Week 6 of 2024 was spent entirely in Los Alcazares, mainly in my warm apartment. I purchased some thermal clothing for my trip to Alaska, did lots of work on my website and repotted some plants around my apartment.
2024, week 6.
Monday, 5th February.
I woke up around 6:30 am & went to get myself a coffee before sitting at my computer to work on my website. At 8 am, I got ready to go to the doctor’s surgery for my regular blood test. I went to the surgery at 8:45 am & I saw a new vampire lady. She was beautiful & although it took her a couple of goes to get blood, I didn’t mind. It was very cold out & as soon as she finished, I went home for a hot drink.
At 10:20 am, I went to see Mike at Los Narejos. I went on my disability scooter & sat there with Mike, Lawrence, & Christine, chatting & drinking coffee. I visited La Sombre Pizzera (the office) at midday to see Martin. As I am off the beer for a few more weeks, my work today consisted of drinking a large bottle of water with sliced lemon. I left Martin just after 2 pm & went straight home.
Once I got in, I cooked myself a turkey breast for my lunch & ate it before going on the Amazon website to make a couple of orders. I keep looking for batteries locally but haven’t seen any, so I ordered some AA & AAA batteries. At the same time, I looked for some warmer clothes for my trip to Alaska. I found some clothes I liked & ordered two sets of thermal longjohns, thermal vests, thermal gloves & waterproof ankle boots to wear when I go ashore in Alaska. I made sure the deliveries were on the same day, & got them delivered to my apartment this coming Thursday. That will give me time to ensure the clothes fit before I go on holiday.
I did more work on my website this evening before watching the Brentford vs Manchester City football match. Brentford scored first against the run of play, but Manchester City still won easily with a final score of Brentford 1, Manchester City 3. When the game finished, I went straight to bed.
Tuesday, 6th February.
I woke up at 6:30 am & got myself a coffee before sitting down to check my email. I had a message from Metro Bank in the UK about an account me & my sister have been trying to close. The service they have given us is terrible, but it finally looks as if they have taken note of our complaints to them. I send them the document they want straight away, tell my sister about the email from them & hope that the account can now finally be closed & the money in it transferred to us.
I cooked myself bacon, egg, sausage, baked beans, plum tomato & mushrooms for breakfast. I washed it all down with another coffee & then went out on my disability scooter to get some tablets at the pharmacy in Los Alcazares. I bought my tablets & on the way home, I went through the market in Los Alcazares looking at the vegetables & fruit. Once I have finished the fruit & vegetables I have at home, I will start using the market more often. It is nice to buy what I want rather than a large bag from the supermarket that I only use half of before throwing the remainder away because it has gone off.
When I got home, I indexed some of my website pages on Google & got myself a cup of tea. The rest of the day was spent updating descriptions on the photo albums for the days I visited Tiananmen Square, Xi’an, Han Yang Ling Museum, & the Terracotta Warriors while I was touring China.
At around 3:30 pm, my friend June took me to Ala 30, a garden centre in San Javier. I bought myself some compost for my cactus & got myself a new pot plant, a Justicia Carnea, just because I thought it looked nice.
In the evening, I watched TV & went to bed early at around 10 pm.
Wednesday, 7th February.
I woke up early this morning & I was drinking my first cup of coffee & checking my email & messages by 6:30 am. My neighbour Liz had messaged me & asked if I was going shopping today & if I was if I could get here something. At around 10 am, I got on my mobility scooter & set off for the Mercadona store to get the shopping for Liz.
When I got to Rio Nalon, I realised that the charge left on my disability scooter wasn’t enough to get me to Mercadona for the shopping for Liz, so I went to Economy Cash to look for it. Unfortunately, the store did not have what she wanted. I went to the Dia store on the way home, but that didn’t have what she wanted either. I went back home & plugged my scooter in to charge it up before messaging Liz to tell her what had happened & that I would try again later.
At lunchtime, I had a beefburger with cheese & mushrooms before going back to work on my website. At about 2:30 pm, I checked to see if my scooter had charged up & when I saw that it had, I went to Mercadona & got the shopping Liz wanted & a few bits for myself. When I got home, I dropped off the groceries for Liz & then went back to my apartment.
This afternoon, I washed one of the plant pots I bought last week & repotted the plant I had bought yesterday. I placed it in pride of place in the lounge of my apartment. It shouldn’t be affected by the cold in my apartment & I will be able to keep an eye on it without worrying I will forget it.
In the evening I got cold so I put the heating on, got under a blanket on my sofa & watched TV until I went to bed at 10 pm.
Thursday, 8th February.
I woke up at 7 am today. I got up & got myself a coffee & checked my messages on my computer. I had one from Amazon confirming that the order I made earlier in the week would be delivered some time today. I indexed more of my website pages on Google & then got myself some porridge with banana & blueberries for breakfast.
After eating breakfast, I added details to my photo album for my Huangpu River Tour & to my Sichuan Opera & Folk Arts photo album from my visit to China in 2014. Then, I took a break from the computer & repotted some of the plants on my balcony. I put one of the Mother in Laws Tongue plants in my bedroom & repotted another one, leaving it on the balcony until I get a flower pot tray & can bring it inside as well.
Because I had been working outside & sitting at the computer with my balcony doors open, my hands had become very cold, so I had to stop doing any work at about 12:15 pm. It was a bit early for lunch, so I got myself a mug of hot Bovril before I lay on my sofa under a blanket for half an hour to warm up. I noticed the helicopter flying around the Mar Menor was still out there; I hoped it wasn’t looking for anyone lost in the Mar Menor.
