I started this week off slowly not doing much but by the end of the week, I had started doing a little bit more walking, probably too much walking as my legs got very swollen again. I ate out in four different restaurants this week, two on one day.

Week 12 of 2023.

Monday, 20th March.

I woke early at around 7:45 am after a good night's sleep. Amazon has said that the delivery I missed yesterday will arrive today so I have to wait until it arrives before I can go out.

I picked, edited, & added over 30 photos to the photo gallery for my visit to Tangier. After adding the photos I then get the GPS location for as many of the photos as I can & add it to each individual photo. This will allow people to click on the globe icon, below the images, to show where a photo was taken. It will show the location in a map view or a satellite view & allow people to zoom in or out on the location of the photo. This is a very time-consuming job & just doing it for these photos took me over 7 hours.

The delivery I was waiting for finally arrived around 7:30 pm. The egg poacher was used immediately & I had poached eggs on toast. The new grater was placed proudly on my kitchen worktop but the measuring jug was far too big. I misread the description & ordered a commercial-size jug which has a capacity of 2 litres or 4 pints, it will have to be returned, one half the size would have been better.

Tuesday, 21st March.

I woke around 7 am this morning & felt very good & ready for the day. The first thing I did this morning was to try & return the oversized measuring jug I received from Amazon yesterday. I went through the return procedure, which was easy, & was surprised when it told me that the money had immediately been returned to my account & that there was no need to return the item & that I could keep it. If anyone needs to make gravy for around 5000 I can now lend you a measuring jug.

After adjusting my website slightly to allow titles & descriptions of images to be shown correctly, I turn my computer off & take a shower. After my shower, I had a pot of jasmine/peach green tea before going to the new restaurant near me on the beach, Buena Vista, for a cooked breakfast.

I had a great breakfast, they did three different sizes & I had the medium-sized one which had two sausages, two bacon, two eggs, beans, tomato & two pieces of toast. I washed it down with a lovely cup of coffee & then just sat in the sun, watching the world go by along the promenade. I left at about 11:20 am & set off on my disability scooter to see my friend Martin at the office.

As I went slowly along the promenade I met my friend Dan. He said he would walk with me & we carried on along the promenade & then up towards the office, where I always meet Martin. We were nearly there when Dan realised he didn't have time to keep going & turned round to go & meet his mum who had the car. I continued on but when I got to La Pizzeria Sombre it was closed. I got my phone out to message Martin & saw I had missed a message from him telling me that the bar was shut & that he had gone to La Zona bar. I quickly set off again & met him there.

Shortly after getting there Dave also arrived & we sat chatting in the sun before splitting up & heading home. I popped into the Mercadona store & got some milk & a couple of rolls & then went home. When I got home I realised that I had got sunburnt & will have to find my suntan lotion before going back out in the sun.

This afternoon I took a nap in front of the television before getting some soup for my supper & going to bed at about 10 pm.

Wednesday, 22nd March.

I woke around 7 am & got up & got myself a ginseng coffee & some muesli for breakfast then did some work on my website. Whilst on my cruise recently, I met a nice lady, Jean. She was 93 & on her own on the cruise. I had spent the day with her in Casablanca & had taken a photo of her outside the King Hussein II Mosque. I edited the photo & emailed it to her, I hope she likes it.

One of my neighbours, Maj, has asked me to take a key for some guests that are renting her apartment out this weekend & is dropping it off to me this morning. We catch up & have a nice chat as we have both recently been on different cruises. When I leave Maj I jump on my mobility scooter & go to see my friend Stuart. He has lots of lemons that he has from a tree in his garden and has offered me some. I go to see him & we have a chat & a cup of tea before I head to the shop for something for my dinner tomorrow. As I leave he forces me to take a couple of hot cross buns that he makes, all very civilized Stuart, tea, lemons & hot cross buns, gone are the all-day beer sessions that we used to do.

When I get home I have some news that worries me. Apparently, the builder, Aluse, built the apartment block 85 cm too close to the sea & there is a demolition order on the whole block of apartments. The management company has said that lawyers are dealing with it & that it may take years to resolve. It is a bit worrying but there is absolutely nothing I can do about it & I will have to leave it in the hands of the lawyers, builders & authorities. I did wonder if it is 85 cm too close to the sea, if my apartment at the back, will be left standing but become a frontline beachfront apartment in the future.

This afternoon I watch television, look at different recipes for things I can make with lemons & make a food order with a company that my friend Stuart told me about. I ordered lots of goodies & now just have to wait for them to be delivered. I do like being able to have so much stuff delivered to my apartment. I don't have a car & shopping is always a bit difficult if it is more than a shopping bag full of stuff from a local store. The only thing I don't like is having to wait all day because the deliveries are never given a delivery time.

Thursday, 23rd March.

I slept well last night but I did have some strange dreams. I am always amazed that I have such vivid dreams in full colour & that I am always aware that they are dreams whilst they are going on. I have always been able to change what is going on in my dream as it happens & interact with the different people in them. Many of the places & people in them are from my past, although they are not always as they should have been. People may appear in places they have never been to & places may have moved to join other places in different countries or areas. It is strange that in the dreams I am aware of all of this but my character just continues on & takes it all in as if it is a natural occurrence. Some nights I will wake up during a dream to go to the bathroom & when I go back to bed, the dream continues as if I had just hit the pause button & had restarted it where I left off.

When I did get up around 7 am I got myself a coffee & sat down at my computer to work on my website. Whilst editing photos from Casablanca my friends Frouk & Reinder messaged me & asked if I wanted to meet them for lunch & we decided to meet at the Royal Bar & Restaurant for their Menu of the Day.

