This week I had to do a lot of work on my website. A piece of software I use on it malfunctioned & I had to buy new software & install it on the server.  I also had to spend way to much money buying a new watch & mobile phone, both of which broke within a couple of days of the other.

Week 39 of 2023.

Monday, 25th September.

I woke up at around 7:15 am today. I got myself a coffee & sat down at my computer to look for the Wales vs. Australia World Cup result. I had completely forgotten about it last night & hadn't watched it. I was pleased to see that Wales had beaten Australia 40-6, I will have to watch the game on catch-up television later.

At around 10 am, I walked to the Buena Vista restaurant just around the corner from my apartment. The walk didn't take me more than a couple of minutes, but my knee had begun to ache by the time I got there. I sat down but had to wait 15 minutes before being served. This was not very good as I was the only person there. I think because I have lost a bit of weight in the last few weeks, they couldn't see my thin bronzed body as it may have been hidden from view by one of the window frames. I sat & ate my tostada & drank some coffee whilst reading my Kindle. At 11 am, my knee was feeling better & I decided to try & walk to the office.

I walked partway along the beach before cutting through the houses towards the office. By the time I got to Las Claras del Mar Menor, I was a bit puffed out & it was getting hotter. I stopped & sat on a bench under a tree to cool off & get my breath back. After about 10 minutes I was ready to go again & set off for the office. I arrived at about 11:50 am & was there just before Martin. I ordered a bottle of water for myself & as I had seen Martin crossing the road, I ordered him a pint of beer at the same time.

We sat chatting for a while & Dave turned up briefly before leaving to drop something off at a nearby house. Martin & I sat chatting about some T-shirts that I had seen on the internet. The two of us are obviously on a different level of intelligence from the rest of the world because not many people get our jokes. Aria got off her school bus at about 1:15 pm & shortly after, Dave returned & we all sat talking until just after 2 pm. Dave kindly offered to drop me at home which was great news because Im not sure my legs were up to walking both ways yet.

When I got home I sat down for a while & had a nap before getting myself two chicken thighs with some carrots, peas & sweetcorn for my dinner. I sat & ate my dinner & watched yesterday's Wales vs. Australia rugby match. It was a great match & Wales were terrific. I think that was Australia's biggest-ever World Cup defeat.

I went to bed early at around 10:15 pm, the days walking had worn me out.

Tuesday, 26th September.

I woke up at around 7:15 am & got out of bed & took a shower straight away. As I was in the shower I heard the alarm on my telephone going off. I must have set it last night & forget about it. When I finished my shower I turned off the alarm & got myself a coffee before sitting down at my computer to do some work. I had seen a couple of T-shirts that I liked online so I made an order of two for myself & one for my friend Martin, it will be his late birthday present.

My friend Jacqui rang me around 10 am & I met her on the promenade by my apartment & we walked along to the Buena Vista restaurant. We sat down outside with a drink, chatting about our different adventures in life & the places we had travelled to. We had both been to New York on separate occasions & I told Jacqui about my trip to New York with my Uncle Dave in 2012. We left at about 11:15 am & walked along the beach together before saying goodbye near Rio Nalon, Jacqui going home & me continuing on to meet Martin at the office.

I was walking along the road when my friends Kathy & Tony pulled up alongside me in their car & offered me a lift. I only had 100 yards to go so I kept walking, but seeing them again was nice. It is always nice to see fellow Gooners. I had seen lots of fellow Gooners this morning, first Jacqui & then Kathy & Tony, but that soon came to an end when I got to the office & sat down with Martin, a Spurs fan.

Martin had to leave early today & when Aria´s bus arrived he left the office. Dave who had also joined us, dropped me off at home. By 1:45 pm I was back at home working on my computer. I spent the afternoon working on my website & I watched a film in the evening before going to bed at around 11 pm.

Wednesday, 27th September.

I woke up at 7:30 am & got myself a coffee before sitting down at my computer. I had to make some large changes to my website templates today. The job should be quick but could completely crash the website. I made a quick change to the main template colour to help me see if the changes had been made before adjusting the templates for the different sections of the website. It all seemed to have worked & I decided to get myself a cooked breakfast. I had bacon & sausage with some skinned plum tomato & scrambled egg.

After finishing breakfast I took some rubbish to the rubbish bin & two bags of plastic recycling to the recycling bins. After dropping all the rubbish off I went on to collect a parcel on Rio Nalon. A friend had asked me to order her an external hard drive so that I could transfer all her images & videos off of her Google account. This would free up lots of memory on her account & make it work properly again,  & provide her a way to easily store & transport all the thousands of images & videos she has. I picked the parcel up from the shop & was on my way home when I went past the local Chino shop.

I decided to replace some of my succulents with cactus, so I stopped to see what they had. They had two cacti that I liked & I bought them both for my balcony garden. As I came out of the shop & went to get on my disability scooter my cousin Jill was just going past the shop. She stopped for a quick chat & we went down to Buena Vista Restaurant for a drink. We sat at the beach bar having a soda & chatting for a short time before we both set off home.

When I got home I repotted the hanging cactus plant I had bought in one of the hanging baskets I have on my balcony & repotted the other cactus into a free-standing pot. The small cactus in the free-standing pot should look really nice as it grows & fills out. To make it look even nicer I spread some sea shells from the beach on the soil around the base of it.

After repotting my plants I went back to work on my website. I had an email from Google telling me that a lot more of the pages of my website had now been indexed so I was pleased that the work I had been doing recently is working.

