2025, Week 18 journal.

In week 18 of 2025, I visited the nurse three times to have my leg dressed and blood pressure taken. My water heater broke, but luckily for me, a friend installed a new one. Best of all, the sun returned to Los Alcazares, and everywhere looks better when it is warm and sunny.

Monday, 28th April.

When I woke up this morning, I got a pot of tea and checked my computer for messages before doing the Wordle puzzle online. I had some porridge for breakfast before leaving to go to the health clinic in Los Alcazares to get my ankle redressed and to have another blood pressure test.

I had to wait for a while today before seeing the nurse, but she quickly redressed both wounds on my ankle. The outside wound with the injury to the ligaments was still excruciating, but she told me the wound is healing. I could see the wound on the inside of the ankle, and it was healing very well. I feel no pain from the wound, and it is shrinking quickly.

When she had finished dressing my ankle, she rechecked my blood pressure and told me that it was still high and that I should continue taking the blood pressure tablets. As I left, I saw an old friend from when I used to play bowls once a week. It was good to see her again, and as she has to take her mother to the clinic for regular blood tests, I expect to see her again.

I left and went straight back to my apartment because I was feeling a bit sore and puffed out. When I got back, the garage door and lift were not working. It looked like there was a power cut. I left my disability scooter outside the front of the apartment and went in. When I got back into my apartment, I looked at my mobile, and it appeared that there was a considerable power cut covering all of Spain, Portugal, and some of  Southern France. It was going to be some time before power was restored.

I went onto my balcony and sat in my reclining deckchair reading my Kindle. It got very hot throughout the day, and I eventually went back inside to cool off. At around 5 pm, the power had still not come back on, and I was beginning to worry about what to do with my disability scooter; I didn't want to leave it outside all night. I suddenly remembered the ATime4aChange store on the main road. It is run by some people I know, and I thought they might let me leave the scooter there overnight. I had enough power in the scooter to get there and back, but nowhere else. I went to the store, and luckily for me, they hadn't shut down because of the power cut. I asked if I could leave my scooter there, and explained why. They said it would be fine. After chatting with them for a while, I left the scooter and walked home.

As I crossed the road, I saw my friends George and Yvonne at the Avenida bar. I stopped briefly to check they were still coming to my house for me tomorrow so that I could apply for replacement passports for them. I didn't stop because I wanted to get home, and after confirming they were coming round tomorrow, I walked home.

When I got back to my apartment, I was very puffed out but glad I had got my scooter somewhere safe. The only thing I had in the house to eat was some bread and peanut butter, so I ate that for my dinner and sat down reading my Kindle until the light started to go. At around 8:30 pm, the power came back on, but because I was already tired, I went to bed at around 9:30 pm.

Tuesday, 29th April.

I woke up at around 6:30 am. When I got up, I was pleased to find the power was still on. I made a pot of Ginger Oolong tea with honey in it and sat down at my computer. I was able to do the Wordle puzzle and check my messages, and I surfed the Internet until around 10:30 am, and then I walked back to ATime4AChange to get my disability scooter.

When I got there, I saw Kerry and thanked her for letting me leave my disability scooter there. While we were chatting, my friends John and Kathy walked in and said hello. They both asked if I had blocked them on Farcebook, and Kerry then asked me the same thing. I explained that I had been banned and Farcebooks reason for banning me, but decided I would have to start a new account because none of my friends would contact me if they all thought I had blocked them.

A short time after I got home, George and Yvonne arrived, and I was able to do their passport renewals online for them. When they were all done, they left to post them back to England. George said he would come back when they had posted them and take me to the Mercadona store to do some shopping. It wasn't long before they returned, picked me up and took me to the store. I got a lot of shopping, so that I wouldn't have to come back for food for a week or so. When I came out, I was very puffed out and actually felt a little dizzy. Although I hadn't walked far, the exercise had really made me feel quite ill. When we got back to the apartment, they helped me in with my shopping. I felt terrible when George started chatting, and I had to ask him to go so that I could sit down and have a rest. Within a few minutes, I had got a drink and was fast asleep in my armchair. I woke up an hour or so later and felt a lot better, but still puffed out. I put my shopping away and set up a new Farcebook account. Within two hours, the account I had set up had been banned for breaking Farcebooks advertising rules, without even making a post. I decided to give up with Farcebook, if people want to contact me, they will find a way of doing so. I spent the rest of the day sitting in my armchair, resting and watching TV to see what news I could find about yesterday's power outage across Spain and Portugal. While sitting, waiting for my Omega 3 tablet delivery, I got a message to say it wouldn't arrive until Thursday because of the problems caused by yesterday's power cut.

