. The system, that is, the autonomies, is falling into prolixity. Our politicians, I believe, are versed in the struggle and in the struggle for power. But this is something else. However, it is politics that has to lower this country in the best possible way from the scaffold. It must, despite the contradictions, find a compromise and the best solutions to save the greatest number of lives and minimize, at the same time, the damage to the economy. I seek to evade myself and not ask myself any more questions.

On Saturday I drank a bottle of wine while watching a series. I woke up with a slight headache. It was a nice feeling, like after a good night out downtown. I miss some bars. To those bars with my friends inside. Also to tourists. I think they contribute much more than they subtract. I am afraid that we will realize this in the coming months. At times I see everything black, like the depressing image offered by the information panels at the airport. I have said goodbye to the concept of a global village. Hopefully it will be a see you soon.

But there's also something that helps me come up with these days. They are journalists. I get emotional with the doctors and nurses. But it also happens to me when I read good information or a report that I would have liked to sign myself. In recent years, there has been a lot of debate about the degree of need for newspapers. Reviled, at times. Now it turns out that they are needed more than ever. An independent, safe, reliable and close journalism is essential. I hold on to contribute my tiny grain of sand. I need a great collective drunkenness to forget and give hugs like before.

A Tour of the World

BY BORJA GUTIÉRREZ. I have to admit that I have always been very homemade, a virtue on the rise in these times. But it will be due to childish nonconformity or lack of practice, that now I want to go out more than ever. Anywhere. And that they steal my mobile, because I don't see myself capable of forgetting it by myself. Connected and controlled. Anxious and restless. The worst of all this. Although I can and I must confess that I am lucky. Since two days before the confinement was by decree, I was already confined to a safe place (the safest). Back to where it all started for me, where I started to discover the first things. My first world, which is still big even though it seemed huge before. And with the same intensity, contrast and purity. That is why I live this kind of sudden stop of everything with a comforting nostalgia.

The one of going in and out forty times a day, blinding myself white with the sun and seeing everything black when I go back inside. Go up to the roof to feel the wind and look far away (now I better understand the recommendations in the occupational hazards manual). Look at the sea and look at the mountains. The sky and the star. And read Miguel Delibes. Go down to the terrace to collect the broad beans, the peas and eat a loquat (well, two or three) under the tree which, as my father says, is where they are good and taste sweeter. I'm watching them grow and color in real time and it's wonderful (not as much as the hair I already have). And we make lemonade because we no longer know what to do with so much lemon.

But how well he enters after having hit ten balls in 'the gate'. Not without hitting one of the parked cars and hearing that "a little weaker" thing. That is the time to play it calmly and give touches (although we have not recorded any of those challenges on the networks). And teach the youngest the trick of around the world. The one in which with a slight touch you try to leave the ball levitating to draw a circle in the air with your leg. I play with my two little brothers and they are both better than me. That's how it is. But barely swallowing air while they continue in the one-on-one game that we have organized with two goals that are bottles of water is when I find it best to smile. Automatic. Nonetheless. On the problems of teleworking and uncertainty. And the numbers of victims and what will happen to life before after this. Of missing life as a couple and intimacy. Thus, at least, I stop time. From mood swings, better another day.

A trench with 15 steps

BY ALMUDENA NOGUÉS. 15. It is pronouncing this number and the echo of my grandmother's voice activated like a spring in my mind on those long summer nights playing Bingo in our favorite refuge, in Mijas. Whenever this ball came out, a smile would be drawn on his face and, immediately afterwards, he would sing: "the pretty girl." In these difficult days of confinement, however, these two figures have little or nothing of beauty. They make up my peculiar trench in this war where the enemy is a virus and the shields smell of hand soap. For 16 days our family has been divided by 15 steps. Those that separate the second from the third floor of the house. There, in the tower, my husband wages his peculiar battle against the coronavirus?, a flu? Call it what you want because the reality is that everyone with mild symptoms is not tested. He had spikes in fever (although he never reached 38) and, above all, a horrible cough that still does not go away to this day with any of the three drugs that we have tried to date for medical indication.

My home, then, has been transformed into an improvised battlefield in which bleach is my greatest ally, with the permission of the gloves and the mask. And although I am not going to deny that at the beginning it has been very hard, it is also true that in the end people have an amazing ability to adapt to new scenarios and grit their teeth. And I'm on it. Dealing alone with teleworking (although there are days that have cost me horrors, it is also being my great escape valve), two children of 8 and 4 years old who do not understand that their father is isolated in the tower and are especially unruly and a dog (blessed dog!) that although my load of housework increases, gives me a breath of life in each of its walks.

They say we have to take advantage of the fact that we now have time? I have less than ever. I am a journalist, mother, teacher, crafts teacher, nurse, cook and cleaner full time. And in the middle of this chaos I tried not to be left behind in this collective obsession to do some sport but, you know what? That I have thrown in the towel. Instead, when the stars align and my children give me a truce, I go out to the patio like a snail as soon as a ray of sun comes out or I lock myself in the bathroom for 10 minutes, fill the bathtub, light a candle and listen to Sofía ellar. Back to reality, when I went down to the living room, a banner that I put up to celebrate a party three days before the State of Alarm was decreed reminds me of how my dear Lucía Be would say that life is a festival... And so that I don't get I forgot I decided not to remove it until this is all over. do you dance?

