In Week 34 of 2024, I finished the course of physiotherapy on my knee. I met my friends Alison and Lottie for dinner and did a lot of work on my computer at home.
Monday, 19th August.
I got up around 8 am today. When I got up, I went through my regular routine. I got a coffee, sat at my computer, checked my messages and then did the Wordle puzzle online. At 9:30 am, I got on my disability scooter and went first to Password Los Alcazares to see if they had a power lead for an external hard drive I brought over from England with me when I moved to Spain. Unfortunately, they did not have one, but the man was accommodating. He told me to try again in September because the people he gets his supplies from will be open again after their summer closure. I left the store and headed around the corner to the Los Alcazares post office.
I went to the post office to check for any mail. For some reason, the local postal service doesn't deliver during the summer months. I had to queue up for a while in the post office, and I started talking to an English couple in front of me in the queue. Strangely, they lived a couple of doors down from my first home in Los Alcazares.
I collected a letter I had waiting for me. I got back on my disability scooter and went home. I parked my disability scooter outside the apartment block and took my letter in. When I opened the letter, I saw that it was from the DWP in the UK. They had written to tell me that they had made a mistake with my payments since I moved here and hadn't given me the Christmas bonus I should have had and they had made a payment to me for £80 for the eight years they hadn't made the payment. I was pleased with that as it covered what I had paid for the new suitcase I ordered last week.
At 11:45 am, I went back to my disability scooter and met Martin at La Sombre Pizzeria. Dave joined us, and we sat and talked for a while. While there, a man called Rob arrived to see Dave. We all sat talking, and it turned out that Robs' wife was from Thailand, and he spent a lot of time in the place I had been considering going to next year. We swapped details on Facebook, and he said he would be happy to answer any questions I might have when I start planning my trip.
I left Martin to go to my physiotherapy session at the clinic, and as I rode past a coffee shop, I saw my friends Lottie and Alison. I stopped briefly to talk to them, and they said they would message me later. I continued to the clinic and went inside for my physiotherapy. I was pleased to see the young lady who usually treats me, and she soon attached the electrotherapy pads to my knees and set it going. As I sat there, a Spanish lady using a pair of crutches to walk, came in and sat next to me. As she started to sit down, she slipped and fell towards me. I was just able to stop her from falling over on top of me and hurting herself or knocking me over as well, but she did land on the knee I was having the treatment on. Luckily, no damage was done, and apart from a bit of pain when she landed on my knee, I was fine as well. The nurse checked on her before removing the electrotherapy pads from my knee and replacing them with magnetic therapy pads. I sat there reading my Kindle while the therapy continued. When the magnetic pads had finished, the nurse treated me with gel and the wand massage on my knee. When this was finished, she cleaned me up, and I left to go home.
When I got home, I peeled a potato, cut it up and cooked myself fish and chips for dinner. At just after 8:15 pm, Alison sent me a message to tell me that she and Lottie were at the Buena Vista restaurant and asked if I wanted to join them for a drink. I walked along to meet them, and we sat and talked while we waited for the full moon to come up over La Manga. After we had finished our drinks and seen the red full moon rise, we said goodbye and went home.
When I got home, I watched the second half of the Leicester vs Tottenham football match on the TV before going to bed.
Tuesday, 20th August.
I woke up at 8 am, got a coffee and sat at my computer to check messages. I did the Wordle puzzle and then sat and edited a couple of photos for my website before getting some cereal. I had a message from Lottie this morning inviting me to join her and Alison for dinner on Friday night. It will be nice to have something to look forward to this weekend.
I continued to work on my computer and found another piece of software to replace another of my expensive Adobe products. I had been looking for a bit of software to help me organise my photos and images. I found a free software package called DigiKam, and it looked like it would do everything I wanted, so I downloaded it and installed it on my laptop and my PC.
At 2:45 pm, I walked to the clinic to have my physiotherapy on my knee. After an hour, I had all three of the physio treatments and walked back home. When I got home, I started to use the DigiKam software, but because of the number of images I have, it will take a long time to see if it will find them all and start to register them on its database. I left the software running and was not expecting it to finish tonight.
This evening, I had a message from the Spanish Health Department about my application for the free Spanish Health System. I sent my S1 and completed registration form to them last week, but they asked for the form to be sent again. I quickly emailed it to them again and told them it had been attached to my original claim.
This evening, I watched TV before going to bed at around 10 pm.
Wednesday, 21st August.
I woke up and got a coffee, did the Wordle puzzle, got a second coffee and checked for messages. I had another email from the Spanish Health Department. It didn't say much and wasn't very clear, but I think the email said they had sent me my new health card and that when it arrived, I just had to register it with my Doctor.
When I started my morning swims a few years ago, I estimated that the rocks I swam to were 200 metres from the shore. This would mean if I swam there and back directly, I would swim 400 metres. I had decided to risk wearing my Fitbit watch today to see what the distance really was. I hadn't worn it when swimming before because I was worried that it wouldn't be waterproof even though it was supposed to be. Before going swimming today, I did more research about it and realised that if I used it correctly, it would be okay to use it for my swims. When I finished my coffee, I went to the Mar Menor for a swim. I took my small pot to fill with shells and put it next to my towel on the beach.
