Once upon a time, when travel was still allowed, I checked into a small hotel in back-of-beyond Extremadura, in South-West Spain. The receptionist asked for my passport, I searched my pockets in vain, went to look in the car and then remembered that I’d left it on the table at home.
‘Well, your national identity card then.’
‘We British,’ I replied ‘don’t have identity cards.’
She stared at me. ‘If you don’t have identity cards … how do you know who you are?’
Leaving the house just got a lot more complicated in Spain. As of Saturday there are a whole raft of new rules to obey. After 48 days of strict confinement – proper lockdown – millions of adult Spaniards (and me) are finally allowed out for a walk, fresh air and exercise. With a patio and garden to enjoy, I can’t pretend that my own version of ‘house arrest’ was as onerous as for the two-thirds of Spaniards who live in flats and for whom, during the preceding seven weeks, fresh air and exercise have been limited to putting their head out of a window and breathing deeply. But
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