This week included lots of time trying to stay cool in the extreme heat that warnings were given about. I did a bit of swimming and spent time looking at the jellyfish.
Monday, 10th July.
I woke up at about 6:45 am today. I stripped the linen from my bed and put it in the washing machine before getting a coffee and a glass of orange. I had a bad back this morning so I sat in my massage chair and took two 20-minute massages before sitting at my computer updating my website.
I started a new coffee selection this morning, it is a coffee caramel mix and is particularly nice. I got myself some cereal with yoghurt, hoping to help control the acid in my stomach. After breakfast, I head to the supermarket and buy some more yoghurt and a couple of rolls before heading straight home. I didn't go to the office today as I had forgotten to charge my disability scooter and the supermarket trip was about as far as it would go on the remaining charge.
The rest of the day was spent working on my family tree, watching television and looking at different things I can do in Rio de Janeiro later in the year. Late in the evening, I remembered to go down to the garage to put my disability scooter on charge.
Tuesday, 11th July.
I woke up at 6:45 am and had a coffee before taking a shower and having a shave. I then got on my disability scooter and took a slow trip along the promenade on the way to my bank. I had a 9 am appointment to see about getting annual holiday insurance. I had a quote from an online company but wanted to see if the bank could beat the price. I was quickly seen at the bank but they were unable to give me a policy to match the online one that I had been quoted for. I made an appointment to come back in October to change my apartment´s insurance and then went straight home.
When I got in I went online to purchase the holiday insurance that I had the quote for, before getting some cereal and some orange juice for breakfast. At about 11 am I got on my disability scooter and headed towards San Javier. I went to Unica Garden centre to buy some plants for my home. Unfortunately, when I got there they didn't have the ones I was looking for and none that I wanted to buy. After looking around for a while I got back on my scooter and went back to Los Narejos to meet Martin at Pizzeria La Sombre.
I sat talking with Martin for a while and his wife Kate joined us, bringing her laptop over with her because she wanted some help with it. It was turning on but then going straight off. I told her the easiest way to check if it was the battery that needed replacing was to plug it in after taking the battery out. If it worked without the battery, it would indicate that the battery was faulty. She said she would try this when she got home.
After I left Martin I went towards home and saw my friend Stewart at Henry's bar so I stopped for a couple of pints and a chat with him before I continued home.
Wednesday, 12th July.
I woke up at 6:30 am today. The birds were all singing outside and I got myself a cold drink before sitting down at my computer. Many heat warnings have been put out for today, so I do not intend to leave my home and the air conditioning will be put on when it starts to warm up. I looked at the thermometer on my balcony at 9 am and it was already reading 84°f or 29°c.
I spent the morning working out the best way to get to Barcelona for my cruise later in the year. In the end, I booked a flight from Alicante to Barcelona and a night in a hostel in Barcelona the night before my cruise departs. I then went online and booked a train from Madrid back to Torre Pacheco on the day I fly back from Rio de Janeiro to Spain.
After lunch, I ordered a new digital thermometer for my home. It has indoor and outdoor censors so I will be able to see how hot it is outside and it will be more accurate for my local weather than the ones that I currently use online. At the same time, I order some Deet to protect me from mosquitos. The orders will arrive separately over two days. I would rather they arrived together but it's free delivery so you take what you can get.
Todays Amazon delivery finally arrived at around 6:30 pm. What had I ordered, I hear you all asking. The order was for 24, 330 ml cans of San Miguel Radler beer. A strange thing to order from Amazon you may say, but it was only €12.89, with free delivery and saved me trying to get it home on my mobility scooter.
Today was very hot and I spent all day indoors and most of the afternoon I had the air conditioning turned on. Most people seemed to have taken the warnings to stay out of the heat seriously and Plaza de Espejo outside was empty all afternoon and quiet in the evening.
Thursday, 13th July.
Today I woke up at around 5:30 am and as I was unable to get back to sleep I got myself a coffee and logged onto my computer. I updated my website, did some family tree research and waited for the sun to come up so I could go for a swim.