I got into the water, switched my watch to the correct swim setting and then swam to the rocks and back. I knew I never seemed to be able to swim in a straight line but was surprised when I had swam to the rocks and back and found that I had actually swam 475 metres and that it took me 18 minutes. I hope that this more accurate way of measuring my swims will spur me on to swim every morning again and gradually build up the distance I swim. After stopping the measurement of my swim, I got my small pot from the beach, returned to the sea, and floated around to collect more sea shells. Once I had filled the pot, I returned to my apartment.
I put the shells on my balcony and then took a shower before returning to my computer. I looked at the new software I installed yesterday, and it finished the job I had set running last night. I then spent a few hours editing the image tags in the database. At 2:45 pm, I walked to the clinic for my last session of physiotherapy. It all went well, and I do believe it has helped the pain in my knee. I hope that it lasts. I left the clinic and walked back to my apartment.
When I got back, I looked at the new DigiKam software I had installed on my computer, but it wasn't working. I did some research online, and it appeared that there was a problem with the database I used. To fix the problem, I uninstalled the software and reinstalled it. I then installed a new database and reran the DigiKam setup. It appeared to have worked, and I set the software to run again. It seemed to be working a bit quicker, so I continued editing the tags on my photos and images. I made a significant change to the tags and then left the software running so that the tags could be written to the 9000 images on my photo's hard drive.
This evening, I watched TV and worked on my website using my laptop. I got some chicken with mixed vegetables and new potatoes for my dinner before continuing to work on my website. I went to be at around 10:30 pm.
Thursday, 22nd August.
I woke up at around 5 am today. I lay in bed for a while and then decided to get up as I was wide awake. I went to the kitchen, got a coffee and set my dishwasher running. I opened the utility room door and the patio doors out onto my balcony, hoping that this would cause some cool air to circulate through the apartment and cool it off. At 6 am, it was 26°c outside and 27°c in the apartment. It was no wonder I couldn't get back to sleep; it was already too hot and sweaty. When I walked onto the balcony, I could still hear the voices of young teenagers hanging around chiringuito El Lobo and the beach.
The new suitcase I ordered from Amazon should arrive today, and I will have to wait for it to arrive. I had been hoping to go and see my friend Deeana sing this morning at the Roda Festival, but I will have to catch up with her another time. Because she was singing this morning, I won't be able to go because of the delivery.
I decided that I would try to type up some of my notes from my Hawaii and Alaska cruise this morning. Things have kept getting in the way of me doing this job, and I still have old paperwork from the trip covering my work desk. The sooner I type the notes up, the more I can tidy the desk up and throw some of the paperwork away.
My new suitcase was delivered around 2:30 pm, and after checking it out, I stored it on top of my wardrobe, ready to be used when I go to Japan in October. The evening was spent working on my website editing the code on many of my genealogy pages.
Friday, 23rd August.
I spent the entire day working on my website, photos and software packages that I installed on my computer today.
This evening at about 6 pm, I walked to Harrys' Bar on Rio Nalon to have a beer. I sat talking to my friend Andy until 7:30 and then walked to the Olive restaurant at the top of Rio Nalon to meet my friends Alison and Lottie. We had a nice meal and talked for hours, leaving at some time around 10 pm.
When I left, I walked back to Harrys' Bar for a final beer before catching the last train home at about 11:30 pm. As I was getting on the train, I saw a group of ladies I hadn't seen for a long time. It was nice to see them again, but as it was the last train home, I couldn't stop for a longer chat or a drink. We will have to catch up soon, Moira, Angelia and Bernice.
I got on the train and had a chat with Connie before getting off and returning to my apartment. When I got in, I checked my computer for messages and went straight to bed.
Saturday, 24th August.
I woke up around 5 am today. The noisy people outside my apartment woke me. I looked, and they were not young kids this time but people probably in their mid-twenties who should have known better. I hope they all leave soon so I can get some unbroken sleep. I finally gave up trying to get back to sleep around 6 am, got a coffee and started to work on my computer.
This afternoon, I watched the Aston Villa vs Arsenal game on the TV. Arsenal beat Villa 0-2, but I still think they need to buy a new centre-forward before the transfer window closes in a week.
I installed and tested some more software on my computer tonight, which should allow me to remove the last piece of Adobe software that I have been paying for.
Sunday, 25th August.
I woke up at around 8:30 am after a disrupted sleep courtesy of kids outside making a noise at 2 am, 4:15 am, 5:45 am and again at 7 am. I finally got up and got a coffee before going back to work on my computer.
I had been working on one of the photo albums on my website when I noticed that any photo album that had more than 20 images in it wasn't available. I must have done something to affect the albums and spent around 5 hours trying to figure out what I had done. I eventually gave up trying to figure out what I had done wrong. I was just about to roll the site back to an older version when I thought about asking the person whose Joomla extension I was using for the photo albums if he was aware of something I could have done. I sent him an email and held back on rolling the site back two days, which meant redoing all the work I had done since.
I had meant to watch the football this afternoon, but I got caught up learning how to use the newest bit of software on my computer. I worked all night trying to tag my images correctly. I worked on this till around 10 pm, getting more frustrated as time went on because the tags I deleted seemed to be reproducing themselves, and I was making no headway at all. I eventually discovered another piece of software that would assist me in removing all the metadata produced from different pieces of software I have used over the years. I loaded it, and although I was a bit nervous about testing it because it used a GUI for a C prompt to alter the files and remove everything if I used it wrong. I tested it, and it seemed to work. It would be a long job as I had to change the nearly 9000 tagged images in the individual folders they were in.