I walked around to the restaurant at about 12:45 pm & sat in the sun whilst I waited for my friends. We had the menu of the day, I chose chips with cheese and ham scattered over them for a starter, for my main course I had lamb bhuna with rice & the dessert was tiramisu. The Curry was lovely & I will definitely be going back. As it is so close to my apartment it will become used a lot when I don't want to cook for myself. It was great to see my friends again & to catch up with what they have been doing. After dinner, I walked back to my apartment by going back along the beach. When I got home I settled on my sofa & took a nap.

I watched the Italy v England football match tonight. England was very good in the first half, & Italy was very good in the second half. The game finished Italy 1, England 2. I wonder how Gareth Southgate ever got a job as a manager, he is so biased toward his favourite players it is ridiculous. He had at least two players in the team last night who can not get in their league sides but he continually puts them in the national side, why? Harry McGuire is slow, passes backwards constantly and seems to always be berating other players for his shortcomings. Kalvin Phillips hasn't played 90 minutes the whole season in the league but still gets his place in the team. In my opinion, Southgate must go. On a good note, it was great to see Harry Kane the Tottenham player, who supports Arsenal, get his 54th goal for England & become Englands leading goal scorer of all time, well done Harry you are one of Arsenal's own.

Friday, 24th March.

I woke up at around 7 am & got a coffee before continuing to edit photos & add them to photo galleries on my website. At around 10 am I went for a walk to get some bread. I walked along the promenade to Rio Nalon & up to the Economy superstore, I like the bread there. I probably shouldn't have walked that far as my ankle was throbbing & I felt a bit puffed out when I got there.

When I left the shop I walked along to Punto & Coma, a coffee shop on the strip. The coffee was amazing & was served in a nice big cup. The staff are always very friendly & it is my favourite place for coffee. When I left I had a slow walk back towards my apartment, by the time I had slowly walked back it was around 12:30 pm so I stopped off at the Chiringuito El Lobo for a pint & sat there for an hour, enjoying the sun & reading my kindle. I think today was the first day of the chiringuito opening, it is certainly the earliest in the year it has opened up after closing over the colder months.

This evening I had chicken with some salad for my tea before having an early night, going to bed at about 10 pm.

Saturday, 25th March.

I woke up earlier than normal today, probably because of my early night yesterday & the exercise & fresh air. By 5:30 am I was already sitting at my computer with a coffee & some porridge. After my early breakfast, I went down to the garage to put my mobility scooter on charge because I had forgotten to do it last night.

At around 9 am I decided to go for a coffee. I walked along the promenade until I got to the hotel Narejos Costa & then turned & walked up to cafe Punto & Como for a coffee. I sat there reading my kindle for a while & had a second coffee. As I was sitting there my friend George phoned me & asked me for some help to set up his new phone. We arranged to meet at the chiringuito outside my apartment & I walked back along the promenade to meet him there. I sat at the chiringuito with a bottle of water, reading my kindle until George arrived. Unfortunately, I could not see his phone screen clearly in the sun so we went to my apartment.

I couldn't set his phone up as George hadn't got the passwords we needed for it so we walked back to his apartment where his wife Yvonne found the passwords for me to correctly set up his phone. I then made a couple of changes to his laptop so that it would synch with his phone correctly. After getting all of it working correctly the three of us walked around to Cafe Avenida for a couple of beers. It was by now around 5 pm & the temperature on the sign above the pharmacy next door got up to 37°c before quickly dropping down to around 33°c. We sat chatting for about an hour before I left them there & headed off to La Playa bar.

I stayed in La Playa bar the rest of the night talking to some friends Simon, Ady, Matt & John. Luckily for me, because my legs were swelling up after all the walking today when the bar closed my friends Bob & Connie gave me a lift home.

Sunday, 26th March.

I got up at around 10:30 am today. I sat at my computer working on photos until 11:45 & then walked outside to meet my friend June who picked me up to go for Sunday dinner at Campbells Bar & Restaurant in Roda.

We ate our beautiful dinner, I had the roast lamb, & then sat chatting until around 4:30 pm. After leaving June said she would go past another restaurant called Otomatua so that I could see where it was. When we got there it was open so June said we should go in to say hello to Marco who owns it & whom she is friends. When we went in Marcos´s wife said hello to June & let Marco know we were there. We sat at a table inside & Marco came to see June. June introduced me to Marco & he shook me by the hand & told June that he already knew me & asked how I was. He remembered me from the few times I had been in his old restaurant in Los Alcazares. We sat down & Marco got a bottle of water for June & a beer for me & we sat talking for a while. As we sat there Marco reappeared with two bits of steak on bread for us. It was beautiful & as June didn't want her bit of steak I ate hers as well. We finished our drinks & asked Marco how much we owed for the food & drink, we were told that we owed him nothing as we were friends but to remember him next time we wanted to go for a meal & to make a booking with him. We will definitely be going back.

June drove us back towards Los Alcazares & by now it was around 6:30 pm. I decided to go to La Playa bar to see if the England game was on the television & June dropped me off there. As I walked in I saw my friend Alan Bond who was there to do his version of Karaoke later on. We sat together with other regulars & watched the England v Ukraine game which England won 2-0. After the game, Alan did his karaoke show & was joined by several singers. I sat talking to my friends Gary, Ady & Simon before another friend, Linda came in as well. Whilst sitting there more friends came in & we all had a great night chatting & listening to each other sing, some very good singers & others not so good. Once Alan had finished his Karaoke set & packed everything away, people became very disappointed when they realised they hadn't heard me sing my party piece, "I got a brand new combine harvester". Personally, I believe this was planned so that they could all leave with their eardrums still in one piece but I didn't mind, even I don't like my singing voice.

Alan dropped me off at home & I watched a little bit of television before going to bed at around midnight. I´d had a great day again but my legs were very swollen & I was in a bit of pain.