This week I continued to rest my leg. I got a knee support which seemed to help with the strength & pain in my knee. I did a lot of work on my website & went out for meals with friends on different days.

Week 44 of 2023.

Monday, 30th October.

I woke up at around 6:30 am today. I felt a lot better than I had done & although my knee was a bit sore it felt better than it had yesterday & the previous week. Rest is doing me a lot of good, but being an impatient person I don't find taking it easy & resting easy.

I got up & got myself a mug of coffee & sat down at my computer. The sky outside is black now that the clocks have gone back an hour. My dressing gown has come down off of its hook in the bathroom & will now be getting some regular use. The temperatures have dropped, it is only 16°c outside & is not expected to go much above 23°c today. I am glad that I have no plans to go out until tonight when I go out for a Curry with some friends.

During the day I had two separate messages from Amazon saying that they had delivered packages to the Tecnyshop near me. I had asked them all to be delivered to my apartment. Later in the day, Amazon delivered another parcel to my apartment. Quite why they delivered one to me here & the rest to the shop I don't know. The delivery reminded me that I still hadn't received the business cards I ordered about 3 weeks ago so I went online to the company I bought them from to complain about them not being delivered yet. As I opened up the package location page on the website there was a knock at my door. I opened the door & it was a delivery man with the business cards. That was quite a good response from the complaints department as I hadn't even made the complaint yet, maybe I should have done this a week ago.

At about 4 pm I had a shower & got ready to go out with my friends for a curry later. I then sat watching the TV until Martin arrived on his bike at about 6:40 pm. We put his bike in my garage where it would be safe & then walked to the Buena Vista restaurant.

Martin & I were the first to arrive & we got a beer & sat outside to wait for the others. Bernard arrived next, followed a short time later by Paul & Mike. We sat outside chatting for a while before moving inside for our meal. The food was very good but a little more expensive than other restaurants in the area, we were charged for our poppadoms, which every other restaurant gives you for nothing.

I had the same meal that I had on my 3 previous visits because it tasted so good. I had a prawn puri starter, a garlic chilli lamb dish with egg fried rice. After the meal, we sat talking for a short while & when Bernard left to walk home, Paul & Bernard ordered a taxi & Martin & I had another beer while we sat outside talking. When we finished our beer we walked back to my apartment & Martin collected his bike from the garage & then went home. When I went in I checked my computer for messages & then went to bed.

Tuesday, 31st October.

I woke up at about 6:45 am. I went to the bathroom & then went back to bed until my alarm went off at 8 am. I got up, got myself a coffee & sat down at my computer to check my messages. I have a couple of jobs to do today, I have to collect my packages from the Tecnyshop first & I have to wait until my friend George calls to tell me he is home & that I can go to his apartment to help back up photos from his phone. I have to drop off a hard drive & some memory chips at my friend Jackie's house before I continue on to see Martin & Dave at La Sombre Pizzeria. I had to go to drop off some money to Dave. I won't be walking anywhere today, to rest my knee, I will travel everywhere on my disability scooter.

At around 10:30 I take some rubbish to the bin before going to the Tecnyshop to collect my two packages. I collect my packages & take them home. The first package is for a cheap pair of trainers that are for my holiday, they fit fine. The second package is for a knee support, unfortunately, it is far too small & despite saying it was an XL size it won't even go around my leg & has to be returned. I quickly fill in the online form on the Amazon website to return it & take it back to Tecnyshop.

The lady at Tecnyshop has some trouble taking the return & calls another lady out to try. She looks at it & has the same trouble but she realises it is because I have returned it so quickly, the Amazon system hasn't updated their computer for the return yet. To save me from having to go back she took my phone number in case there was a problem & promises to do the return as soon as the system updates.

I leave the shop & continue on my disability scooter towards the pharmacy. As I am going away I will get double my normal amount of tablets. I always do this when going away in case I get stuck somewhere & need extra tablets. When I go into the pharmacy I am served by a beautiful young lady who also speaks perfect English. I am hypnotised by her beauty & as well as buying the tablets I buy myself a ticket for the Christmas Lottery. While I am in the pharmacy I look to see if they sell knee supports, I find some & ask the price & if they will fit my tree trunk legs. The lady helping me checks the price, shows me to a chair to sit on & helps me try the knee support on to see if it fits. It is a little bit more expensive than the Amazon one, but it fits & is just what I need so I purchased it.

I then ride my disability scooter hard & fast all the way to Los Narejos to Pizzeria La Sombre to meet Martin & Dave. I have a couple of beers with them, chat for an hour or two & pay Dave for my TV package for the next year. When I leave I head towards my friends, Alan & Jackie's house. I hand over the hard drive & memory chips that I have transferred files to for them & then go straight home. I had felt a couple of raindrops fall & wanted to be home before it started to rain.

When I get home I get myself something to eat before sitting on the sofa to watch the television & rest my leg for the evening.

Wednesday, 1st November.

I woke up around 6:30 am & got up to get myself a coffee before sitting at my computer to work on my website. When I check my new website there is an unexpected invoice that has to be paid. It is for around €3650, a very large charge for something I shouldn't be charged for, especially as the hosting package is only a week old. I immediately queried the bill & I was pleased to get an apology a short time later & the bill was cancelled.

I bought myself the Spanish equivalent of Honey Monster Puffs last week & I have quickly gone through most of the packet already. I had some for my breakfast this morning with some Greek yoghurt & normal milk, replacing the almond milk I had been using. Every time I get myself some of these I can't help saying "Tell them about the honey mummy" to myself. This was the old advertising slogan used by the Honey Monster in the old TV ads.

