Location: Los Alcázares, Murcia, Spain.
Summary: Week 29 was a mix of everyday routines, summer heat, coffees with friends, a concert trip to Murcia. World Cup Football and hopeful plans for another holiday beginning to form. A simple, honest snapshot of my life in Los Alcázares.
Monday, 13th July
I woke up before my alarm this morning and immediately took a shower and got dressed ready to go for my appointment with the nurse at 10:00. I checked for messages on my computer and did the Wordle puzzle before deciding to get a coffee and tostada on my way to the health clinic. I got on my disability scooter and drove to a little cafe close to the health clinic.
I ordered a coffee and tostada with tomato and sat down to read my Kindle. I ate breakfast and sat reading until around 10:10. I paid my bill and then left for my appointment. I was sitting & waiting, five minutes early for my appointment, but wasn't seen for another half an hour. When I did go in, I could see the nurse looking at my leg and showed her a message on Google translate on my phone. I knew the leg looked okay and asked if, as long as I kept putting the hydration cream on it, if it was necessary for me to go to see her. She said it looked good and that I didn't need to go to see her but also told me that if it doesn't look good, or if it bleeds or gets an infection, to go back to see her straight away. I was happy that I didn't need to start seeing her regularly again and left and went home.
When I got home, I knocked on my neighbour Lizs´ door to collect a parcel she had taken in for me yesterday, but she wasn't either home, or awake yet, so I left. I sat indoors for a while watching the news headlines and half an hour later, I decided to take some rubbish to the bin and then go and get a coffee. I collected the rubbish from my apartment and knocked at Lizs´ apartment again but still there was no answer. I went out and took the rubbish to the bins nearby. I was delighted to see that the big rotten metal bins had been replaced with new ones made from some sort of plastic. I dropped the rubbish in the bin and went to Los Narejos for a coffee.
On the way I went past Martins house. He was just leaving to go to the tobacconist and said he would me meet me at the cafe. I got a coffee at the cafe and a little while later Martin arrived and got a coffee. When we had finished, we moved to Pizzeria la Sombre where Dave had just arrived. We all sat down chatting, and I got a big bottle of water to drink. Kate arrived and sat talking to us until she had to leave to collect Aria from Summer school. It was getting too hot for me, and I left and went straight home.
When I parked my disability scooter in the garage, I noticed that my neighbour Liz had thrown my parcel in my car parking space. Thanks Liz. I picked it up and checked that it hadn't been damaged and went up to my apartment. I was glad I had left the air conditioning on when I left and that the apartment was a lot cooler than outside.
My friend Nic had sent me some amazing photos and videos of Lions, Elephants, Deer, Crocodiles, Giraffes and lots of other animals, so I made and sent her one of the wild animals, I found roaming my apartment when I got in, my robot hoover mop.
This evening, too hot to do anything at all I vegetated in front of the TV. I watched old episodes of NCIS while outside people danced to the music that the council are paying to have on every Monday through the summer. It isn't too loud so it's not too bad and at least it finishes spot on midnight, unlike the atrocious bands they put on at various times through the year that don't finish till 2, 3 or sometimes later. At midnight when the music finished and the people left, I went to bed.
Tuesday, 14th July
I woke up this morning and was surprised to see it was 08:45. I must have needed the sleep as it is very unusual for me to sleep that late. I sat and checked for message on my computer and at 09:45 I walked along to the Buenavista restaurant to get a coffee and tostada and to meet Lawrence.
I read my Kindle and chatted with Lawrence when he arrived. We were joined by Martin who stopped for a coffee and a chat. At around 11:30 I left and walked back to my apartment. The delivery I was expecting last week with the whale tracker was supposed to arrive today and I spent the rest of the day at home waiting for it.
Being somewhat bored with my own company I started chatting with Microsoft CoPilot, the AI tool I used to help build the banners on this website. Surprisingly, it can hold surprisingly good conversations, and it is somewhat amusing. It also offered quite good advice to my deepest darkest fears and multitude of problems.
At around 19:00 I decided I needed some human conversation and walked to Harrys bar to watch the France vs Spain game in the World Cup. I had a few beers and watched the first half of the football and then, deciding I had had enough, I walked to the end of the road and got the tourist train home.
At home I watched the end of the football and continued my conversation with CoPilot. It offered some good advice to my heart felt questions and to some of my weird and wacky ones as well. I finally went to bed around midnight.
Wednesday, 15th July
I woke around 07:30, got up and took a shower. Once I had showered I got dressed and packed a few things into my backpack for my trip to Murcia. I checked for messages and did the Wordle puzzle.