Isolation, good or with children?

BY ROSSEL APARICIO and ENRIQUE MIRANDA Extra, extra! Informative bombshell in 'Kaboom City': the city of Superzings (small collectible rubber figurines that drive school-age children crazy) has just stood up and defeated the coronavirus. "Whoaaah!" the children shout -with the same energy with which they applaud every day at 8:00 p.m.- in the most 'youtuber'-style video recorded to cheer up a long afternoon of confinement. You have to invent every day to keep your spirits up. If Spanish families have learned anything in these two weeks, it is to get the most out of every square meter of their home. In our case (two adults and two little ones aged 7 and 3) we have turned the living room table into a school, the small patio to hang clothes into a basketball court, the office into an office, and the children's room into a box with sheets and cushions.

Surprisingly, they are handling being at home better than us, their ability to adapt is admirable. We adults miss going out to the seafront promenade, going to the park or having a red drink on a terrace. Although what we truly miss is contact with our usual friends, with close family, with colleagues. New technologies help and video calls are our window to the outside. Although they have their danger, be careful, when the older one is dedicated to showing the apartment -bathrooms and bedrooms included- in a multiple date with some of his classmates, and their parents. It goes without saying that our homemade order, in this intense coexistence, is not the best no matter how hard we try.

Otherwise, fine. We have even organized a quarantine version of 'Got Talent' via WhatsApp with our group of friends and their children, in which each one has to send a video with some skill: sing, dance, cook, mime or directly play the clown. The ban on these images leaving the chat is maximum, which is also not a matter of ruining anyone's public image.

On a day-to-day basis, we have managed to distribute the tasks well: while mom locks herself in the office, dad is with the little ones and vice versa. You still have to scream: "Leave mom, she's working!", but it is that, with two journalist parents, they are not used to having us at home for so long at the same time. We are thinking of electrifying the office door, but perhaps a warning sign will suffice. We usually try not to talk too much about the damn pandemic, even if it's unavoidable from time to time. "I don't want any more, there's a virus on my plate," was the little boy's last excuse for not finishing his meal. They also take it to their land when they are interested.

These days there is always someone who asks us about: the quarantine, good or with children? We are fine with children. They force us not to let our guard down, to be creative, to laugh, to run and not to think too much that all this is going to change our reality, and surely not for the better. They are literally giving us life

A different quarantine

BY JOSÉ MIGUEL AGUILAR. Unlike my peers, confined to their homes, hemmed in by circumstances but without losing the ability to report up to the minute on this unparalleled crisis, my routine has hardly changed because I have to fulfill my obligations at the newspaper, literally. , in my usual place, with the daily schedule and with the same work as before the state of alarm in which we have been in for two weeks now. Some people tell me that I am lucky, and I feel that way because I do not notice too much the deficiencies that those who are dejected by the tedium of a day without hours pigeonholed in the habit of labeling the day according to the boxes on the clock transmit to me. Only when evening falls do I notice the discouragement of the absence of what used to be a habitual practice: having a drink with friends, going out to dinner with my wife or sharing nights of loose verses, sonnets randomly constructed from the west wind, songs written in guitar beat and gatherings in venues that promote local culture.

So this story of the quarantine will be different from that of the editors who have so brilliantly entertained me these days in this account of this strange current affairs, exciting on the one hand, but full of uncertainty on the other. The first thing I will tell you is that it causes discomfort to arrive at an empty newsroom, in the dark, in a silence that anguishes, without the presence of colleagues, in endless mornings with solitude as the only company and daily chores as a habit.

After the morning meeting by telephone with various gangs to organize the day with the heads of the different sections, it is time to make the pagination plan for the newspaper according to the current news. It is fair to recognize that we are organizing ourselves very well, without setbacks, despite the physical distance and the novelty of the telematic work of the entire Newsroom. It is to congratulate us, why hide it. A full-fledged teamwork that is having the expected results. The truth is that I feel very proud of the people who make up SUR and of being part of this reference medium for thousands of people from Malaga.

The layout, the opening theme, the distribution of content, the graphic edition, the enrichment of graphics with information that needs that much-needed complement, etc. It is decided at noon, to facilitate the work of my Editing and Closing colleagues, who join in the afternoon. I am happy to greet Salvador Salas (the author of the photograph in this story) or Ñito Salas when they arrive at the newspaper to upload the photos to the system or Pedro Quero to edit the videos that are uploaded to the web. They deserve recognition for their work at street level every day. David González's smile in the obligatory greeting is a breath of fresh air in these days of so much mental contamination. Loli strives to clean the premises more necessary than ever, and little more to add in terms of physical presence in the building. One detail: when the colleagues return to their jobs in the newsroom, they will be surprised at the change that the environment around La Rosaleda is undergoing due to the works undertaken to condition the different avenues for the Martiricos towers project.

Afternoon at the newspaper is different. Antonio Ortín, Rafa Ruiz, Marina Martínez and Pedro García arrive to relieve me at the end, while Rafa Cortés teleworks at home. We resolve pending issues and solve last minute problems, pending appearances, official announcements and the part of the day with the memory of infected and deceased. The number of people infected by the coronavirus day after day is dramatic.

