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1 December 2024
Alan Morris stood in front of some Los Narejos street art.
Alan Morris stood in front of some Los Narejos street art.

I started Week 27 of 2024 by seeing a nurse and the doctor again. I booked my next big trip when the doctor gave me good news about my legs: an escorted tour of Japan.

Monday, 1st July.

I woke up around 8 am today. I had a coffee and did some work on my website before visiting the nurse to dress my leg at 10:30 am. She tried a different dressing style, hoping it would stick to my leg better than the plasters. When she finished, I returned to my apartment for a while and then went to meet Martin at La Sombre Pizza.

I drank water instead of beer while chatting with Martin this morning. I have another doctor's appointment to see the Traumatologist this afternoon and didn't want to see him smelling of beer. This afternoon, I continued to work on my website until I went to the doctor's surgery at 4:15 pm.

I didn't have to wait too long to see the Traumatologist, and I gave him the results of the tests I had last week and the X-rays. He read through the results and looked at the X-rays before turning to tell me that my hip was okay and that I had no blood clots in my leg. He repeated what the other doctor said about the new tablets I am on and then told me that my left knee was not good. He said that usually, they would give me an injection in my knee to help, but because of the anticoagulants I take, they can't do it. He prescribed me some physiotherapy on the knee in the hope that it would work and help the pain. If it doesn't help, they will give me the injection. Still, it will mean I have to stop the anticoagulants for a while, which might mean I have to stay in the hospital for them to do it and monitor my blood while they do the injection and afterwards start me off on the anticoagulants again.

I was pleased it was not more severe so I could start planning my next trip away. When I left, the Traumatologist gave me a letter to give to my insurance agent, and I went home to put my feet up.

After a hectic couple of days, I watched TV in the evening and went to bed at around 10 pm.

Tuesday, 2nd July.

I got up around 7:30 am, got a coffee, checked for messages and did some indexing of my web pages on Google. The garage for the apartments was being cleaned today, and all the cars and my disability scooter had to be removed by 10 am. Just before 10 am, I went to the garage, and the cleaners had already started working. I got on my disability scooter and left to take some rubbish to the recycling bin.

Once I dropped off the plastic recycling, I went to see my insurance agent. When I got to the insurance agent's office, I spoke with Sofia, who said she would try to arrange the physio for me and took copies of the letter from the Traumatologist. She is going on holiday for a couple of weeks, but she said she would try to get it sorted out before she leaves. She also told me about a personal trainer she knows who deals with people who have injuries. She said that after the physio, I may want to see if he can help me.

When I left the insurance agent's office, I met Mike and had a coffee with him, Tes, Øyvind, and Christine. We sat chatting for a while, and when I left, I met Martin at La Sombre for a beer. We talked for quite a while and were later joined by Terry and Mick. When I left La Sombre, I went to Rio Nalon and stopped at Harry's bar, where I saw my friend Yasmin and her son. We chatted for an hour, and then I left to go home.

I was pleased when I got home to find that the cleaners had finished in the garage and that I could put my disability scooter away. I wasn't sure if I had misread the sign the cleaners had put up or not, as I thought it had said they would be working there for 10 hours. They were all gone when I returned, so it can't have taken as long as they said, or I read the sign wrong.

After getting in, I watched TV for a while and then went to bed.

Wednesday, 3rd July.

I woke up at around 8 am today. I got a coffee and did the Wordle puzzle on the NYT website before getting myself a cheese and mushroom omelette for breakfast. When I finished breakfast, I indexed more of my website on Google before working on more of its pages.

At some time, early in the afternoon, I juiced the oranges and pineapple I had bought at the weekend. I got a nice-sized jug of pure juice from them and mixed it with water before putting it in the fridge to cool. I also sat and ate lots of the cherries that I had bought. They are supposed to help with joint pain and helped before, so adding them to my diet should help. Since returning from Marrakech, I have managed to lose 5 kilos, and I hope that by continuing with my diet change and starting to swim again, it will continue to go down.

After yesterday's good news that my leg problems could be treated with a few tablets and physio, I started investigating more trips to take. Some of the trips I liked were cruises, and others were escorted tours.

I kept looking at trips, the weather in the areas at the time I would be going, flight details, hotels, price differences between different companies and what sort of vaccinations would be required in some of the countries I looked at. I had looked at places like Japan, India, Maldives, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. When I started to find my concentration waning, I looked at the time and realised it was 2 am, so I turned the computer off and saved the six trips I had looked at to peruse tomorrow. 

Thursday, 4th July.

I woke up around 8 am today. I got up and got a coffee before sitting at my computer and indexing pages of my website on Google. Before having a shower I tidied up the kitchen and cleaned the bathroom. Once I had finished the cleaning I shaved my head and then had a shower.

At 12:30 pm, Lisa messaged me to tell me she would pick me up. She arrived a short time later, and after I had buzzed her in, she waited while I finished the computer work I was halfway through. Once I had finished, we drove to a chiringuito in Los Alcazares and had lunch.

