In week 8 of 2024, I sorted through photos on my computer. I booked a behind-the-scenes tour of the NCL Spirit for when I am on it in a few months and although I didn't venture far from my apartment, I did manage to see a few friends.

2024, week 8.

Monday, 19th February.

I woke up around 6 am, got myself a coffee & sat down at my computer to work on my photos. It was a very dull day today. This morning, I deleted duplicated pictures from my computer & took some smelly rubbish to the bin before seeing Martin at the office. I sat talking with Martin until about 1:30 pm & then went back to my apartment.

I continued finding & deleting duplicate photos on my computer all afternoon & evening, only having a half-hour break for my tea. I finished working at about 10:30 pm & went to bed. 

Tuesday, 20th February.

After waking up at around 6:30 am, I got my coffee & continued to work on my computer.

At about 10:30 am, I decided to go & get a few groceries to get myself out of the apartment for a while. I chose to try a different shop I hadn’t been to for a while & took a ride along the promenade on my disability scooter into Los Alcazares. I turned up the road through Los Alcazares that heads to Torre Pacheco & went into the DialPrix store before you get to the motorway. I got groceries, including some things my regular stores don’t stock. The shop is good for some things, but when I was presented with my bill, it was more expensive than other stores & I remembered why I don’t go there much.

After leaving the store, I headed back down to the beach & travelled along the promenade to my apartment. It was nice being out in the sun & I even saw some brave soles taking a paddle in the Mar Menor. When I got home, I put everything away & continued to work on my website. As I was working, my friend Jim called me to tell me that he & David & Doreen were going to the Poseidon bar around the corner from me & asked if I wanted to join them.

I was walking around to the bar when my knee gave way. I was glad I had taken my walking stick, which stopped me from collapsing in a heap on the floor. I must remember to put my knee support on even if I only go a short distance. I was soon at the bar & sat in the sun outside having a coffee. We sat talking for a while until my alarm went off on my mobile phone, reminding me to take my antibiotic tablets. We all left the bar & I returned to work on my computer when I got to my apartment.

I had a sore throat this afternoon & couldn’t eat anything, so I just drank lots of water while watching TV before bed at 11 pm.

Wednesday, 21st February.

When I woke up at around 7 am, I had a very sore throat & what felt like mouth ulcers. I knew the antibiotics I had been taking caused them & was glad I had completed the course last night. I had the same problem when I was in hospital in Cartagena once. The doctor there explained that people with a weakened immune system can get ulcers when they take antibiotics for too long. In the hospital, they gave me something to counteract the effect the antibiotics had on me. At home, I will have to be grateful I have finished the short course of tablets & keep drinking water & eating soft foods until I feel better.

I had a coffee & got myself a bowl of porridge, but even the porridge was difficult to swallow. At around 10:30 am, I jumped on my disability scooter to the Mercadona store to get the things I couldn’t get yesterday at Dialprix. After grocery shopping, I returned to my apartment along the promenade.

I spent the afternoon working on my website & drinking ginger lemon tea with honey. I had read somewhere that it is an excellent way to help with ulcers & sore throat. I hate that for the last few weeks, I have felt poorly because I had a tiny splinter in my finger, causing pain & when that cleared up, I had a sore throat. I feel like such a fraud being under the weather with such trivial things. I am sure I didn’t feel this bad when I had half my leg cut away or when I had a car accident & was lying in intense care for months.

I watched the Porto vs Arsenal game in the Champions League this evening. Arsenal were very disappointing & although they had the majority of the ball, I don’t remember them having a shot on target. In extra time at the end of the second half, Porto scored with an absolute screamer of a goal. It has to be a contender for goal of the tournament. I hope Arsenal can recover from this defeat at the weekend against Newcastle in the Premier League & play better when they play Porto in the second leg of this match. 

Thursday, 22nd February.

Today was a quiet day again. My throat was still very sore & I found eating difficult. I drank lots of water & tea with ginger, lemon & honey, hoping it would help. I worked on my website & took long siestas on the sofa. The strong paracetamol I took for the sore throat probably helped me sleep.

I had an email from NCL today about my cruise to Hawaii & Alaska. I was sent some changes to the original schedule, but the only change was the order of the ports we will be visiting in Alaska. They also said that any excursions I booked through them had been automatically adjusted, so I would still get to do everything I had planned. They had also added an onboard tour that allowed me to look behind the scenes on the NCL Spirit.

Friday, 23rd February.

I woke up at 6:30 am today. My throat was still sore but not as bad as yesterday. I got a glass of water, took my regular tablets & took a paracetamol for the sore throat. I got myself a coffee & checked my computer for any messages. I had no critical messages & as I felt hungry, I got myself a bacon roll. It tasted great but was challenging to eat & made my throat feel worse. 