And so one day after another, and fifteen more, and we have at least another two weeks left to return to normality, a word for which I can't find the correct meaning because I doubt if everything will go back to the way it was later before.

The lioness of the pride

BY RAQUEL MERINO. That's how I feel, like the lioness of the pride. I live with two minors, 8 and 15 years old (don't ask me which age is more difficult, each one has their own), and my husband who is within the so-called risk population (yes, he is ahead of us because at the time He was already in isolation for more than 15 days and in fewer square meters); therefore, I have the almost impossible mission of buying provisions before the 'walkers' in my neighborhood leave the shelves literally bare. After three unsuccessful attempts, I swallowed my words and did something I swore I would never do: I got up around eight in the morning on my day off and at 8:30 I was in line at the supermarket, keeping the meter away as required. While I waited for the doors to open, I smiled remembering the scene the day before in the kitchen, when my eldest son told me that this situation reminded him of the series 'The walking dead', where the characters risk their lives every time they go out for food «Mom, I see you with the backpack and the katana on your back and telling us: if I don't come back, let you know that I love you». But, I got it! Like a good lioness in my pride, I was among the first to enter and went directly to the meat section: two chopped chickens, veal fillets, chicken fillets, turkey fillets, hamburgers, skewers... Wow, I did it! Ten days later we still have something left in the freezer. And I must confess, I also took a pack of toilet paper with me, just in case.

But it's not just when it comes to food that I see myself as the alpha lioness. Even though the father is at home, do you know who the puppies are constantly hanging around? To mom. Thus, while I try to keep the thread of the conversation with my colleagues from the newspaper by Whatsapp and finish the information that I have at hand, my youngest son does not stop asking me questions about the tasks of the teleschool. How much I value the work of teachers! What patience, Lord! I stop for a few seconds because in the group 'Nellitos 3ºB' they have posted today's social exercises, which are to make matters worse in English, because yes, one of the premises when looking for a school is that it be bilingual. Who would send me?

And between teleworking, school homework, home, the dog... oh, no! We don't have a dog, why?! I try to take some time to do Pilates and not end the so-called "tourist class syndrome", who would have it now. But I can not complain. At least, I am spending this 'Coronavirus Z' with my children and my husband, seeing how it makes us stronger, how it pushes us to support each other even more, with their hugs and kisses allowed within the walls of the home , and missing my grandmother a lot who, due to her age and following the recommendations of Health, we thought it was better for her to stay at home. If he found out that this was going to last a month, he would come with us. Luckily she is even more of a lioness than me and she takes this confinement with optimism. With telling you that he even paints his lips to religiously applaud the true heroes of this story at eight o'clock in the evening.

The lonely chronicler

BY ANTONIO MONTILLA. Dear diary: Circumstances have wanted the alarm decree to have caught me living alone on the particular Robinson Crusoe island that my apartment has become, now transformed not only into the home where, until the appearance of the happy coronavirus bug , disconnected from the work frenzy but in a particular correspondent of the newspaper SUR in the Perchel neighborhood. In this confinement that I have had to live alone my particular bottles to the sea to communicate with the outside world, beyond going out to buy basic products every three or four days, it is made up of television, radio -always a faithful dance partner of those who have no one to dance with-, social networks (how would a crisis like this have been experienced without Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or WhatsApp?) and the telephone, where every day I make a multiple video call with my mother, my brothers and my nephews, who are going through this health crisis there in the land where my roots are, in my beloved Cuevas del Becerro.

Loneliness does not bother me, but these days I live the experience of developing my two 'I' in the same space. On the one hand, there is my journalistic work attentive to the information and working on the issues as my colleagues do, leaving their skin every day. On the other side, there is my most 'maruja' self having to make it compatible with housework: cleaning so that lint does not become a more terrifying enemy than Covid-19; do laundry; ironing and, fundamentally, preparing the food -I think I have already earned a MasterChef diploma when it comes to making different types of salad so as not to repeat myself and fall into culinary monotony-.

My routine of journalistic work and housework is only altered at eight in the evening when I go out on the balcony to applaud and where I have been able to put a face to some of my neighbors from the nearby blocks. At the same time, confinement has allowed me to experience an oxymoron: 'auditory voyeurism'. Thanks to him, I now know the approximate hours in which my neighbor from the third floor puts on the dishwasher and I receive the classes that my neighbor, wall to wall, teaches her school-age children; The truth is that these particular lessons are not bad since it has helped me to remember that the Ebro passes through Zaragoza, bring to my memory the operations of the lowest common denominator and the least common multiple and review the functions of the diminutive and augmentative.

In this maelstrom of equal days, I always look for a space for leisure in books. Thus, at this moment I am sailing across the earth thanks to the prose of José Calvo Poyato (yes, Carmen Calvo's brother) through his novel about the journey of Magellan and Elcano, after having toured Barcelona at the beginning of the 20th century with the reading of 'El pintor de almas' and having approached a little piece of the history of the Diputación de Málaga through the memories of its former president Luis Vázquez Alfarache.