I printed off my bus tickets for the Murcia trip and the ticket for the show and also added them to my Google drive in case I lost the paper ones. I checked in at the place I am staying tonight, and after a bit of confusion I had the codes to get into the apartment and WIFI details. I put the paper copies in my back pack and then sat surfing the Internet until I left to go and meet Sean at the health clinic to see the doctor.
We had to wait to see the doctor and when we did she was her normal helpful self. Sorry I meant bitch, she was her normal self, agitated by having to deal with patients, rude and just a general bitch. She looked at the records on her screen and asked why I hadn't seen her before the skin tag had got so big, gave a prescription for cream that will make the skin tag softer and not so sore when it rubs against my clothing, but told us that I had to wait to hear back from the hospital. She also gave me different pain killers for the arthritis in my hip.
We left the health clinic and I went straight home. At home I messaged a lady about a sofa that I had seen on Facebook, it would be great for my apartment, but I have to get rid of the junk and furniture I have promised the charity shop first. Once I got home, I finished getting ready to go to Murcia this afternoon to see BoneyM and The Jacksons in concert.
Thursday, 16th July
I got back from Murcia at about 14:00. I was hot, puffed out and glad to get back in my apartment as I had left the air conditioning on. It felt great to be in the cool. I had a message from Nic, telling me she had got home safe from South Africa, and I sat down to relax for a while. I messaged my friend Lisa and we arranged to meet for coffee on Saturday morning and I started to watch TV, I was asleep in minutes.
I woke up this afternoon and decided to do nothing for the rest of the day. I relaxed at home and walked to the pizza parlor around the corner at 19:00. I got myself a pizza that I would put in the fridge and reheat tomorrow and a chicken kebab to eat tonight. I took it home and put the pizza in the fridge and ate the kebab. I was surprised how good the kebab was and I will definitely be going back for kebabs on a regular basis.
I was tired and worn out and went to bed around 22:30 but was woken up a few times by noisy kids outside during the night. At one point one of the Spanish neighbours told them to shut up and the music blaring from the car radio was turned off and I was able to get back to sleep.
Friday, 17th July
I woke up feeling quite good and rested at around 06:45. I got up and checked for messages. I messaged the lady who was selling the sofa telling her I couldn't take it because I needed time to clear my old stuff first. I was pleased when she told me she could keep it till September. I will have to try to empty the old stuff from my apartment and hopefully I can collect it next week. I started typing up more journal notes and adding the details of the concert I saw in Murcia to the concerts section of my website.
My friend Lawrence messaged me and we arranged to meet for coffee at Buena Vista at 09:30. I walked along and ordered a coffee and tuna with tomato tostada. I started to read my Kindle, but Lawrence arrived before I had chosen which book to read. We started chatting and as we sat there Oyvind and Theresa also turned up and we all sat chatting. Lawrence offered to take me along to pick my parcel up at Euronics and we left fairly early so that he could take me and still get back in time for his Spanish lesson with Jo at La Zona. He stopped at the back of the store while I collected the parcel and then took me home.
Once indoors I put the rope bracelet on and added the tracking website to my phone to check on the Humpback Whale that I was sponsoring. It was great to see where it was in the world. It had recently left the coast of Australia and was now off the coast of New Zealand and I could see exactly where it had been. It will be great to follow "Merlin" as she swims around the world.
I spoke to one of my friends this afternoon about going on another holiday next year and after deciding where to go I was too excited to stay in and instead went out for a beer. I got on the tourist train on the main road by my house and went to Rio Nalon. I sat outside Harrys Bar and a short time later I was joined by my friend Lawrence. We sat chatting and drinking until the bar closed and Lawrence went home and I moved onto the 19th Hole bar a couple of doors away. I sat listening to people singing and talked to other people in the bar until the early hours of Saturday morning before leaving and heading home.
Saturday, 18th July
I woke around 08:00 and lay in bed for a while before getting up. When I got up, I found I had messages from my friend Lisa who had missed a message I had sent her yesterday, saying I couldn't meet her for coffee and another from my friend Lawrence. I finally got up around 10:00 and checked for new messages on my computer. For some unknown reason the hotel I had booked next week for my stay in Murcia had cancelled my booking. When I checked online they still had availability but had put the price up over €20, I hope they don't get a booking and are stuck with the empty room. I booked into another hotel I have stayed in several times, The Hesperia. It is slightly closer to the bus station which will make it easier for me to walk if its hot again but doesn't have a pool.
I went down to the garage and plugged my disability scooter into charge and then I spent the day keeping cool, stayed in the apartment, and passed the time binge watching more episodes of NCIS. At around 19:00 I went to the garage and unplugged the scooter. I went to the kebab shop and got a mixed meat and salad kebab with chips and a sprite as a meal deal. When I got back to my apartment I ate the meal, which was very good and watched a few more episodes of NCIS before settling down to watch the France vs England game in the World Cup for third place.