I went for my swim at 7 am but the water was very warm and not very refreshing. Normally the water revives me, wakes me up and leaves me feeling ready for the day. Today the warm water seemed to sap my energy and after swimming through lots of jellyfish on my way to the rocks, I cut my swim short and only did one lap.
I returned to my apartment, had a shower and then got some cereal for my breakfast. After breakfast, I went to the pharmacy to get my normal tablets and a second lot of tablets the Doctor gave me on prescription to help the blood flow in my legs. As soon as I got my tablets, I went back along the promenade to my apartment. Unfortunately, the garage lift door was broken again, and I couldn't get my disability scooter into the garage. I parked up outside the apartment's main door and went inside to contact the lift company. As I went through the door, I saw a neighbour talking on the phone to the lift company who told her it wasn't anything to do with them. I spoke to her and told her I would contact the garage lift company.
I sent the company an email to the address they normally reply from, at 10:55 am and within 10 minutes, I had a reply telling me the engineer had been told and that he would call as soon as possible. I had no choice but to leave my disability scooter outside in the heat and go out to check on it every now and then. By 1 pm, the garage lift repair man hadn't arrived, and I was beginning to worry about leaving my disability scooter outside all day in the heat and wondered what I would do if he didn't turn up before I was picked up to go for dinner in the afternoon.
I took some rubbish to the bins and as I passed the neighbouring block I suddenly remembered that my friends Rik and Jill who lived there had a garage. I messaged them and was very grateful when they replied quickly telling me I could store my scooter in their garage overnight. I took it straight to their garage to get it out of the sun.
At around 2:45 pm, my friends Alan and Jacky picked me up and we went to Los Urrutias to the Ruf Mari restaurant. It was packed when we arrived but Jacky had booked a table. The service was brilliant, and the food was very, very good. The meal included two starters, a main dish, a dessert and a drink for €17. When we sat at the table and ordered a drink we were given some fresh bread with ali oli to share whilst we waited for our meals. For my first starter, I had salmon on toasted French bread, there was plenty of salmon and it was lovely. For my second starter, I had prawns in garlic, again they were very good. For my main meal, I had steak with pepper sauce, served with chips, tomatoes and eggplant. It was the best steak I have had in a long time. I did not have a dessert because I was worried my acid reflux was beginning to react to the amount of food I had eaten, but Jacky had pineapple, and Alan had ice cream, both desserts looked really good, and I wish I had felt good enough to eat one. The service was excellent and we sat talking throughout and after our meal and felt no pressure to leave.
We eventually left around 5:30 pm, and Alan and Jacky dropped me off at my apartment. After being up so early and having eaten such a big meal, I was expecting to fall asleep quickly, but there was some sort of act in the square outside playing synthesised drum beats constantly. They were terrible, loud and repetitive. Whatever the town hall hoped to do by putting this music on, it didn't work. Not many people were watching or listening and most of the neighbouring homes will have had to put up with the boom, boom, boom until very late at night.
Luckily for me, a friend had given me some earplugs earlier in the year, and I could get to sleep by putting them in. Please, town hall, when booking acts, only book acts that you yourself would go to watch. These were terrible.
Friday, 14th July.
I woke around 7 am today and got myself a coffee, checked my messages and went down to the Mar Menor for a swim at just after 8 am. The water was a bit cooler today, and I managed to swim to the rocks and back twice today even though the water had a few waves on it. I saw the now-familiar sight of thousands of the ´Fried Egg or Cotylorhiza tuberculate jellyfish´ as I swam through them. They look amazing and I am always fascinated by how they move, sometimes with the currents, other times against the currents. I haven't seen any of the box jellyfish, that can sting, for a long time but now I know what they look like they are easily avoided.
After I go back to my apartment I message my friends and neighbours Jill and Rick to see if I can collect my disability scooter that I left in their garage last night. The garage at my apartment block was fixed last night, and I can now put the scooter back in my spot in my garage. They were in, and I collected the scooter at around 10:15 am. When I got back to my apartment, I got myself some cereal and sat down at my computer to wait for today's Amazon delivery.
