That was the week it was. I can’t use that was the week that was because I’ve already used it and the SEO gets upset if I use things again.

Right well, see if we can get the dictation tool to work this week. For some reason I started off thinking, “Oh I know, let me just type a little bit,” I think I must be going barmy.

Right let’s go and pour the coffee before I get tied up in everything else.

Okay, done that successfully, I’m glad to say. Okay. After taking the coffee up to L I had to take it extremely carefully on the way back.

Isabel is doing the cleaning and some of the floors are wet. When you’re not wearing shoes or socks, this can be a little like wandering on a skating rink.

With my cup and coffee in hand…

I think I can definitely say it’s been a week.

Actually probably quite a good week but I don’t want to push things.

We now have the electronic door camera fitted and the NAS disc reconnected to the network.

The NAS also very kindly sent me an email telling me why it had not connected properly, which was due to a minor power cut.

I suspect this means buying a UPS or whatever it was it told me because it told me in Spanish.

I shall look it up some time when I have a few minutes…

That was the week it was.

We have progressed matters on both my pensions and L’s.

We have renewed the padron for both of us despite it being three weeks late.

I have successfully negotiated L’s birthday. Despite my normal endeavours I managed not to upset her. Either that or she’s just trying to lull me into a false sense of security!

Additionally we have both managed to trump our cardio exams. She has a sign-off for the next two years but I have to do an extra test at one of the local hospitals because they don’t do it at the clinic. But it’s just precautionary as far as we’re aware.

Oh, and I imagine we did a bit of work somewhere along the line. But not too much I hope.

Cheapest lunch of the week so far. 14€ for the lot including drinks. Delicious 🤤. Photo by author

And all of this in weather that, while not excessive temperature-wise, has been much too humid.

Oh yes nearly forgot. We visited La Linea (or Bloody Mill as the dictation tool heard it? Eh?) on Saturday, where I subbed Die Tochter and Mr. Tochter to buy a birthday meal for L.

For some reason this is coming slowly today – I feel because we did so many things this week and my head is just full of fluff.

A neuralgia because of the humidity and a touch of anxiety because of the lateness of the Padron conspired to make my body feel like it was bending in directions that don’t exist.

And it’s now half an hour later.

It was a useful half hour dealing with Die Tochter and the invoicing and various forms that were needed for her customer.

It hasn’t actually made my brain any less fluff-filled but hey what the heck.

It’s funny. Normally when I write these articles, the first hundred or two hundred words take forever and the rest appears suddenly like diarrhoea.

Today is obviously an exception. Either that or the ease in writing these posts up till now has lulled me into another false sense of security.

It could of course be the sheer volume of things that have happened in the week that is making it difficult to pick out one and write sensibly about that and then another.

And for some reason the dictation tool is suddenly working better again. I wonder if it’s because I’m now talking rather louder than I was.

It’s an issue I get on relatively frequent occasions. L notices it quite often. I think I’m talking relatively loudly until she tells me that I am whispering.

That was the week it was.

And maybe this is the case in point.

It could also be that one of the major areas that have taken time this week is not something I can write about. It might be interesting to write about my pension arrangements but I’m not sure I want to share it with everybody.

I will share a little of what happened yesterday with L’s.

As a precautionary note if nothing else. There is a major pension provider in the UK. I am not going to name names but it has something to do with birds and eggs.

What we want to do is to move the moneys from there into a pot with all the other pension proceeds for her so we can make a sensible decision overall.

Luckily half-way through the phone call she called me and asked if I could manage to sit in for the rest of it.

It could have ended up hopelessly confused – she wanted to withdraw the tax-free cash but it appears the only way that can happen is by buying an annuity.

Or not because another option when we read the online paperwork properly is that you can transfer the total to your other providers.

So a disconnect because she mentioned the tax-free cash, which of course we can then draw from the full pot.

Okay it might not have got much further down the line because they would have insisted that she get a separate valuation for the annuity but the rates for small annuities are invariably rubbish.

And if we’ve amalgamated the pots, what’s left is probably large enough to move into drawdown and we can decide whether to move it on into an annuity as a separate exercise.

So with the best of intentions she could have ended up with a less than optimum result.

Well funnily enough I seem to have ended up with a much better outcome for the blog by just concentrating on one small aspect.

And possibly not altogether unexpectedly if I stop to think about it.

That was the week it was, or maybe only a part of it.

At which point I am going to give up, do the SEO work, and then stare vacantly into space.

Hasta la semana que viene.