I watched the Arsenal vs PSG game in the Champions League. I hadn't seen PSG play much and was surprised at how good they were. They scored within four minutes of the start and looked like they were going to score at will. Fortunately, Arsenal fought their way back into the game, and it was a very close game with the PSG keeper making some excellent saves to keep the score at 0-1. I hope Arsenal can pull back the goal deficit next week. I went to bed as soon as the game finished..

Wednesday, 30th April.

I woke up around 8 am today. I got up and got myself a pot of tea, and then sat at my computer and did the Wordle puzzle. After pottering around, I got ready to go to the health clinic for my appointment at 10:30.

At 10:15, I got on my disability scooter and left my apartment block. Just as I left, my friend George called me to see how I was, and I had to tell him I couldn't talk because I was on my way to see the nurse. I got to the health clinic in time and sat down to wait to see the nurse. It didn't seem busy, and I didn't see anyone going in to see the nurse, but I had to wait until around 11:15 before I got called to see the nurse. She quickly cleaned the wounds and redressed them before she made me another appointment for Friday.

I went home and was a bit puffed out when I got back. I sat down and rested for a while, and took a painkiller before working on my website. I had realised that a plugin on my website, the Redirect plugin, hadn't been checked for a while. When I checked, it had caught over 18,000 URL´s that browsers had tried to find and had been unable to find on my website. I began to sort through them, some could be deleted as they no longer existed, others had to have new URL´s attached to them so that the old links would point to the correct pages on my website.

While I was working, there was a buzz on the video intercom, and when I looked, it was the pretty blonde Amazon driver. I buzzed her in, and she brought up my Omega 3 tablets. They had arrived either a day late or a day early, whichever way you prefer to look at it. As an eternal optimist, I think they arrived early and was very grateful. 

I went to have a shower this evening and realised the hot water had run out. I checked the water heater and couldn't see anything wrong, but couldn't get it to work. Because of my poor eyesight, I thought it might be that I couldn't see the tiny control panel well enough to reset it. I managed to get a message to my friend Dave and asked him if he could take a look at it for me. He said he would try to pop round tomorrow to take a look. 

I went to bed, smelly and grumpy, at around 11 pm.

Thursday, 1st May.

I woke up around 8 am today. I lay in bed trying to get back to sleep until around 8:30 am, and then gave up and got up. I got a cold drink and some porridge with banana, walnuts, blueberries, and Greek yoghurt before sitting down at my computer to do the Wordle puzzle.

Once I had done the puzzle, I started to work on my website. I got sidetracked sorting through the redirect links on the website and didn't notice the time go by. I stopped at about 11:45 and got myself a drink and something to eat before carrying on the work. Sometime in the early afternoon, Dave called to say he was outside, and I let him in to look at the water heater. It didn't take him long to see that it was broken. I didn't even ask about him repairing it, after working on things like it for years, I knew that the cost of repairing it would probably be as much as getting a new one.

I looked online for a new one that would make it easier for me to change the settings when I wanted to. I found another one that I liked. It learnt when you use hot water and heated water in periods when the electricity was cheaper. It also had WIFi and an app for the phone, which would make it a lot easier for me to see and adjust the different settings. Dave wrote the model down and said he would go to Leroy Merlin's to buy it and come back to install it tomorrow.

I watched TV tonight, but went to bed at about 10 pm because I couldn't keep my eyes open.

Friday, 2nd May.

I woke up around 5:30 this morning, unable to get back to sleep, I got up and got a cold drink. I did the Wordle puzzle, checked my emails and then worked on my website redirects for a few hours before getting myself some porridge with banana, blueberries, Greek yoghurt and walnuts for breakfast.

At around 11:30, I left my apartment, got on my disability scooter and made my way to the health clinic. I took my Kindle with me today after the waits I had previously this week, it would give me something to read if I had a long wait. The health clinic was packed when I arrived, and I sat in the only seat available. I expected a long wait and began to read my Kindle. The doctor in the room next to the nurse called a couple of people through, and then the person with the nurse left, and I was called in. I guess the majority of the people had been there to see the doctor, not the nurse, today. The nurse quickly cleaned and redressed the wounds on my ankle before taking my blood pressure. My blood pressure had gone down again; it still wasn't good, but was getting closer to where it should be.