Whilst I waited for my delivery, I did some more family tree research and managed to find more information about my 3rd great-grandmother, Harriet Hembury and her husband, my 3rd great-grandfather, Thomas Tincknell. My delivery arrived around 5:30 pm, and I then updated my website with some of the family tree research I had done until I went to bed at about 10 pm.
Saturday, 15th July.
I woke around 7 am, got myself a coffee and read my online messages before going down to the Mar Menor for my morning swim. Thankfully, the water had cooled off a bit this morning, and it was a lot more refreshing. The water was very clear and the sun shining, unhindered by any clouds, made visibility in the water very good. I swam through thousands of jellyfish on my way out to the rocks, where I sat for a while before floating and looking at the sea life on the rocks.
I saw a large crab today. Its body was larger than my hand and as big or bigger than some of those I have seen in local fish shops and restaurants. It was a battleship grey colour and was partially hidden below one of the rocks near where I normally sit. Instead of swimming backwards and forwards to the beach, I decided to swim around the rock reef. I was rewarded by the sight of many beautiful fish and thousands of jellyfish floating all around the reef. Swimming around it reminded me of when I was a little boy and used to watch ´ The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau´shows on the television. Once I had finished a lap of the reef, I swam back to the shore and then went back to my apartment.
I had a shower, cereal and a coffee and sat at my computer updating my website. I have an Amazon delivery arriving today, and I hoped it would arrive this morning so I could go out to do some shopping. The news was finally leaked that Declan Rice had joined Arsenal from West Ham today. Arsenal seem to be doing some good business in the transfer window this year.
I worked on my website and family tree research, before watching some television whilst I waited for my delivery. The air conditioning got turned on at about 3 pm when the heat got too much for me. My delivery finally arrived at about 5 pm and I then immediately went shopping at Mercadona on my disability scooter. I got enough shopping to last a little while and went home with my scooter laden down with three heavy bags of shopping. After the problems in the last week or so with both the garage lift and the normal lift at the apartment, I was very pleased when the garage lift worked to let me back into the garage, and the normal lift worked, so I didn't have to carry my heavy bags up the stairs.
Once in my apartment, I put my shopping away and then collapsed on the sofa for a while. I was so glad I had left the air conditioning on when I went out. The cool air soon revived me, and I had something to eat before spending the evening on the sofa with a cold beer watching films before going to bed at around 11 pm.
Sunday, 16th July.
I woke up at 7 am today. I got up straight away and had a coffee before going for my swim at about 7:45 am. The Mar Menor wasn't flat this morning, there were a few waves as I set off on my swim, and the wind picked up, making the waves bigger. There didn't appear to be as many jellyfish in the sea this morning, making it easier to swim because I didn't have to keep changing direction to swim around large groups of them. I kept going until the waves and tide began to wear me out. I was very pleased to have been able to swim to the rocks and back four times. If it had been flatter, I would have done 1 more lap to make it a 2 km swim, but the waves were getting too hard to swim against, so I finished and went back to my apartment for a shower.
After having a shower, I got a coffee, some orange juice and some cereal and sat at my computer working for a while. When I had fully recovered from my swim I went out on my disability scooter in search of some batteries for my new digital thermometer. I went to Economy Cash and couldn't find any, so I went to Dia on the way home, they didn't have any. I then went to the Chino shop near my apartment and got just what I needed. I went home and set up the thermometer. It is one of those with a sensor to take the temperatures inside the house and an added probe to get the temperature outside. It was quite easy to set up and I soon had it set up sitting next to my computer station inside, and the outdoor probe sat in the lap of a Buddha on my patio. It will be interesting to see how the temperatures get this summer, especially in August.
I spent the rest of the day keeping out of the heat and watched the first two films in the Mission Impossible franchise. If it stays hot, I will watch the rest next week.