This week I had a few jobs to do, helping some friends out & a few jobs in my apartment before heading to Alicante to join my cruise ship at the weekend.
Week 8 of 2023.
Monday, 20th February.
I woke up & got a coffee at around 7 am. I worked on my website for a few hours before heading out at around 10:30 am to help my friend Jackie with an email problem. I have a chat with Jackie & Alan whilst making some updates to her notepad. I manage to get it working as a temporary measure & leave her promising to go back in a few weeks to give her some computer lessons.
When I leave Jackie & Alan, I go to Pizzeria la Sombre for a beer with my friend Martin. His dad, Dave, & wife, Kate join us for a while. We chat for about 90 minutes before we pay the bill & all head home. It always amazes me that soft drinks cost as much or more than alcoholic drinks these days. It would be interesting to see a breakdown of the costs of soft & non-alcoholic drinks to see if these prices are justified or if they are inflated by bar & restaurant owners to increase their profits. I do find it hard to believe that a 12-fluid-ounce soft drink should cost as much or more than a 20-fluid-ounce beer.
I head straight home after leaving Martin & once I get back to my apartment I heat up the Sunday lunch I didn't eat yesterday & have it for my dinner today. The rest of the day is spent lazing on the sofa, my leg is a bit swollen from the little walking I did the last few days so resting will do it some good.
Tuesday, 21st February.
I woke up around 7 am today. I got a coffee & then worked on my website for a while before doing some washing & cleaning my kitchen. It looks very grey outside & I will have to keep an eye on the weather if I want to go out later.
I worked on my website without taking a break until around 11:40. When I realised what the time was I went down to the basement to get my disability scooter from the garage & set off to meet Martin. As the garage lift stopped & the doors opened, I went outside on my scooter & realised it must have been raining as there were large puddles of water on the ground. My computer is set up next to a window so I can see what is going on but I was working & concentrating so hard this morning I hadn't even noticed the rain against the windows.
Luckily for me, the sun had come out & I could use my scooter & get to meet Martin. We chatted for a while & Dave & Kate joined us. At 2 pm Martin & Kate went to meet Aria at the school bus & I headed home. As I went down Rio Nalon in Los Alcazares I saw my friend Amanda & stopped to have a chat with her. Some other ladies joined us for a while before they all moved on somewhere else to play bingo. I finished my drink & then went home.
I stopped on the way to my apartment at the Dia store & got some bread to make a sandwich & when I got home I watched the television for a while. I watched Live at the Apollo with some very funny comedians before going to bed at around midnight.
Wednesday, 22nd February.
I woke up at around 7 am this morning. I got up & immediately put some washing in the washing machine. I had a couple of lots of washing I must do before I go on holiday on Friday.
After putting the first lot of washing in the machine I get a coffee & then sort through lots of old plastic containers I have in the kitchen. I seem to always keep plastic containers from takeaways to store soups or food in. I now have more than I use, so I put a lot of them in my plastic recycling bag to throw out. I then got myself a coffee & sat at my computer for an hour working on my website.
In the afternoon my friend Alan Bond popped around with some sound system equipment he was trying to connect to his phone & computer. After a lot of swearing & head-scratching, we eventually had to read the instruction manual. It turned out that the USB port we were looking for on the front of the device is now a USB-c port. It does exactly the same thing but is smaller & looks different to the older USB port. Once we had downloaded the manual for the equipment & discovered this we were very amused, we laughed so much we cried, what fun we had. Unfortunately, neither of us had a USB-c lead so Alan will have to purchase one before he can make the necessary firmware update to his sound system.
After Alan left, I got Peggy my cleaner to go around the apartment to vacuum everywhere. As I cleaned the bathroom last week, the kitchen this week & vacuumed today, my apartment looks almost tidy. I got the good news this evening that my DWP payment has finally gone into my bank this week & should now go in regularly every 4 weeks. This will allow me to get a proper cleaner to help me with the jobs that I find difficult to do.
This evening I get a message from the delivery company I have been waiting all day for which tells me my delivery will be made tomorrow.
Thursday, 23rd February.
I woke around 6:45 am & got myself a coffee before sitting down at my computer to work on my website. Most of the work I have been trying to do is now finished & I have also found some Joomla extensions that help add open graph data to the code on my website. I am very pleased by this find as it was easy to set up & incorporate into my website. It will now make sharing pages from my website much easier & add relevant data to search engines & social pages automatically.
I spent the day pottering around the apartment making a list of things that I will need to pack tomorrow for my holiday. I go to D`Pollo to get something for my lunch to save me from cooking. This evening my friend Bob came around to chop off my platinum-blonde curls, leaving me with my more usual prison haircut to go with my now clean-shaven face.
I had intended to go to bed early but I was too excited about my holiday to sleep so I did a little bit more work on my website before going to bed sometime after midnight.
Friday, 24th February.
I woke up around 6 am this morning but lay in bed until around 7:30 am. I got up & had a coffee, worked on my website, had another coffee & then packed my case ready to leave this afternoon. I took the spoilable food that I had left to my neighbours & then took my rubbish to the bins.
When I got back I could not find my telephone & in a panic, I knocked on my neighbour's door & asked them to ring it. We could hear it & when I followed the sound of the ringing I found it in my spare room. When I was working on the computer in there it must have fallen out of my pocket & as I slid my chair back it must have pushed it underneath.
Today was the day I left to go to Alicante for my Mediterranean & Moroccan holiday & you can read about it on the specific holiday pages.
Saturday, 25th February.
Today I joined my cruise ship the MSC Lirica in Alicante & sailed off on my holiday around the Mediterranean.
Sunday, 26th February.
Today was spent at sea, sailing across the Mediterranean on my journey to Genoa in Italy.