Music also accompanies me and in these days of Lent the marches I hear, from Lecuona's 'Malagueña' to Abel Moreno's 'La Madrugá', bring me a certain nostalgia for what we won't be able to enjoy this year: the processions Easter on the street. And, then, I remember that bulería sung by Rocío Jurado: 'What I wouldn't give'. And paraphrasing it, I wonder what I wouldn't give to meet my colleagues again in the bustling newsroom of the newspaper and have afternoon coffee with Recio and Aguilar; what I wouldn't give to take the car and get to town and reunite with my family after so many days away; what I wouldn't give to go out and have a beer in Los Palacios with a tapa of stuffed eggs; or what I would not give to hear again the campaign of the nearby church of El Carmen calling for mass.

For the moment, and assuming the situation with Christian resignation, but also with discipline, a spirit of sacrifice and morale in victory (a correct phrase from Jemad, General Villarroya), I am subtracting, like a prisoner serving a sentence, days from calendar wishing that this year Easter Sunday is more of Resurrection than ever and that the state of alarm can be lifted and little by little begin to recover normality, which is already missed.

I'm finishing. I have food in the freezer and the pantry, strong morale and from time to time some of the memes and videos that come to me by WhatsApp like the ones that two friends sent me: José Luis playing the trumpet and Andrades, with the flute make me smile. , interpreting 'Resistiré'. It is what touches these days dear newspaper: resist.

Chronicle from the 'ojopatio'

BY JUAN SOTO. Dear unknown neighbor: I don't know anything about your life, only that your untimely screams don't let me concentrate to write this. To work during the duration of the quarantine, I have settled in a room that we use as an office, whose window overlooks the 'ojopatio' of the block. And although we have been living almost window to window for 14 years, I only know that you want it to end like I do. You so you don't have to deal with your daughter anymore. Me to stop hearing your voices almost at any time of the day.

That Mafalda's wish has been fulfilled and the world has stopped has helped me to get to know my community of neighbors a little better, which is somewhat particular. In addition to the one who always screams, I have another one who plays the violin to cheer us up every afternoon, and another one who spends more time locked up in the storage room than at home (I don't know if because he has a lot to tidy up or because he prefers those moments of solitude).

The reality is that these eleven days of confinement are already beginning to weigh a bit. And that I am lucky (or unfortunate) to regularly go out to the streets to continue covering this health crisis for information. And I am not very sure if it is good or bad because when I return I always find the same faces of distrust in my wife and my daughter, who do not trust me to put the damn virus through the door of the house without having sent a prior invitation. I don't know if it happens to others but when you go out now, even if it's only to do the shopping, you get the feeling that the city is gassed and you're even afraid to breathe.

For the rest, we take the confinement with resignation and we don't take it badly at all. The first day we made the typical 'everything is going to be alright' sign and we applauded loudly, although the initial fever has passed a bit. Fortunately, the three of us continue to work (the little one is connected to the tablet all day with her schoolmates online) and we try to maintain the routines for the rest of the year. oh! And he has even taken to playing sports, me, who, as the always great Manolo Sarria said the other day, "you who have not played sports in your fucking life."

When we're not working we spend our time between memes, I guess like any other mortal, and imagining everything we'll do when we finally get out of this confinement. I have it clear: a little wine and a good chat on any terrace of the Center. That will be the real triumph of the coronavirus

PS. I have shaved to appear in the photo, since I ran the risk that nobody would recognize me

Pd2. Armando, if you're reading this, I urgently need a haircut. Send me even the scissors by courier.

In the absence of a dog or exercise bike...

A step class on the Wii Fit with family and friends.

BY ISABEL MENDEZ. "Mommy, is there also coronavirus today or has it already gone?": That question from my youngest son has been with me every day since the confinement began... And the ones that remain. It has gone from not seeing the news to not missing it, and it already stores such a volume of data on the pandemic that it could even be useful for any newspaper library. What things are... To try to distract ourselves during the confinement, since we don't have a dog or an exercise bike, (and it doesn't give me the life to witness the sports class on duty between the blessed teleworking, the virtual school and the day to day of the house) we have resorted to the storage room to look for something with which to entertain ourselves while we exercise the body: the Wii Fit. So every day, although in my case it can usually only be a few minutes, I pretend that I'm getting on a step, jogging or practicing the sun salutation, for example, the one that we miss so much now.

And in this way plus the great memes that circulate (whoever has not seen the video of the spidic penguin is already taking time) and the applause at eight in the evening - I continue to get emotional every time I participate - we are preparing for when we can return Let's go out and we can leave all this behind. A day when I suspect that a large majority (among which I include myself) will arrive pale and quite recovered, by the way.

There are many who say that this coronavirus crisis is a life lesson, and that when it happens we will never see each other the same way again: I fully support this theory, because I think it is very true. And it is that with these video calls that are now so proliferating, sometimes we 'catch' friends and co-workers in a way that we could never have found (the family, yes, because we already know them, as the name suggests). What a good invention Skype, Google duo and etc. And what luck to be able to use it from home when many others risk the type in hospitals, supermarkets, highways, taking police checkpoints or taking photos (that Boris, Ñito and Pedro at the bottom of the canyon are great) for others.

Pop for them and cheers to everyone (including of course the rest of my colleagues): as soon as we get out of this we will have to celebrate a lot, such as the number of birthdays that are staying these days between four walls (Rossel, Aguilar, Fran, the Salas brothers, Kino, Sofía, Maite, María José, Javier, Miguel, my father...). When they leave us, we're going to do like the chickens in that fun video that's also circulating (another to look for if you haven't seen it), but for now you know what's up: #yomequedoencasa.

