It was a few days before the beginning of spring and our bodies hadn’t recovered from carnival, nor had we had time to clean our windows which were stained from the most intense calima to hit the archipelago in 30 years. We lived oblivious to the news that was coming in from China, still sharing memes on social media and Whatsapp groups. Then the news came.
There are always events that people ask, ‘do you remember where you were when...’, such as the first moon landing or when Princess Di got killed, and included in this inventory of dates should be March 14th 2020, the announcement of Spain going into lockdown.
That afternoon the country froze. British ex-pats, some of who couldn’t name the Spanish Prime Minister, focused on Pedro Sánchez's speech, confirming all the restrictions that had been leaking to the media throughout the day and which now highlighted the severity of the situation after the announcement of school’s closing a few days before.