Lunch was a few sandwiches, pastries, and mini-pizzas. An avocado shake followed this, and then some sweet dishes, a mixture of Spanish, Moroccan and English desserts, were washed down with some mint tea. While the food didn't look very much for a big, hungry man, the taste and flavours were excellent and incredibly filling. While we sat at the chiringuito, a group of Irish people played different instruments, including a flute, guitar, and a bodhran. While they played, one of them also sang different folk songs.

It was great listening to the music. I couldn't help but tap my feet along to the rhythm. As time passed, it began to get too hot to sit there, so we paid the bill and went to Club Náutico Mar Menor. When we got there, the gates were locked. I rang the bell, and we were soon let in. We sat on the deck over the Mar Menor and had a coffee while chatting. Sitting on the deck was beautiful as the cool breeze cooled us down.

As we left, we saw the  Menu del Dia on a sandwich board on the deck. It looked excellent, and we agreed to return and have lunch there soon. After leaving, Lisa drove me back to my apartment and dropped me off outside. I returned to my apartment, got a cold drink, sat in my massage chair, turned on the TV and was asleep quickly.

When I woke up, I worked on more content for my website and sat watching the TV. Today had got very hot, and even with all my doors and windows open the apartment became very hot and sticky. Before going to bed tonight, I adjusted my air conditioning, put it on and closed all the doors and windows.

Friday, 5th July.

I got a coffee and sat at my computer when I woke up this morning. I had slept well and was ready to book my next trip. I rechecked the trips I got quotes for and decided to do an escorted trip to Japan. I have wanted to go to Japan for a long time and will now be going this year. I booked the trip, and afterwards, I started to work on my website, adding pages for my trip to Japan.

I watched the Spain vs Germany game and the Portugal vs France game on TV this evening. Spain beat Germany in extra time, and France beat Portugal in a penalty shootout. The winning teams will meet each other in the semi-final of the competition. As soon as the last game finished, I went to bed.

Saturday, 6th July.

This morning, I woke up at about 7 am. I got a coffee and started working on my website. I indexed pages on Google and then continued to set up the pages that would eventually have the details of my trip to Japan on them.

As I was working, my friend Mike messaged me and asked for help with something. I say he asked for my help with something because Mike is always very vague about what he needs, and until I physically see what the problem is, it could be anything. I stopped what I was doing and got on my disability scooter to go to Los Narejos to meet him. I met Mike with the friends he has coffee with every morning. Mike had also asked someone else to help him despite me telling him I would be there this morning. I got myself a coffee and we sat talking until Mike left. I gave him a few minutes headstart and then went to his house. Mike only goes at a snail's pace on his disability scooter, so I still beat him to his home.

It turned out that his TV wasn't logging into his provider. I turned off the router, waited a few minutes and restarted it. The router rebooted, reset, logged in and worked the first time. I sat with Mike and had a cup of water and a chat while he tested it out while I was there. He asked for my advice on some other things, and I gave him some ideas about what he could do to get rid of some of the old furniture in his house, telling him to call me if he needed any more help.

When I left Mike I went towards the Mercadona store. On the way, I stopped to look at a piece of street art near my old home in Los Narejos. After taking a photo, I continued to Mercadona and bought chicken thighs and salad. As I was making the purchase, the cashier spoke to me about my football shirt, and we both agreed that we wanted England and Spain to meet in the final of the Euro2024 competition. I left the store and went back to my apartment. As soon as I got home, I put some of the food away, cooked one chicken thigh ate it with one of the salad bowls I had purchased and then had a nap.

This afternoon, I continued working on my website, creating photo carousels for different sections and adding some section descriptions to the sight, allowing me to alter the navigation slightly. After making the alterations, I couldn't determine why the carrousels hid the navigation. I investigated online, found a solution that worked and implemented it on my website. It just needed some new CSS hacks added to the template overides.

Tonight, I watched the England vs Switzerland game on TV. England did not play brilliantly but were much better than they had been. The game finished 1-1, and after extra time, England won the game on penalties. In the second game tonight, Holland beat Turkey 2-1 to set up a semi-final against England. 

Sunday, 7th July.

Today, I woke up at about 7:30 am. I got myself a coffee, and after doing the Wordle puzzle, I got some porridge for breakfast. 

When I had finished breakfast, I stripped my bed linen and bought it and all of the other white bed sheets I had in the washing machine. I noticed some still had blood stains and had to be rewashed. Having a leg with an open wound isn't easy on the washing. Once the washing was running I sat down to work on my website.

I edited my Hawaii and Alaska cruise videos for the rest of the day. After finishing them, I loaded them all onto my YouTube channel. I then added the videos to the pages on my website for the day I arrived in Honolulu and visited  Waimea Canyon in Kauai. 

Tonight, I watched a film called Boneyard based on truth. It was pretty good and worth watching if you haven't seen it. When it finished, I finished my work on my blog for this week and watched TV before going to bed.

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