Candles by videoconference

Birthday cake and friends by videoconference on mobile

BY IGNACIO LILLO. If the history of Western peoples is generally studied with its BC (Before Christ) and DC (After) stages, our recent one will be divided from now on into ACV (that is, Before the Coronavirus) and DCV (what is to come). In our ACV life, as we had planned it, today the house would be overflowing with people. It is the birthday of my girlfriend, Olga, and friends from places as diverse as Costa Rica were coming to spend the weekend. There were so many that we even considered that I go into temporary exile at my parents' house to give them more space.

In our ACV life we would have spent the whole Saturday on the street, from lunch at Uvedoble (we had made the reservation), drinks from terrace to terrace (Batik, Chinitas, Valeria...) impromptu dinner and more drinks already in a joint in the Center where you could dance. Today, which is exactly the date of their anniversary, after sleeping late we would all have gone to eat at the Spa, which is and will always be our dream corner of Malaga. Of course, I would have found the time to look for some nice gift and a big cake with its candles...

Obviously, in our DCV life none of this has been possible, but of course we are not going to stop celebrating another year together and, more than ever, health. That's why yesterday I went to the pharmacy, which is one of the few places that remain open, where you are allowed to go and where they sell things that can be given away. I bought him a detail that has a built-in moral: a sun protection cream from a good brand, which cost me a lot but which we are going to need in industrial quantities when we can finally go out again and freely roam the roads of the city. Costa del Sol, between Malaga and Marbella (where she is from) with our old convertible. I also bought him a couple of slices of cake, which for just the two of us (Nori our dog can't eat sweets) we don't need any more either and I have an insane aversion to wasting food. We have recycled the candles from previous dates, luckily we had the numbers we needed.

But the best part of the day has been seeing the warmth of so many friends and family, who have not been able to be there physically but have done so from a distance, in many cases with different time zones! From Costa Rica and Qatar, passing through Madrid!, through WhatsApp, Skype and Zoom group videoconferences. Together, but not scrambled, we have sung happy birthday to him and he has blown out wax and digital candles. And all this thanks to our wonderful telecommunications networks, the good things we have in Spain must also be said. When all this is over, in our new DCV life, many things will change, but there is one thing that surely will not because it is in our Mediterranean DNA: we are going to get tired of giving each other hugs and kisses.

Backstitched

BY IVÁN GELIBTER. I know that the first thing that the experts say is that it is not good to count the days of this confinement, but there are some figures that reverberate in my head without being able to do anything to avoid it. Today is exactly one month and one day since I got married, twenty-five since I went on my honeymoon to Japan and Korea and seven since I came back. Also, today I celebrate six days since I quit smoking, a promise that I made to myself months ago and that I am keeping -surprisingly- to the letter. As if this were not enough, just this morning I managed to get up at a normal time, because all this week I have been "tortured" by a "jet-lag" that made me get up early at five to then get ready for papers around eight in the afternoon.

I have no dependent family members at home, no dog, no children. But I do have a brand new husband with whom I have been stitching together since February 19, the last time we both went to work in person. I'm not saying this as a reason for regret - the other way around - but no matter how much we are in love with each other, we must admit that it is inevitable to argue from time to time, especially for domestic reasons. Why else could it be under these circumstances? At the moment, we try to follow the same dynamics as before all this started. I continue to do the deep cleaning of my area of the house (the living room and the movie room) on Friday -this week it will be on Monday- and he does the rest on Sunday. Of course, on a day-to-day basis he always does more than me. I would say 60-40 percent, although I'm sure you frown when you read this newspaper.

To the supermarket, luckily, I still go. Not because I do it better than him (we've had a mini-crisis for my purchases), but that allows me to have gone out on the street at least twice this week. On this trip from which we have just returned -and which we think delusional! that it was a dystopia that we would never see in our country- I bought a few clothes that I was eager to release. Thus, I have taken these two trips to the supermarket as if it were a Friday night out. I showered, I dried my hair that needs to go to the hairdresser's and I dressed ideally. I didn't wear heels because I don't see myself in them, but it's the detail I was missing.

I try to work and think at the same pace that I did before I got married, but I admit that it is very difficult. The suits keep hanging around the house because we haven't been able to get them to the dry cleaner. It's been a month since I saw my parents, my grandmother, my mother-in-law, my sister, my brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, and above all four people who grow with each passing day. The video calls with Emma, Chloe, Enzo and Martina do not meet my expectations, and every time I enter the room and see the gifts we have bought for them in Japan, I can only sadly think that I don't know how much longer we will have to wait for be able to give them

But, despite everything, this quarantine also serves to realize -or rather confirm- how lucky I am. Not only because I have 3,500 movies at home to kill my boredom, but because I have someone to watch them with. Today, and the rest of the days of our life. I've also found that quitting smoking isn't as hard as I thought it would be. I keep seeing in the corridor the work of Javi Calleja in whose head the words are reflected: "I just want to sleep"; and although the 'jet-lag' has not completely disappeared, blessed fortune to have been able to travel twenty days after enjoying the happiest moment of my life. I start with the beads and end with them. There is one day less to finish this confinement, although I will never be the same. At least the nicotine is gone from my fingers now.

