In Week 9 of 2021 I did a bit of research on my family tree and did some digital art lessons.

Week 9 of 2021.

Friday, February 26th.

This morning I published a Facebook page that I will start to add digital art over the coming months. I only invited a few people to look at it & this morning as I am still working on putting a portfolio of work together. By having a few people look at it I hope to get some constructive responses & maybe some ideas for some artwork that I could produce in the future.

In the evening I walked up to Rocco's bar to see my friend Johnny who I haven't seen for over a year. It was nice to see some friendly faces & I enjoyed catching up with Johnny again. I think a few beers, the fresh air & the company did me some good. I had taken my kindle with me to read but it stayed in my pocket the whole time as we didn't stop talking.

Saturday, February 27th.

Today will be mostly spent watching YouTube videos, Football or rugby on the television, sitting at home. Yesterday was fun but my leg aches this morning & is a bit swollen so I will rest it today.  I watch the Wales v England six nations rugby match & was ecstatic to see Wales beat England. There were a few dodgy refereeing decisions in the first half with two of Wales tries & England mounted a strong comeback to draw level before Wales pulled away again to eventually win 40-24.

This evening I started to watch a few YouTube videos on using Photoshop to draw some different types of scenes. They were absolutely brilliant & very inspiring, tomorrow I will be trying to create some landscape images of my own.

Sunday, February 28th.

After watching YouTube drawing videos yesterday, my creative juices are flowing this morning & I will be creating my own artwork on either side of watching the Leicester v Arsenal game at lunchtime. Arsenal managed to come from 1-0 down to win away at Leicester, finishing the game as winners after scoring 3 goals in reply. The rest of the day was spent producing my first piece of digital art. I finally finished it at around 10:30 pm & promptly posted it online for the whole world to see. It was a wolf standing on a rocky outcrop, howling at the moon, whilst overlooking tree-lined hills & a large mountain.

Monday, March 1st.

For the first time in a long time, my sister managed to pinch & punch me this morning, love you to Sis. I got my dates mixed up today, I was supposed to be meeting my friend Jacqueline for breakfast at La Encarnacion but I thought we were meeting tomorrow. Luckily she contacted me before going & as the weather doesn't look too good we rearrange for next Monday, sorry Jacqueline. 

I have had bad back & hip pain for some time now & after using Dr Google & seeing Consultant YouTube I have found some stretching exercises that may help. With this in mind, I go to the local HAH charity shop, where I am told they have two yoga mats for me to look at. I bought one of the yoga mats for €5, it wasn't quite what I wanted but will do until I get what I really wanted.

When I get home I realise I haven't got a lot of the spices I need for the curry I am making today so I quickly go back out to the local spice shop to get what I am missing. The curry I am making is a butter chicken curry. I can only think the colour is what gives it its name as with all the different pastes & spices in it, it will not taste anything like butter. I prepare it all, put it in the slow cooker on high for 6 hours & hope for the best.

I spend the afternoon watching more art videos. One, in particular, I really enjoy, shows me how to upgrade the 2-dimensional picture I did yesterday into a 3-dimensional image. It looks very good but could take me a long time to do a good job of transforming my picture. I will give it a go when I have had more practice on the 2-dimensional work first.

All afternoon the smell of the curry in the slow cooker has been making me hungry, luckily there is enough for six people. This means after I eat what I want there will be enough to put one in the freezer. For some reason, I don't really fancy rice or chips tonight, so I have my curry with mashed potato. It tasted fantastic, it was one of the best curries I have ever eaten, definitely the best I have ever made, & I let the remainder cool down, put it in Tupperware pots to go in the freezer.

Tuesday, March 2nd.

I did some shopping this morning at Consum & had a large breakfast at The Tipsy Thistle on the way home. Today is my friend Wayne's birthday & it is highly likely that the couple of planned beers we are having will turn into a dozen or more, having a large meal beforehand seemed like a good idea.

The celebrations of St Wayne's birthday started off at Rocco's bar, continued at Le Petit Bistro & went into full swing at Harry's bar, with the occasional visit back to Rocco's bar for good measure. I had a great time Wayne, I think you should consider having a birthday every year.

Wednesday, March 3rd.

My friend Reindeer came around this morning to measure up to put some bookshelves up in my lounge & some plant holders on my balcony. He makes them from old wooden pallets & they are all really good. This afternoon was spent watching some incredible YouTube videos on image manipulation in Photoshop. Some of the images are amazing & I hope that I can reproduce one or two of them over the coming weeks.

Thursday, March 4th.

This morning I hoovered through my bedrooms with the intention of going through them in the afternoon with my steam mop. Good intentions are not always enough though & in the afternoon I had a couple of pints at La Playa bar, watched a film & then cooked myself a tea of turkey chops & chips before doing a lot more work adding metadata to my image collection.