This evening I watched the Brentford vs. Arsenal match on television. Arsenal rested a lot of players who had injuries & made eight changes to the team that played Tottenham at the weekend. It wasn't a great game but Arsenal won 1-0 to go through to the next round of the Carabao Cup, where they will play West Ham. Some of the youngsters in the team played very well. As the game finished I noticed a message from my friend John Parr. I haven't seen him for close to ten years so it was a surprise to hear that he is in Portugal on holiday & wants to stop off to see me in Spain. I will call him in the morning.

Thursday, 28th September.

I wake around 8 am, get myself a coffee & go to work on my website. I have been having a few problems updating the software on the site & after some research, I find that the software I use to show my photo albums is out of date & to continue to put photo albums on my website I need to buy some new software.

I take a break from my computer work & call my friend John Parr. He is still in Portugal & wants to know if he & his lady friend can visit me on Sunday. I tell him I would love to see him but haven't got room to put them both up. He tells me that is fine as they can stay in their mobile home & that he will contact me over the weekend.

After finishing talking to John I cook myself a breakfast of sausages, bacon, scrambled egg & plum tomatoes. I ate breakfast tidied up my kitchen & then went to the Economy Cash superstore to get some shopping. I only needed a few things & came straight home with my shopping & put it all away before going back to work on my computer.

I researched Joomla extensions to help me build photo albums on my website & after a lot of reading, I found an extension that can be updated & does everything I need it to. I downloaded the extension & installed it on the server & checked that it works correctly. It works very well but I will now have to redo all of the photo albums on my website & there are currently over 120 albums with thousands of photos. I started setting up the folders & navigation for the albums & added the first two albums back to my website.

Friday, 29th September.

I wake at around 6 am & get a coffee before starting work on the photos to go into new albums on my website. I stop at 11 am & cook myself breakfast before going back to work. I work until around 5 pm when my doorbell sounds. It is a delivery man bringing me the new Fitbit watch I had ordered. I take the watch & set it down so that I can finish the work I was doing on one photo album, the one for my photos of Tangier when I visited earlier in the year. I finish working on that album & log off from the server & stop work for the day at around 6 pm to look at my new watch.

My phone has never been brilliant & I discovered that the Bluetooth function on it is now not working properly. I go online research new phones & eventually settle for a new one & order it from Amazon. I then potter around for an hour or so but I can't stop myself, I go back to work on my website & don't finish until nearly 1 am Saturday morning. I went to the kitchen, put the dishwasher on to work overnight & then went to bed.

Saturday, 30th September.

I did not wake up until around 8:15 am this morning. I got up, took a shower, got dressed & then went to the kitchen to put a coffee in my espresso machine. I then went to the utility room & put some washing in my washing machine before returning to the kitchen for my coffee. It was at this point that I realised I still wasn't quite awake. 

I went to collect my coffee & realised that although I had put the machine on & put a coffee pod in the machine, I hadn't put the glass under the machine to collect the drink. Luckily for me, the drip tray was large enough to collect all of the fresh hot coffee. I washed the drip tray out, replaced it & put a new pod in the machine, made sure the glass was under the machine to collect my drink & then turned the machine on & stood to watch it produce a coffee. I picked up my drink & then went to sit at my computer to start work.

When I looked at my emails I had a message telling me that the t-shirts I ordered earlier in the week should arrive soon. I also had an email telling me that my payment for my new phone had been declined. When I checked the payment it was about €3 over my credit limit & that I would need to change it.

I then sat back down at my computer to work on my website until the Premier League football matches started in the afternoon. I watched the Bournemouth vs. Arsenal game which Arsenal won easily, 4-0. The score could have been a lot higher & probably should have been, I still think Arsenal need a good centre forward to replace Eddie Nketiah. After the game, my friend John called to tell me he would still be coming to see me tomorrow but that he wouldn't be able to stop long as they were continuing on to get a ferry to Mallorca.

I carried on working on the photos for my website until around 9 pm & then turned the computer off before watching some television & going to bed early.

Sunday, 1st September.

I woke up at around 7:45 am & got up to check my messages on my computer. I did a bit of work on my website before washing my balcony & watering my plants. I tidied my kitchen up & got myself a coffee.

I decided to see if the change I made to my credit card account had cleared yet & when I saw that it had I went back on the Amazon website & reordered the new phone I wanted. It seems quite strange to me that I can't just transfer money to my credit card account. I have to alter when it is paid off. I managed to set it so that it is paid when a euro amount is hit, rather than being paid on a certain date. This should allow me to keep using it if I have to make a large purchase for things like flights, cruises or in the case of this week a new phone & watch in the same month.

I settled down on my sofa to watch the Ryder Cup golf tournament on television. As I was watching it my friend John rang to say he had made a mistake with the time in Spain, he had forgotten that Spain was an hour ahead of Portugal so he would not be able to stop on his way to catch the ferry. He did ask for details of a local campsite so that he could stay there when he gets back from seeing his daughter. I sent him the details for the Narejos Campsite so that he can book it before he comes back to stay.

For dinner today I did some chicken thighs coated in almond flour with lots of herbs as a coating. It was my first attempt at doing this, it could have been a bit better but I will try again. I had it with carrots, peas & sweetcorn, & ate it whilst watching the Ryder Cup golf, it was getting quite exciting & the Europeans looked like they would win.

I watched the golf all afternoon & the Europeans did win eventually after the Americans had made a spirited comeback. Once the golf had finished I carried on working on photos for my website, quitting at around 10:45 pm & watching television for about half an hour before going to bed.