At around 10 am I walked along to the Buena Vista restaurant for breakfast. I sat down at a table outside in the sun & as I sat down the waiter brought me over a coffee the way I like. I laughed & asked him for a tostada with tomato & he said he had put the order in already when he saw me coming. Now that is what I call great service.

I sat & read my Kindle, I was reading a short story called   Twits in Peril. It was only short & I completed reading it before I went home, it is a very amusing & thought-provoking story about how the corporate world is slowly taking over the world. Read it if you get a chance, it is one in a series but this is the only one I have read.

When I got home I checked in for my cruise next week before settling down at my computer to work. I recovered thousands of photos on my computer. I had somehow accidentally deleted them all from my external drive. Luckily I had a backup of them all & began to recover them.

This evening I watched a very much changed Arsenal team play West Ham in the Carabo Cup. Arsenal looked disjointed & I think there were too many changes as the team didn't seem to know where each other was or were going to be making runs. West Ham went 1-0 up when Ben White scored an own goal & at half-time West Ham was winning 1-0 without having registered a shot at Arsenal's goal. The second half was worse. Arsenal played terribly & were 3-0 down before Mikel Arteta brought some of the regular players off the bench to stem the tide. It was too little too late & West Ham deservedly won 3-1.

Thursday, 2nd November.

I woke around 6:45 am & got myself a coffee & sat down at my computer to work on my website & tried to recover more of the deleted photos from my hard drive.

At 12:45 pm my friend Jim picked me up & we went to   Galin's Bulgarian restaurant in Los Narejos for a menu of the day. It was very nice, I had a salad followed by a pork dish for my main, & a Spanish dish for dessert that I forget the name of, but it reminded me of a thin Angel Delight from my childhood. The service was very good & I am glad I went as I hadn't been there for a while. After our meal, Jim dropped me off at home before going home himself before he left for his flight back to Scotland tonight.

This afternoon I watched a bit of television & fell asleep on the sofa. When I woke I had slept for a couple of hours but I guess I needed it. I had a message from Jim, he had trouble with his car on the way to the airport & had missed his flight. He was now back at his apartment & was hoping to get a new flight on Monday next week.

After watching television, I put some photos on my website from my day   swimming with dolphins back in 2004 & went to bed at 10 pm.

Friday, 3rd November.

I woke up just before 8 am this morning. I got myself a coffee & sat down at my computer to do some work on my website. Just before 10 am, I walked around to Buena Visa restaurant for my breakfast. I sat down & straight away the waiter brought me out my coffee & tostada. As I turned on my Kindle to read, my friend Wayne turned up. We had arranged to meet there as he is going to fix a couple of hanging pots on my balcony wall so that I can at last have some hanging plants hiding the wall.

We finished our coffee & walked towards my apartment, as we were walking my friend George called me to ask about the help I was going to give him. When Wayne & I got back to my apartment it took him no time to hang the pots on the wall for me & he was soon able to leave me & enjoy the rest of his day. I called George back & said I would go around straight away & then headed down to my disability scooter in the garage. As I was in the car lift my phone rang & it was George calling me to let me know to call later in the day. The lifts were not working at his apartment & it would have been difficult for me to get up & down without the lift. Instead of going to George's apartment I changed direction & went to the local spice shop instead. I bought myself some bread to make a sandwich with later & then returned to my apartment.

Once I was home I replanted some of my plants into the hanging baskets & put them up on my balcony wall. I also repotted the new mini palm tree I had bought last week into a bigger pot. I watered all of my plants & then moved back inside, I still have a bit of work to do on my balcony garden but I can do it over the next few days.

I was just settling down for a rest when George called me back to tell me their lift had been repaired & that I could now go to help him out. I finished what I was doing, went down to my garage, got on my disability scooter & drove around to his apartment. I soon fixed the problem on his laptop & afterwards, we walked to Poseidon Bar & cafe for a coffee. Whilst there I also saw my friend Jasmine who I hadn't seen for months & had a quick chat with her.

After leaving George I went back to my apartment & carried on working on the photos for my website until I went to bed at about 10 pm.

Saturday, 4th November.

I spent most of the day today working on my website. I renewed the navigation of the site & then carried on editing photos for my photo albums.

This evening I watched the Newcastle vs. Arsenal football game. Arsenal were beaten 1-0 but that was not the story of the game. Both teams should have had players sent off & Newcastle's goal should never have been allowed. Firstly the ball went out of play & a Newcastle player still crossed the ball into the Arsenal area. Then the Arsenal defender was blatantly pushed over by a Newcastle player & lastly, the same Newcastle player knocked the ball towards another player, possibly using his hand, who was offside but scored. The VAR system was used & they spent around 6 minutes to decide they couldn't make a decision to overturn the referee's decision. It was a terrible decision & I think this will have ramifications for the way football is refereed going forward.

After the game, I worked on my computer until around 10 pm & then went to bed.

Sunday, 5th November.

I got up at 8 am & got myself a coffee before sitting down at my computer to add more photo albums to my website. I added around 100 new photos to the albums before stopping to take a break & to get myself some dinner.

I cooked myself a pork joint in a yoghurt with honey mustard dressing. It tasted fantastic & there was enough meat left to make dinner tomorrow & a sandwich for another day. 

This afternoon I carried on adding photos to the albums on my website for my   holiday in China. This evening I watched a funny film called   Big Stan. It was very funny & is worth watching if you haven't seen it. The write-up of it doesn't sound that good but trust me you will laugh.

I went to bed early at around 10 pm as I have to get a blood test tomorrow & want to be up early to go to the doctor.