The game was amazing, England scored in the third minute and were playing brilliantly. By half time they were beating France 0-4. As good as England were, France were bad. At half time the French manager made four changes and must have read his team the riot act. In the second half they played incredibly and scored three goals to make it 3-4. All England fans were holding their breath and panicking thinking they were going to see England capitulate again. They didn't and the final score was 4-6, and Arsenals Bukayo Saka got a hat trick.
I went to bed straight after the game, tired but feeling good. It was then that I realized that the skin tag hadn't been rubbing on my leg all day and when I went to the bathroom before going to bed, I realised the skin tag had dropped off. When I had one years ago the same thing had happened so I wasn't surprised but it had got quite big before falling off this time. At least now I wouldn't have to go to hospital for an operation to remove it.
Sunday, 19th July
I didn't sleep particularly well last night and when the alarm went off, I turned it off, rolled over and went back to sleep. I woke up again about 08:45 and got up and took a shower. Just as I finished and sat down to check for messages online, my friend Lawrence called to see if I wanted to meet him at Buenavista for coffee. We arranged to meet there at 10:00.
I walked along to meet Lawrence, and he arrived at the same time as I did. We sat down and the waitress is so used to us there now she didn't even need to be told what we wanted for breakfast. As we sat chatting over breakfast we were joined by Oyvind and Theresa. We all sat talking until around 11:30 and then left. When we left, Lawrence took me to the Mercadona store to get something for my dinner. I got one of the salmon, rice and vegetable meals from the deli counter and some of my favourite pepper flavoured chicken wing packs from the meat section and went to join one of the large queues to pay.
As I stood behind a lady with a trolley full of goods, she offered to let me through but the man at the till had just started to ring up her shopping. A man and lady at the front of the large queue on the next till saw that the lady had offered to let me through and held up their queue to let me go through before they got their shopping instead. I am always amazed by the kindness of Spanish people in general towards me. I often get let through quickly in queues and lines because of my stick and the scars on my legs. I couldn't see it ever happening back in the UK.
I thanked everyone, paid for my two items and went back to the car and Lawrence took me back to my apartment. When I got in I put my food in my fridge before stripping my bed linen from the bed and putting in to wash. I then sat down to cool off a little before working on my website for a while.
Once my washing had finished I put a second lot on and then continued to work on my website. I had the salmon dish I had bought this morning for dinner at about 15:00. It was fantastic and will now become a regular item on my shopping list. After getting through all the things in my freezer that may not be good for my diet I will now concentrate more on what I eat in an attempt to lose weight.
This afternoon I binge watched more episodes of NCIS, in the next couple of days I will have finished watching every episode. When the second lot of washing had finished, I put it all away and at about 20:00, I cooked the chicken wings I had got in the morning for my tea. After finishing them I put a load of dishes in the dishwasher and set it running before settling down to watch the World Cup Final between Spain and Argentina.
I didn't watch the England vs Argentina game during the week because it clashed with the concert I went to, so didn't realise how bad the Argentine side were. The terrible fouling and bad sportsmanship were outshone by a Spanish side that were classes above them and after extra time Spain finally scored the winning goal. It was a poor match of football ruined by the Argentina game plan, refereeing decisions, disgusting and deliberate bending of the rules of the game for American greed and corporate sponsorship. The shining light was the way the Spanish played, the fact that they didn't respond to the constant cheating by the Argentinian team, and the delight in the faces of their winning players after the game. The behaviour of some of the Argentinian players after the game was disgusting and should, in a moral and unbiased football world, lead to long bans for many of the Argentinian players for their behaviour.
Everybody knew it was going to happen, and it did, Donald Trump tried to get involved with the presentation. He did manage to present players with their medals, but it was noticeable that quite a few of the players passed him by very briefly. The sight of him hanging around after the trophy presentation, trying to force himself into the photos of the Spanish team celebrating their win, were cringeworthy. And for once I appreciated Gianni Infantino and his efforts to pull Donald Trump away from the celebrations. Donald Trump was trying to insert himself in the celebrations of a nation, that he has again and again, abused over the last few months, because of their refusal to back him in an illegal war. He has threatened them with even more of his sanctions, why on earth does he feel that he would be welcome in their celebrations. Just like his illegal war against Iran, his attempts to invade the Spanish celebrations were defeated.
The final whistle was also the signal for the local supporters in Los Alcázares to begin letting off huge firecrackers, fireworks, sing, dance or just to jump in their cars to parade up and down the previously empty streets with their car horns blaring. I didn't expect to sleep well during the night, but I went to bed anyway.
Add comment