This week, I spent most of the time inside my apartment trying to shove enough tablets inside me to get rid of a cold.
Week 52 of 2023.
Monday, 25th December.
I didn't wake up as early as I did when I was a kid on Christmas day. As an adult, who lives on their own there isn't much point in getting up for anything on Christmas day. I had been invited to a friend's home for Christmas dinner before I went on holiday to Brazil but it wasn't mentioned again & I guess she forgot my invite to hers for dinner when she got an invite to someone else for Christmas dinner.
I got up around 10 am & felt a bit lousy & was full of cold. I got a pot of tea & climbed under a blanket to watch films on the TV. I had intended to go to Rocco's bar at some point during the day as it is always open, but as I didn't feel too good & didn't want to give my cold to anyone else I stayed at home.
At midday, I stuck a large gammon joint in the oven. I had intended to have roast potatoes & all the trimmings with it, but I couldn't face cooking it all & ended up just having roast gammon sandwiches for my Christmas dinner. I want to make a stew or soup this week so I put a pack of white beans in water to soak overnight.
After dinner, I climbed underneath a blanket on my sofa & spent the day drifting in & out of sleep whilst watching the TV. By 10 pm I had enough of Christmas cheer & the sofa & went to bed.
Tuesday, 26th December.
I felt a little bit better this morning when I woke up around 9 am. I got a coffee & switched the TV on to see what was going on in the world & climbed under a blanket on the sofa.
By midday I was feeling a little better, I think the tablets I use for flu or cold, Ilvico are working, but not quickly enough for me. I am the world's most impatient person, generally early for everything & I hate feeling so worn out & tired all the time. I was feeling well enough to get out of my pyjamas, take a shower & put some clean clothes on.
To kill time, I stripped my bed linen from the bed & put it all in the washing machine. After doing this I was worn out again so I went for a nap on the sofa. As evening approached I woke up, I got myself a gammon sandwich & a hot Bovril drink.
After eating I took the clean bed sheets out of the machine & remade my bed, before going to bed at about 9 pm.
Wednesday, 27th December.
Still feeling under the weather today, I asked my neighbour Liz to take me around the corner to Tecnyshop to pick up my new electric heater. When I got home I set it up in my bedroom & was very pleased with the heat it throws out & the operation of it. Hopefully, it will keep the chill out of the bedroom at night without me having to heat the whole apartment all night.
Not wanting to have to have gammon sandwiches every day, I decided to make myself a healthy stew. I did not want to spend hours cooking so I used a pre-made vegetable stock, added the soaked pack of white beans & added 500g of butternut squash. I put in some onion salt, pepper & garlic powder before putting it on the hob to boil. Once it had boiled I let it simmer for half an hour & tested the squash to see if it had softened.
The squash had softened nicely so I got myself a bowl of the stew & some bread & butter. It tasted lovely & I had a second bowl. I put the rest into six bowls & let it cool down before putting it in the freezer.
The rest of the day was spent watching films & sleeping on the sofa.
Thursday, 28th December.
I woke up today & felt a little better. I got a coffee & worked on my website for a while. Realising that it would be cold for a while to come I went on Amazon & ordered a woolly hat to keep my head warm when I do feel like going out. I had also run out of omega-3 tablets last week so I ordered some more fish oil tablets to keep me going next year.
I had heard that you should feed a cold & starve the flu, so today I made sure I did. For breakfast, I got myself bacon, egg, mushrooms & beans. For lunch, I had a cheese, bacon & mushroom burger & for dinner, I had another helping of the stew I made yesterday.
The rest of the day was spent watching films from under the blanket on my sofa.
Friday, 29th December.
I woke around 7:30 am today & immediately got myself a coffee & sat down at my computer to work on indexing pages for my website on Google. At around 9:30 am, I went to Tecnyshop to pick up the hat I ordered a couple of days ago & the dishwasher basket that I ordered last week. They had both been left there yesterday so I got on my disability scooter to go get them.
When I got there the lady in the shop recognised me & handed me my parcels without me having to ask. She commented how cold it was outside so I unwrapped my new woolly hat, agreed with her about how cold it was & put it on straight away. I then took my other parcel home.
When I dropped the parcel at home I took some recyclable plastic to one bin & cardboard to another recycling bin. I had intended to go to Mercadonna to get some shopping but realised I had not picked my wallet up, so I went back to my apartment, climbed back under the blanket & spent the day at home again instead.
Saturday, 30th December.
This morning I got myself some breakfast, a bacon sandwich & a coffee when I woke up around 7:30 am. After finishing breakfast I added details to my website for the day I spent in Salvador, Brazil. At about 10:45 am I went to Mercadonna & got some shopping & then went straight home.
When I got home I got myself an early lunch. I just grilled a couple of chicken & cheese wraps that I bought this morning. I felt better after going out & was wondering if I could go out for a drink tonight when my friend Pat rang & asked if I wanted to go for a Chinese tonight. I agreed & then worked on my website some more.
At around 6 pm, I had a shower, had a shave & got ready to go out. At 7:15 pm I went outside just as Pat pulled up & I jumped in his car. We went to Jardin III for a meal. I have been there a lot but was not impressed tonight. The service was very poor, we ordered our first couple of dishes but they arrived at different times & by the time my duck had arrived the rice that I had ordered to go with it, had gone cold. Pats beef dish didn't arrive at all. We ordered some more dishes & once again we had to wait for a long time for them & they all came separately.
The restaurant was about half full but they only seemed to have two people serving. All night long we could hear the chef having a very loud argument in the kitchen, at times he could be heard shouting at someone by everyone in the restaurant. When our next order arrived, Pats chilli beef had miraculously turned into a beef curry & my garlic shrimp looked & tasted like they had been cooked with batter on then had the batter removed before they were sent out. The taste was not that good & if this had been the only time I had been there I probably wouldn't be back. Every other time I had been there before it had been really good so I will go back but not for a while.
We asked for our bill but even this seemed to be a problem & we had to wait quite a while to get it & to pay it. When we had settled the bill Pat dropped me off at home before going home himself. It was great to see him again & I enjoyed our chat & catch up but the meal was not good at all.
I had intended to watch MOTD tonight but I had only been in a while & fell asleep on the sofa, missing most of it, so I went to bed.
Sunday, 31st December.
I woke up early at around 5:30 am today & unable to get back to sleep I got up, got myself a coffee & started working on my website. I generally felt better but my blocked nose seemed to be worse, which was strange as the cough had almost disappeared.
I got myself a bacon sandwich around 10 am & then had a nap in front of the TV for half an hour before I continued working on my website. I finished off the page about my excursion to Ilheus & Tijuipe in Brazil & did some work indexing more of my pages on Google.
This afternoon I watched the Fulham vs Arsenal football match on the TV. I was very happy when Arsenal went into a very quick 0-1 lead but that was as good as it got. Arsenal were terrible & never really looked like scoring again. Fulham were a lot better, scored two goals & deserved the win. This was Arsenal's second successive defeat in the league & dropped them to 4th place in the league. Two games ago they were top. I hope the owners realise that they need a striker at the very least if they want to push on & win the league this year & do well in the Champions League. Next week their first game of the New Year is against Liverpool in the FA Cup, I hope they do better & show more commitment next week & next year.
I had intended to go out tonight, I was going to go to Harry's bar, have a drink & wander around. I was going to visit The Celt bar & Roccos bar but decided against it because I still had a blocked nose & didn't want to go out in the cold. I can't remember the last time I enjoyed myself on New Year's Eve anyway so I stayed at home, watched some of the repeats on TV & had an early night when I went to bed about 11 pm.