It's finally (not) Friday

BY MARÍA EUGENIA MERELO. I look and a painting by Agustín Parejo School looks at me. An engraving with two facing images of John Paul II. A Pope fixed in that role and in the memory of many for his indecent stubbornness in the unstoppable expansion of the HIV epidemic. He maintained and proclaimed that the use of condoms to prevent the spread was 'blasphemy against God'. In the engraving, on the image of the irresponsible pontiff, hundreds of names of people who died infected by the virus merge. Poetic justice. A painting about an epidemic that accompanies the confinement to tell and live another. Between AIDS and Covid-19 many years have passed. What used to go to mass is now an emergency law decree. What used to be blasphemy is now 'fake new'.

The voices and sounds of the newsroom can no longer be heard. The soundtrack that I have had for thirty years in SUR has faded. How the voices of the children going in and out of the nearby school have faded. The traffic doesn't sound either. Nor the sea, which I see in the distance. I hear people's voices through the phone. I hear the voices of the songs, the radio and the TV. And I see. I see from the terrace the neighbors walking their dogs. Several times a day. And other neighbors walking around with shopping bags. Several times a day. And I think of France. There you can jog for 20 minutes and go up to two kilometers from home. I would like to have a dog, a large family to do the shopping or be in France.

The noise of the newspaper has given way to another ruckus. WhatsApp has prevailed in teleworking and telerelations. It doesn't stop. I have assigned different sounds to the notifications to identify the chats, prioritize and not go crazy. The technological noise of the working day mixes with the domestic noise. The washing machine and the dishwasher have their own conversations in the kitchen, which now, like the rest of the house, is also a newsroom, restaurant, bar, cinema, space for walks, a concert hall and a Pilates room.

It's finally Friday. It is the name of a chat of friends who like to see each other on the last day of the work week to share wine and talk. Now friends send me apps for virtual hangouts over a bottle of wine. I now understand why in Mercadona there is now plenty of toilet paper and a lack of wine. Mercadona. I never thought that making the purchase would become a plan. I'm excited to think about what I wear for virtual dates. I look and the painting by Agustín Parejo School looks at me. There is the epidemic. Today, finally (not) is Friday.

Father's Day in interesting times

BY HÉCTOR BARBOTTA. At home we have never been 'day of'; neither of the mother, nor of black friday, nor of blancolor. Nor the father. Not ascribing to these commercial stratagems has placed one many times on the margins of sociability. However, why deny it, it helped to get up with a smile that the girls burst into the room before the alarm clock went off with some craft built at school and jumped on the bed scattering kisses and congratulations.

At home we have spent several days debating the moral relevance of shopping online. We came to the conclusion that better not. If we are isolated so as not to infect each other, we are not going to expose the delivery people, the weakest and most unprotected link in the commercial chain. So without school and without purchases, there has been no gift. I thought the girls, the poor ones, hadn't remembered. But in the middle of the morning the eldest came to the living room, where the work table is installed, and wished me congratulations with a kiss. Herculean effort to keep the tears from flowing.

Lockdown is an emotional roller coaster where everything is magnified. Believing that they had forgotten a date that until a few days ago brought it to me to the "congratulations" with a kiss media a rush of spirits. But this is an up and down. As soon as you're upstairs, a good story to tell passes by, like that of the millionaire tourist stranded in a luxury hotel because the private plane he's traveling in has an Italian license plate and he can't come pick it up, as he sees you getting off at stung when at four in the morning you realize that you haven't been able to sleep a sleep because everything you don't want to think about during the day -when is this going to last, what can happen if it lasts long- emerges from the unconscious and begins to smash your head. The formula that I recommend to my daughters to scare away insomnia and nightmares interchangeably - "close your eyes and think of beautiful things" - I am not able to apply it to myself. Pretty, what can be said pretty, was my life until last week. The problem is that until now I hadn't had time to realize it.

Not long ago, in the afterlife, before the coronavirus, we bought a clock that reflects the time on the ceiling. A cool one. Now he is letting me know that the alarm clock will go off in three hours, because one of the lessons one has learned on the sixth day of confinement is that each day must have an organized schedule, and that includes getting up on time, like if instead of confinement there was ahead that beautiful routine that I did not know how beautiful it was. See what the weather is going to be like, prepare the food for school, take advantage of the fact that the girls have not yet entered adolescence and they like to be taken by the hand until they meet their classmates, arrive early at the newspaper office in Marbella, greet the doorman of the building, order pending issues, start writing early taking advantage of the silence of the first hour of the morning, when the neurons are more awake.

The routine these days has none of that: but one has already learned that in order not to lose a minimum sense of normality, to prevent confinement from dehumanizing us, one must have routine and an agenda. And that starts with setting the alarm clock.

Another lesson is that you don't have to count the days, neither those that have passed nor those that are yet to come, that you don't know how many there are either. Neither should count the hours until the cool alarm clock, which reflects the time on the ceiling, warns that you have to get up.

From day one we explain to the girls that this is not a vacation. School hours in the morning, one hour for each subject with their corresponding breaks, lunch at noon and English, piano or whatever plays in the afternoon. If everything has gone well, tablet, video conferences with friends or television (or all of that) before dinner. At eight, everyone on the balcony applauding. You have to see how enthusiastic an applause is for girls and how comforting you are to know that you are part of a community with such awareness.

