In week 8 of 2021, I did a lot of Photoshop tutorials online and edited some of my artwork and photos.
Friday, February 19th.
I had no plans today and no deliveries arriving so I did very little in the morning apart from watching some online training videos for Photoshop. At lunchtime, I decided to go out for some fresh air for a walk. I didn't get far on my walk before I sat down outside one of the local beach bars. I saw my friend Colin at the San Juan bar. I sat down for a chat and had a few beers while talking with him and his wife for a few hours in the sun.
I had a lovely afternoon and returned home to use up the slow-cooked pork I had in my fridge, I mixed it with a barbecue sauce and ate way too much. After my food, I turned on the television but didn't see a thing as I quickly entered the land of nod for an hour. I woke in time to watch a webinar about Canadian ancestry in Ontario, which ended just as the Friday night football match, Wolves v Leeds, started. I watched the game hoping for a 6 - 6 draw, which would be interesting to watch but wouldn't affect Arsenal's league position. I got a reasonably dull 1-0 win to Wolves but at least both teams stay below Arsenal in the league.
Saturday, February 20th.
I woke up, made myself a pot of tea and sat down to wait for my new toy to arrive today, a drawing tablet from Amazon. It arrived around lunchtime and after a short while, I had it connected to my laptop and had it up and running. It did seem challenging to use at first, but I quickly saw how much more accurate I could be with my Photoshop work and how useful it would be for my digital artwork.
I think it will be a steep learning curve using it but there are hundreds of helpful free online videos on YouTube that will teach me how to use it properly. First, I will have to learn to draw with it and then take many more photos to learn how to edit them using it.
In a strange coincidence my friend Fructo, a photographer and teacher, contacted me today and we arranged to meet next week at La Encarnacion restaurant in Los Alcázares to catch up for a chat. With any luck, he may be able to give me a few pointers or inspire me with some of his ideas, work and photos.
Sunday, February 21st.
I have to do some shopping today as I am running out of food in the fridge and the meals I had in my freezer have now all been used up. Next week, the weather is forecast to be cooler with a possibility of rain so I will get enough food for at least the week. I did my shopping in Aldi and was home quickly, which was lucky as I forgot I had another delivery arriving today. I had just enough time to get in and sit down with a pot of tea when the doorbell went and I remembered I was expecting a delivery. Oh well, it all turned out well, and I got my new power lead extensions.
This afternoon was spent organising my images again. I think I now have around 95% of the images with faces correctly organised with the names of people in them, using face recognition in Adobe Lightroom. I have also started clearing all the out-of-focus or poor-quality photos along with the ones that I don't like. I should do this as I go along but it's something that always gets overlooked. As I now have my new graphic tablet, I load Adobe's drawing application, Fresco onto my computer. I have never seen it, looked at it, or even heard of it until this afternoon, but it is included with my Adobe subscription. I will give it a go and see if it is easier for drawing than just using Pphotoshop.
I watched the Arsenal v Man City game this evening and after Arsenal went a goal down in less than two minutes I feared the worst but they somehow grew into the game and in the end, could have got an equaliser. I am not too disappointed with the loss and hope we can take some encouragement from this game into the second leg of our Europa League game on Thursday night.
Monday, February 22nd.
This morning I went to the bank to pay my local council tax (IBI). I had never had to do it before as up till now it had always been taken out by direct debit. I have no idea why this year it should change. Even with the é14 fine for late payment, it still only came to é83. Compared to the UK council tax this is brilliant and I don't mind paying this. I then went to the post office to post a letter to my accountant in Florida before going home for a pot of chai tea.
Around lunchtime, my friend Mark came round to help me move my furniture around as some of it is too big and too heavy for one person to move. I sweep some of the areas of the floor before he arrives ready to move furniture to and when he arrives we move the display cabinet that I keep my cutlery, glassware and some of my kitchen appliances. After more hoovering of dust, we move my large massage chair and lastly the large dining table that I will be using as my computer, graphic tablet and printer table is moved into place.
For some reason, this sort of short but physical exercise makes me breathless quickly. After a short break to get my breath we go to my local bar, Carzola, for a beer and tapas. After a short break, Mark goes back to work, at his home and I return home to continue hoovering dusting and setting up my computer equipment where I want it. A shelf that was taken down in order to move some of the furniture has to be put up in a new place and Mark has said he will do that for me during the week as I have do not have a drill. In the meantime, my books will briefly be sitting on the floor.
This evening I am sent some information for my family tree by a lady, Penny, whom I have never met but who is my 3rd cousin once removed. She sent me copies of a birth certificate, marriage certificate, death certificate, photo and a breakdown of the lives of the people in the documents. It is very helpful and in return, I am able to make the photo clearer as well as add colour to it, which brings the image to life.
Tuesday, February 23rd.