When I left the health clinic, I went back to my apartment. I continued to work on my website until around mid-afternoon when Dave arrived with my new water heater. It didn't take long before he had taken the old one down and got the new one up. He took the old water heater away to dump for me and left me working out how to connect it to my WiFi.

I quickly set up the water heater on the WiFi and was amazed at how easy it would be to operate the water heater from my mobile phone. The screen readout on my phone was big enough for me to see clearly, rather than having to look at a tiny screen on the water heater. It also had the bonus of being able to turn the water heater on or off from anywhere via my phone if I needed to, as well as see how much electricity it was using and adjust the schedule or economy mode on the water heater from the phone.

I spent a few hours in the early evening sitting on my balcony reading a book on my Kindle, called Stolen by Dawn Kopman-Whidden. It was terrific and I recommend it to any book lover. About boys stolen from their parents at a young age, it has some different twists which will keep you reading as their stories unfold.

This evening I watched some TV before going to bed.

Saturday, 3rd May.

I got up at about 8 am and got myself a glass of orange juice and some porridge with walnuts, blueberries, a banana, Greek yoghurt and a spoonful of honey for breakfast. I checked my messages and did the Wordle puzzle before finishing working on the redirect URL´s on my website.

I stripped my bed linen and put it in the washing machine, and watered the plants on my balcony. I then got on my disability scooter and went to the bank to withdraw the money I had to pay Dave for my new water heater. When I got back to my apartment, I entered all the different Euro notes onto the Eurobilltracker website,  and then surfed the Internet until just after midday.

Just after midday, I called Dave to see if he was in, and when he said he was at home, I went to his house to drop off the money for my new water heater. It didn't take me long to get there and drop off the money, and on the way back, I went along the beachfront. As I went along the beach, I noticed a couple of planes taking part in an air display over the Mar Menor. I watched them for a while, taking a few pictures, before returning to my apartment.

I watched TV for a while when I got home before having a tuna salad for lunch. In the afternoon, I put the clean linen back on my bed and put a new load of washing in the machine to wash. Late in the afternoon, my friends George and Yvonne brought me another large bag of oranges to juice. I took the oranges and then sat down to watch the Arsenal vs Bournemouth football match. At the start of the game, Arsenal played well and went up 1-0. It didn't last. In the second half, they were terrible and deserved to lose, which they did 1-2. If they play as badly against PSG next week, they will be hammered.

When the game finished, I watched a film called Another Simple Favour. It was very entertaining, and had an actress I didn't recognise, Blake Lively, in the lead role. She looked fantastic in many of the figure-hugging outfits she wore in the role of two sisters of a set of triplets.

Sunday 4th May.

Oranges being juiced.I didn't sleep well at all last night. I was woken up by kids shouting, screaming, and playing music in the square at 12:30 am, 2 am, 4:15 am, and 6 am. Many times, neighbours shouted at them to be quiet, and to be fair, it may have been the neighbours shouting that woke me up more than the kids.

I got up at about 8:30 am, got myself a drink and took my tablets before getting some cereal for breakfast. Afterwards, I did the Wordle puzzle and read some messages on Bluesky, Mastodon and Minds. I typed up some notes on my website and put a final load of washing in the washing machine.

I then spent about an hour chopping, peeling and juicing the oranges that my friends George and Yvonne had brought me round yesterday. For lunch, I got myself a ham and cream pepper cheese sandwich before sitting down in my armchair for a rest. For some reason, the little amount of work I had done this morning had puffed me out, and I had an ache in my chest.

The rest of the day was spent watching films. I did enjoy one called Rust. The story is about a boy left to fend for himself and his younger brother following their parents' deaths in 1880s Wyoming. He goes on the run with his long-estranged grandfather after he is sentenced to hang for the accidental killing of a local rancher. Alec Baldwin plays the part of the estranged grandfather and is very good in a role different to any other I have seen him in. I loved the scenery from the film and wonder how I would have fared living in such a place in such a different time. I probably wouldn't have lived long enough to worry about hypertension.