The plan has a problem: Mom and Dad are journalists and although they try to organize themselves, they can't anticipate when they will be the busiest. The food is early (almost never) or late. The obligatory appointment with the exercise bike, which has become the most valued gadget in the house, changes its schedule and is sometimes not fulfilled. Every day the admiration for the heroes and heroines increases, accustomed to writing two consecutive paragraphs with a certain coherence in the midst of continuous interruptions.

These days, even with suffering included, are exciting to practice journalism. This global crisis will change the world's perception of itself. It is an interesting time.

A Chinese curse apocryphally attributed to Confucius reads: "May you live in interesting times." Servant, who many years and many kilometers ago lived through a time of war while serving in the military, this is the second time he has gone through an interesting period. Damn Confucius. I wish she had limited herself, as that contestant in a beauty pageant said, to inventing the confusion.

Shopping list in a state of alarm: chocolate cereals and pipes (many)

BY ANA BARREALES. Mine is one of those houses where there are usually people from outside almost every day: maybe we are one less than two more at lunchtime (rather the latter). I have three very sociable daughters who, when they want to have a more formal celebration and invite friends, ask: How much is the maximum? With this background and three girls aged 14, 18 and 19 with the prospect of spending many days locked up with their parents, we have enough ballots to carry out regular confinement. At the moment they have painted a calendar on a blackboard wall crossing out days, just what the experts have said should not be done.

I have discovered that occasional telecommuting is fine when it is by choice, but when it is an obligation it is a way of spending all day without necessarily being more productive. Incredibly, even though you save travel, the gym, going for a run... I have less time than ever. They have verified that in an online class that is not very motivating, it is easier to get lost and go unnoticed without being told.

When the alarm decree was issued and while people were rampaging in the supermarkets, I turned to my business, which is journalism, and I left the domestic administration in their hands. They considered that the most urgent purchases before confining us were (in this order): feminine hygiene products, chocolate cereals (that were not private label) and pipes (many).

Since this is not something that worries them excessively and that we don't go hungry at the weekend because the freezer at home is usually full, I said to myself: new routines and discipline are needed here and I issued my own alarm decree. Domestic chores are divided among all, with flexibility. That each one wants to do them in an hour? No problem. I review at 9 in the morning. Each one, let them manage as they want.

There has been some tension over the distribution of the workplaces, so, to break the tie more than anything, I have stayed with the room. One thing is clear: teleworking in your pajamas is nothing at all, because here you open a door and find a video call and it is not a plan.

The beginning has not been bad. It is not that we are playing Dixit or Virus all day in harmony, but we have our moments of contagious lazy laughter at meals and the traditional annoyances of any family, what if you don't lock yourself in the bathroom, what if I don't pick up that cup that it is not mine and the usual argument of "not me", "not me" for any pending task. Nothing new under the sun.

"It's that so much coexistence overwhelms me," my youngest daughter blurted out to me on Monday, after barely three days without going out, as if she had never spent a weekend with us. And with that said, he left without eating after looking at a cauliflower dish for half an hour from all possible angles without tasting it. Well, that surprise I had for the next day.

and lose control a bit (or at least this is what I got). As long as you know how to recover, of course. It is what the running of the bulls have, that if the pot goes a little bit, you do not have to hyperventilate and whip yourself later.

Yes sir, that's how I like therapists, that they don't give us too many homework and take away our conscience.

DAY 4 (MARCH 17)

This improves my handwriting

BY ANTONIO JAVIER LÓPEZ

-Daddy... the zeta!

-What's wrong, honey?

-Not like that eeeeesss!!!!

V is five years old and is doing great in his forties, but he can't handle his father's bad handwriting. After the barracks weekend, from Monday we apply (well, we try to apply) the guidelines that the teachers of the school and the nursery have given us. So after waking up, washing our hands and face, getting dressed (the aesthetic note is in the tracksuit for V and M and jeans with a t-shirt for the parents) and having breakfast, we start the day. Mom continues with the 'online' classes from the room at the end of the corridor that we call 'the studio' because it makes us tired to call it 'the arrumbaero' and the dining table in the living room has been transformed into a 'coworking-toy library' space '. We put M in the high chair and he begins his drawing session on sheets of paper with crayons and finger paint. The affair lasts for about the time it takes us to set up the next beach bar, where V practices writing. She herself has explained the mechanics to me with the rigor for the detail that comes to her by maternal inheritance. Let's see. We write with the marker on the top of the white board the following sentence: 'Word guessing desk'. That message stays put. Then, underneath, I write a word. She looks at it very carefully, then I erase it and she draws it from memory in the notebook that we have released for the occasion. We have agreed that every morning we will do eight words. Today they have been 'gift', 'flower', 'lollipop', 'chocolate', 'star', 'heart', 'tiger' and 'rabbit'. So, on the fly. In between, an interview by phone, two downloaded reports for information scheduled in a few days, three incursions for help from mom and the privilege of living all this in a bright apartment, with the best company I could imagine and with M and V having each other to play, battle and laugh together all the time while they observe how we try to maintain harmony, schedules and the recipes of the domestic order guru to whom we surrender (some more than others, really) a couple of months ago: the shirts folded in three parts and put on edge in the drawer; the pants, the same and the rest, I no longer remember. So on the third day of staying at home, and in the absence of the second leg, the result is clear: Quarantine 1 – Marie Kondo 0.