The first thing I notice when I get up is how much better the layout of my apartment is after yesterdays work to rearrange some furniture. I make a pot of tea, have a massage and check my email before getting ready to go to the Tuesday market for my fruit and vegetables this morning. The market is always quieter early in the morning and I like going when there are less likely to be pickpockets around. The market has returned to its normal location from this week but I much preferred it where it was at the sports centre, it just seemed to feel safer. I quickly buy my fruit and veg before making my weekly trip to a local bakery for a pie and a cake on the way home. It was quite bright out but a little chilly and it will take at least two pots of tea for my hands to warm up. This weeks juiced delight was made this morning with 6 oranges, 6 apples, 4 celery sticks and 4 carrots, it was juiced from the fruit and veg bought this morning and placed in the fridge to cool. The rest of the day was spent reading my kindle or watching films.
One of the films I watched was called Bliss, starring Owen Wilson and the gorgeous Salma Hayek. The basis of the story is that the main characters are real people in a computer-generated world and that they can survive in it by taking a crystal drug that gives them special powers. The storyline doesn't sound that good but it is very good and will probably bring a tear to even the most hard-hearted people out there. It is really about mental anguish, drug addiction, homelessness and peoples struggle with reality.
It begins when Owen Wilson's character accidentally kills his boss, surely we have all wanted to do this at some time, then meets Hayeks' character in a bar. She convinces him that they are some of the only real people in a computer-generated world and to continue to stay alive they must take special crystal drugs. The story develops after Wilsons' character loses his job and we are introduced to his daughter and son, who, he is told, are not real. As the story unfolds he has to decide which world is real and which is not. I loved the film and found the story brilliant to watch. The decisions Wilsons' character has to make, echo decisions that many poor people around the world will have to make some time in their lives. Salma Hayek plays a brilliant part showing what a good actress she is, but she is Salma Hayek, if she stood in front of me miming the American constitution I would watch her.
Tonight I watched the Oxford v Portsmouth football match on television, it reminded me of the first game of football that my dad took me to see as a kid. It was Portsmouth v Oxford at Fratton Park in the early 1970's and when my dad asked me if I enjoyed it I told him no and I never wanted to go again. The following week he took me to see Arsenal play at Highbury and I fell in love with football and Arsenal, a love story that still continues to this day.
Wednesday, February 24th.
This morning I got up early for the first day of the Roots Tech online convention, three days of genealogy exhibitions that are being held online this year due to COVID restrictions. As the speakers are spread out around the world it meant getting up at 5 am Spanish time, but I managed to do it and switched the computer on at 5 am for the start. Unfortunately for me, the event starts tomorrow not today. Unable to get back to sleep I spend the next three hours sorting through more photos on my computer, rejecting and deleting around 100, as they are not of a good enough quality for me to use in my artwork, or are of no real interest. You can only have so many out of focus photos of dolphins jumping out of the water at SeaWorld or of fuzzy birds flying around in a blue sky.
After some breakfast, I went for a walk along the promenade, cut up through Rio Nalon where the bars and restaurants were mainly all closed still, then walked back along the main road into Los Alcázares before cutting back down to the promenade and going to Bar Carzola for an Asiatico coffee.
In the afternoon I did some work on a couple of digital art projects and noticed that my laptop was running slow. I spent the afternoon deleting unwanted files and games from it, to give it more memory to work with. After doing this and running some optimisation software on it, it was soon running at full speed again and I was able to do some more work. In the evening I watched some football on the television before having an early night.
Thursday, February 25th.
For some reason this morning my computer is not loading some of the programs properly and I can not figure out why, after a lot of head-scratching I give up and go to get some fresh air. I pick up a photograph from my friend Sean. The photo was in some photographic paper that I gave him a while ago and he guessed it was a mistake. When I saw it I couldn't remember ever seeing it before, but I was very pleased he had not thrown it out. It was one of my father's when he was in the RAF. Thanks very much for keeping it and looking after it Sean.
After seeing Sean I popped in to see my friend Keith, who lived nearby, for a cup of tea. The tea was very welcome on a cold morning, as were the two nice jumpers that he gave me that didn't fit him. After seeing Keith I went for a coffee at a new café that opened today. I saw some other friends all sitting outside in their small isolated groups and then returned home, glad to get out of the cold.
I went online and contacted Adobe support about the software on my computer that was not working. In a fairly short amount of time, they had remotely connected to my computer, reinstalled the software and corrected some printer issues that were affecting the software and preventing it from running. It was all very organised and for a change, I have no bad words to say about an online help facility. Adobe help was very good and was a shining example to other companies.
In the evening I watched Arsenal dominate Benfica in the first half of their must-win match in the Europa league only to finish the first half at 1-1. The second half soon became worse as Arsenal again made simple errors in defence, gifting Benfica a second goal and the lead in the game. Luckily for me Arsenal, through Kieran Tierney equalised, but they would still go out for a second year running, on the away goals rule if they did not score again. Watching from my hiding position behind the sofa, my emotions went from depressed and being more and more worried, to ecstatic when they scored a third, to very nervous for the remaining minutes. They finished up winning and the mighty Arsenal go marching into the last 16 of the Europa League.
When I say marching, I actually mean, stumbling, crawling but probably just about deservedly, advancing to the next round. They did do it though and I can remain happy till they play again this weekend. The life of us football fans is not an easy one, stumbling from game to game, clutching at every straw we see floating by, spending days on end in misery, just for our teams to turn us into gibbering wrecks every time they play, but I love it. Onwards and upwards Arsenal.