After breakfast, I booked the tour of the NCL Spirit that I had been sent details for yesterday. I booked it for one of the days I will be sailing across the Pacific from Hawaii to Alaska. After that, I added blank pages to my website for the days I will be on my cruise to save me some time when I get back & write up my experiences & adventures.

By 11:30 am, I had finished adding the blank pages to my website & I was beginning to feel cold. I had a hot shower & a shave & then returned to work on my computer. I had been working on my computer for a couple of hours when my friend Jim rang me to ask if I was doing anything & if I wanted to go to Cartagena. He was going to Mediamkt & Carrefour, so I went for the drive to get out for a while. We looked around Mediamkt & then Carrefour & when Jim had bought what he wanted, we drove back to Los Alcazres & stopped in a cafe bar near my apartment. Jim had a coffee & I had an Asiatica & we sat & talked for a while before leaving to go home. Jim dropped me at my apartment & I went inside.

I had only been in a short time when my friends Lottie & Alison messaged me to say they were at Buena Vista restaurant & asked if I wanted to join them for a coffee. I walked around the corner & met them & had another Asiatica & talked to them for an hour or so before we all left to go home. I wandered back to my apartment & I put the heat on because the temperature had dropped quickly. At about 6:30 pm, I decided to have a chicken burger for my tea & quickly made one before sitting in front of the TV to watch Friday night’s entertainment.

Saturday, 24th February.

I woke up at around 6:15 am today. I got myself a coffee & sat down at my computer to carry on working to manage & delete duplicated photos on my website. The software I use tells me there are still around 3000 duplicates I have to sort through.

At around 10 am, I messaged my neighbour Liz to see if she wanted coffee at Buena Vista restaurant. We walk the short distance & sit in the sun, watching people walk along the beachfront as we chat. We leave at 11:30 am & make our way back to the apartment block. Liz goes home & I go down into the garage to plug my disability scooter into charge so it is fully powered for next week.

For dinner, I cook myself some fish & chips in my Ninja air fryer. I love that I can cook two different things at two different temperatures for two different periods & the machine synchs the two so that they are both ready simultaneously. Dinner was fantastic. It was a simple meal but was very tasty. I will be doing fish & chips like this again.

This afternoon, I worked on the photos again while flicking between football matches on the television. In the evening, I watched the Arsenal vs Newcastle game on television. Arsenal played very well & all of the commentators were gushing on their display. The game finished Arsenal 4, Newcastle 1, but it could have & probably should have been a more significant margin. After watching the poor game against Porto during the week, Arsenal’s performance today restored my faith in the young team.

When the game finished around 11 pm, I finished sorting & deleting the duplicate photos on my computer. I may still have to move some of the images in the folders, but the majority of the work on the deletion of duplicates has now been done. I went to bed at around 12:30 am.

Sunday, 25th February.

I woke up at around 7:30 am today. I got myself a coffee & sat down to check my computer for messages before making myself a bacon & egg sandwich for breakfast. I washed it down with a pot of green tea with honey. My throat is still sore & I hope this will help clear it up.

Today, I spent some time finishing off the sorting & deleting of photos on my computer. In the future, I hope to be able to search my photos quickly. I will now turn my attention to my online backups & once those have been sorted out, filed correctly & labelled, I will be ready to start adding more photos to my website. I hope to be able to add some pictures of people in my family tree to my website in a way that means I only have to add a photo once rather than have to add it for each individual in the photo. I think I have found a way to do this, but only time will tell.

The annual dog show was held in Plaza Espejo outside my apartment today. I usually go & look at all the pooches, but it was too cold to spend long outside today. My friend Frouk was there helping out on one of the charity stools during the day, so I did pop down & say hello to her & have a quick look around, but I was quickly back in the warmth of my apartment. 

I did some pork cutlets for my dinner today with mashed potato, sweetcorn, peas & carrots. I have deliberately eaten more food, & food with a higher protein content to assist my body in healing. The wounds that have been open on my leg for a long time are now beginning to heal up & a lot of them have healed over completely. I hope the last open wound will heal, making swimming more enjoyable when the weather gets warm enough for me to swim in the Mar Menor again or maybe in Hawaii when I am there in a few months.

This evening I watched a film called   ´One Life´. It was about   Sir Nicholas’ Nicky’ Winton, a young London broker who, in the months leading up to World War II, rescued over 600 children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. I cried my eyes out watching it & can recommend it to anyone. This man was a real hero, unlike many of the ‘made-for-TV celebrities’ that many people fawn over these days. Films like this should be shown at schools during history lessons. We should never forget humanity’s history, whether good or bad so that we learn from our mistakes & don’t continually repeat them.

After the film, I watched the last few minutes of the millionaire players from Liverpool & Chelsea in the Carabao Cup Final before bed. After watching the match with the tens of thousands of people watching at Wembley & hundreds of thousands of people watching on TV around the world, I couldn’t help but wonder how many of the people who had watched it had heard of or knew the story of Sir Nicholas Winton.