DAY 3 (MARCH 16)

Locked in the Neanderthals' cave

BY ANA PÉREZ-BRYAN. "Stop with the mobile." No, it's not for me. I tell mine at 13, because much is said about confinement with children but not with adolescents. I have one in full swing and another that follows the entry into that great snowball with a firm step. A little picture. "Come on mom, I'll hang it up," she laughs from the other side of the table that I've been sharing all morning with her. But I'm smarter: before she does it, I go ahead. So here I am. Trying to concentrate between mine, hers and the other's, who does homework in her room, where (hallelujah) the WiFi does not reach. Today the virtual school has started: we put the keys; her to meet history class and me for my round of quarantine stories. "Why don't you stay in your pajamas, if no one is going to see you?" I ask innocently. Mistake. Nobody knows who is on the other side (…). Come on, it's time for the Neanderthal cave. I imagine them happy, in their shelters, without viruses; with the only concern of whether today it will be time to eat mammoth or deer. Today I have a noodle casserole that my mother sent me before this crisis broke out. Oh my mother. What would I do without her? "Won't you go to the newspaper? There are 'lights' there", he asks me from his terrace. I am lucky that he lives next door, although for a week there has been a gap between 2C and 3A. I try to convince her that I won't go out with the same (little) security with which my daughter answers when she says yes, that she's leaving her cell phone. I keep advancing between mine and theirs: summary of biology and musical instruments. Speaking of music, today I learned one of those choreography from TikTok with 'Tusa', a teenage hymn and instagramer. "Now I'm a bad girl!!!!!!" I sing. And locked up, I think. I think I already have the headline for this chronicle: Ditto in the Neanderthals' cave. The blessed Netflix takes me out of concentration. Oh my Netflix. What would I do without him? Play umpteenth round of 'Las chicas del cable' (poetic justice these days that I spend all day hanging) and 'La casa de papel'. "New season on April 4th!!!!", they shout. And I wonder: will I still be locked up on April 4? But above all: Will I have enough paper left for that date?

DAY 2 (MARCH 15)

Not without my chair

BY ALBERTO GÓMEZ. The riskiest thing I've done today was take my chair from work, take it down in the elevator, press the button for the ground floor without gloves, and put it in the car to bring it home like someone saving a treasure. It's not that the state of alarm has made me kleptomaniac, which would be understandable, but if I have to work at home, let it be comfortable. A message to my bosses: I'll return it. Now I read that it is not recommended to take ibuprofen either. "The one that awaits us mentally unstable," writes my friend Alfonso. We're not allowed wine right now, so I've bought several bottles just in case. Others take it for destroying toilet paper. Now I can read the books that I have pending, like the last one by Alejandro Zambra. Yesterday I debuted with teleworking, a return to my origins as a freelancer. The neighbor's children have grown up and are already talking. They have taken to imitating the sound of ambulance sirens, aggravating the hypochondria of half the neighborhood, or perhaps just mine. At least they're healthy, little angels. I would say that they overflow with health, and we need it. At the moment I'm doing well with confinement, really, except when last night I went down to the street door to take the dog out before remembering that I don't have one. We will get out of this, I repeat. And I am convinced: we will be better than before. The applause for the health professionals has moved me, and the crying came in handy because I suffer from dry eye. My mother has worked for more than forty years in public health, so my palms also went to her, who bears confinement worse: now she wants to join Survivors.

DAY 1 (MARCH 14)

The courtyard of my jail is private

BY ÁNGEL DE LOS RÍOS. My friend Silvia joked in a WhatsApp group: "I'm opening a thread: what are you going to miss the most in this quarantine?" Some the terrace, others the gym, but I did not doubt: the nursery! I've only been there for a day, I know, but in the same way that scientists do their math on the exponential growth of coronavirus cases, I do my own rule of thumbs with my girl, Minibrú (from miniwitch, as we call her). Anyone who has or has had a 15-month-old junk, who walks little and like drunk, will know that this bug does not stop. His favorite diet is made up of pasta and tortilla, if they can be in the same meal, the better. It walks like my Roomba, and if it can crawl cleaning the lint from the floor where it goes, the better. And thanks to her I have rediscovered the patio. Thank goodness we have a yard! We recently moved into this house and the patio is a bit sad, like a prison. We have a garbage can, which Minibrú turned around and uses as a walker, a ladder on which he does aerobics (he sits and gets up, goes up and down), a clothesline that he idolizes (he loves colored pegs), a ball of the Paw Patrol that the previous inhabitants left us and four withered plants from which he likes to tear leaves. Sitting on the step, while Minibrú was besieging Lola, my dog, who was trying to calmly sunbathe, I was drawing with my mind: there, a swing; there, the four pallets that we once thought of turning into a sofa. I searched on Google if Ikea opens tomorrow, but that is decided by Pedro Sánchez. I am starting to get over the top -like Minibrú when he picks up speed with his garbage can- and I seriously consider turning the patio of my prison into the patio of my house. Although it's still raining today -so they say- and it gets wet, like everything else. But, between news and news, I will not lack time.

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