This week started off quickly with me going out for a few meals & finished with me having a cold, sniffing a lot, sneezing a lot, coughing & feeling terrible. I caught a cold but it was a proper man-size cold & made me feel terrible.

Week 1 of 2023.

Monday, 2nd January.

I woke up feeling ok this morning & got myself a coffee & cereal before working on my computer for a while. At lunchtime, my friends Martin & Kate come round with their daughter Aria to pick me up to go to La Zenia Boulevard. I wanted to get some tea leaves & there is a shop there that sells just different types of tea.

After we got to the shop I chose two types of tea & took them to the till to pay the person working there. He got halfway through serving me when two people came in who wanted to buy an expensive china tea set. At this point, he stopped serving me & served them instead. I guess money talks in every walk of life but I've never been treated so rudely in a shop selling tea.

After getting my tea leaves we walked to Che Argentinian for lunch. There was a long queue & we had to wait before we got a table but once we were seated the service was very quick. Unfortunately for me after my first bite of food, my acid reflux started to react & I had to stop eating until it receded. I managed to take a few mouthfuls of food but it returned even stronger & I had to run to the toilet where I was soon vomiting stomach acid into the toilet. This reaction settled again but the chest pain that came with it stopped me from eating & while the others finished their dinner I took a short walk outside.

After lunch, Martin & Kate dropped Aria off in the supervised children's play area. I did some shopping for groceries in Al Campo & Martin & Kate looked around some clothes shops. Whilst Martin & Kate were in one shop I sat down with Aria & she decided to give me a cuddle. As I cuddled her back I noticed the admiring looks I was getting from all of the passing ladies in the shopping centre. Does anyone know where I can hire a small cute child to impress women with next time I go shopping?

Kate dropped me off at home after our shopping trip & I quickly put the heating on in my apartment as it is getting cold quickly. I was starting to get hungry due to my aborted lunch but didn't want to risk any more solids. I got one of my homemade soups out of the freezer & had it for my supper. It did the job, it filled me up & I had no acid reflux reaction.

Tuesday, 3rd January.

This morning after getting up I worked on my website for a few hours before taking my recycled plastic & paper to one of the local recycling bins. After dropping the recycling off I continued on to one of the many Chino supermarkets, I went on my disability scooter to one in Los Narejos & bought some cable ties. As soon as I left the shop I attached my Save The Mar Menor flag back onto the front of my disability scooter before I headed to Pizzeria La Sombre to have a couple of beers with Martin. Neither of us was feeling particularly brilliant & it was a quiet couple of hours.

When I left Martin I headed home but went past my old home in Los Narejos. As I passed it, I noticed the people I sold it to were sitting outside. We had become friends so I stopped off for a chat & a cup of tea with them. It was nice to catch up with them after not seeing them for a while & it was nice to see my old home still looking great. It was also good to see the name I attached to the house is still on the outside wall, Casa Gooner is still going very well.

Tonight I watched the Arsenal v Newcastle game on television. It finished with a 0-0 result but was not a boring game. Newcastle defended very well & there were a few very strange penalty decisions that did not go Arsenal's way. The worst part of the game was the refereeing, the game was not particularly rough or niggly game but the referee still manage to produce 9 yellow cards, he even booked one Newcastle player who wasn't even playing. It is about time the FA started fining referees for poor performances, they fine clubs for bad behaviour but not the refs whose poor decisions are sometimes responsible for the player's poor behaviour.

Wednesday, 4th January.

I woke up today feeling terrible, I seem to have caught a cold. I spent all day drinking lemsip, taking lemsip capsules, drinking lots of water & working on my website whilst I stayed warm in my apartment.

Thursday, 5th January.

Today was much like yesterday I felt terrible, drank lots of water took lots of lemsip & stayed warm in my apartment. I did manage to cook a roast pork & beef joint with mini roast potatoes for my dinner though. The saying says "feed a cold & starve the flu", I fed my cold & hope it helps.

Friday, 6th January.

Once again I still feel awful & the only time I leave my heated apartment is to check if I have any post downstairs in my mailbox. I don't find any mail & my excitement of having the postman ring me for entry to the apartment block subsidies.

I have been making some very big changes to the layout of my website this week & I continue to do this today. As I haven't felt like getting up let alone outside most of the week I feel grateful that I have had something to keep me occupied. Today I think I must have spent around 14 hours working on my website, it isn't complicated work but it is time-consuming.

Saturday, 7th January.

I feel a little better today but still, carry on taking the lemsip drinks & capsules whilst staying inside my warm apartment. I watch some of the FA Cup football on the television today but can't get excited about it. I continue to work on my website but it seems that the new layout also entails that I alter the layout of all of the pages a little as well as completely redesigning the navigation systems.

After going to bed tonight I am woken at about 1:00 am Sunday morning by kids outside. They have parked their car right under my bedroom window & have the car stereo blasting out Spanish rap music at a volume loud enough to wake the dead. I shout at them to be silent & it has no effect so I use an app on my mobile phone to call the police. Unfortunately, I don't know if the police could hear me as the music is so loud I can't hear what they are saying.

As I go to bed to try & sleep I hear another car pull up outside & some Spanish voices. I don't know if it is the police but the kid's volume goes down considerably & the music is stopped immediately. As the car pulls away I expect the volume to go up but it dwindles off slowly & I guess the kids have moved on.

Sunday, 8th January.

I woke around 7 am & feel terrible. The cold seems worse & my broken sleep has put me in a miserable mood. I get myself a lemsip, then a coffee & some cereal before getting back to work on my website.

I work until around 12:45 pm when my friend June comes around to take me to Campbell's bar for Sunday Lunch. I have the roast lamb with all the trimmings & it is beautiful. We spend around 2 ½ hours chatting as we eat & have a drink before June drops me back off at home. When I get home I straight away get in my pyjamas, put the heat on, get a lemsip & spend the afternoon watching football or dosing off on the sofa.

I have a bit of cheese on toast for my supper & work on my website until around 11:00 pm when I pack up working & go to bed.