I slept on my sofa in the afternoon, waking up around 3 pm. At 4 pm, my delivery from Amazon arrived. The gloves I ordered were great, and the thermal longjohns & shirts were lovely & warm & comfortable. The boots, however, were terrible & I logged in to Amazon to arrange their return. I searched Amazon for a better pair & saw some others that looked a lot better; they are more expensive but are by a brand I have heard of & I can have them for seven days before paying for them.
I worked on my website for a few hours in the evening before going to bed at 10:30 pm.
Friday, 9th February.
I woke up at 7 am today & immediately got myself a coffee. It was very dull outside & the wind was blowing a cold wind along the beach & I decided to stay inside in the warm. When I got dressed, I put on the thermal longjohns & shirt that I had bought this week & I immediately felt warmer. When I got dressed, I got myself a bowl of porridge with blueberries, banana, Greek yoghurt & a bit of honey.
After eating breakfast, I sat down at my computer & finished adding descriptions to my remaining China photo albums. I then began to rewrite some details of the escorted tour of China I had done in 2014. I hadn’t checked it properly when I had initially posted it on my website & I hadn’t realised I had just put up notes rather than a proper story on most days. At around 11:15 am, my friend Jackie messaged me & we arranged to meet at Buena Vista restaurant for a coffee at lunchtime.
At 1 pm, I walked along to Buena Vista restaurant & as I arrived, I could see Alan & Jackie walking down the road. We got a table outside but under the awnings so we wouldn’t get cold in the wind. We all started chatting & ordered coffee. As we sat chatting, we decided to get lunch there. Alan & I both had curries & Jackie had some Mexican tacos. All the meals were very good & I left feeling full up.
When I got home, I got a drink & then continued to rewrite some of my China holiday web pages. After finishing the work on the China section of my website, I crawled under a blanket on my sofa & took a siesta for an hour.
The TV signal went off this evening for some reason, so I worked on my website instead of watching TV. I lost track of time as I retyped my China holiday experiences & finally stopped at midnight & went to bed.
Saturday, 10th February.
I woke up at 7:45 am this morning when my alarm went off. Sleeping late is unusual, but I felt better after yesterday’s late night. I got up & got myself a coffee before checking my computer for any new messages. I had a message from the Euro Lottery telling me my ticket had won a prize. I scanned the ticket & discovered I had won €8.50. I immediately thought about how I would invest this money & after thinking about it for a while, I decided to share my new wealth with another lucky person. Unable to decide who the lucky person would be, I placed an ad on Facebook informing the world that I would buy one lucky person a coffee if they could find me drinking in a local cafe this morning.
At 9:15 am, my neighbour Liz messaged me to go for a coffee, but the free one from my winnings had already been claimed on Facebook. We decided to go to Buena Vista for a coffee anyway & arranged to go at 10:30 am. I jumped in the shower, got myself all clean & refreshed & then headed downstairs to meet Liz outside her apartment. We walked along to Buena Vista restaurant for coffee & I decided to have a cooked breakfast there. We sat chatting until around midday & then went back to our apartments.
Once in my apartment, I put some washing in the washing machine & then tidied up my kitchen. I prepared some vegetables for a soup & put them in my slow cooker. As I watched the rugby in the afternoon, I could smell the soup cooking in the slow cooker & it smelled great. The rugby wasn’t so good. Wales did go into a lead, but only against a reduced England team because they had two players who were sin-binned. England deservedly clawed their way back & won the game 16-14. Wales’s second loss in two games, but I think they played well in both games & with such a young squad, the future looks bright for them.
When I tried my soup this afternoon, it was far too bitter. I had put too much garlic in. I checked on how to rectify it & tomorrow; I will try adding some brown sugar to it to see if it becomes more to my liking. This evening I watched a film called The Shift, it wasn’t brilliant, but it was pretty thought-provoking & the message from the leading actor after the film brought a tear to my eye. If you have nothing else to watch, it’s worth a couple of hours of your time.
This evening, I worked on my website until MOTD came on the TV. I watched it & then went to bed.
Sunday, 11th February.
I woke up as my alarm went off this morning. After I got up, I got a coffee & some porridge with banana, blueberries, honey, walnuts & yoghurt. When I finished my breakfast, I started to work on my website. After I had indexed some more pages on Google, I notified the search engine that I had made a couple of changes to my robot’s text file. I hoped it would now remove thousands of pages from my Google index that shouldn’t be there.
To try & save the big batch of soup I made yesterday, I added some brown sugar & some tomato sauce to it in the hope that it wouldn’t be so bitter. I reheated it & tried it after it had warmed up. It tasted lovely & I can now freeze all the extra soup rather than throw it away. For lunch, I had some cheese & ham croquettes. They were beautiful & my Ninja air fryer cooked them beautifully in 8 minutes.
I settled down to watch the West Ham vs Arsenal match on the TV this afternoon. I was hoping that Arsenal would win, but I was not confident. West Ham had beaten Arsenal twice this season. I needn’t have worried; Arsenal played well & the final score was West Ham 0, Arsenal 6. The whole team played well & I couldn’t pick a man of the match. The score could & probably should have been even more. I still hope Arsenal buy a new striker in the summer, but for now, it’s nice to see five different players score.
When the Arsenal game had finished, I cooked myself chicken & chips before settling down to watch more football. I watched the Aston Villa vs Manchester United game, which finished Aston Villa 1, Manchester United 2. I think Erik ten Hag is a good manager & it will take him a while to sort out Man United. In the same way that Mikel Arteta had to get rid of many players that weren’t good enough, Erik ten Hag has to do the same at United.
Tonight, I watched some more TV before watching the Arsenal game on MOTD again & then going to bed at midnight.