Maybe just maybe. The weather has finally changed for the better. That’s two consecutive days with bright sunshine. A little bit chilly at night but you can’t have everything. But it looks like the temperature will continue to climb and, with the odd cloudy day, might stay bright for the next ten. Bit of a change from the year so far… At lunch time we went down to the Paseo. We visited one of the small Dutch cafes we know in the town. It’s around 50/50 whether there will be a table or not but we assumed if there wasn’t we’d book one for tomorrow. And for a change we were in luck. Of the three tables marked as reserved, one, it appears, was set…

Yet another last storm. Spotting a trend here by any chance? Ah that’s better. I’ve just been having a few minutes’ disagreement with the computer. Nothing unusual there then. I was going to say how good it is to use this blasted AI tool and then it’s just taken me ten minutes to work out how to get it to actually work again. And now I’ve no idea what I did to get it to work but it’s working nevertheless. So we’ll count that as a result. I have a funny suspicion it may have something to do with me having just rebooted the computer. I had just finished rebooting following shutting everything down after a Zoom call this morning. It’s just something I’ve noticed…

Another last storm? Yeah that’s what I said. Another last storm. After all I said last week we’ve had just another last storm. Hola Pedro! And the second week of me using the Wispr dictating tool. And even more importantly without the use of a daughter. Would put a grin emoji here if I could remember how to do the damn things. But hey, me and technology have this hate-hate relationship. It’s been like this for years. All the way back to the first days of computers and technology. My computer programming started back in the steam age. At my university with the first use of a mainframe as the personal computer had by then not yet been invented. Back before the days of IBM…

Not with a whimper but with a bang. Keep talking says P. Say the rest of your post. How do I tell it when to put in any paragraph break? Just say “paragraph break.” Okay. Paragraph break. This is interesting. I didn’t expect to be doing this by voice rather than typing it this week, but Die Tochter does have the odd useful piece of information, so I’m sat here at the moment staring at a blank screen with a flickering cursor and thinking “is it actually recording this or is it not?” Which I’ve now found out it does. Even though saying “paragraph break” didn’t actually have any effect whatsoever. But hey, a learning curve is a learning curve. We are where we are.…

The rain in Spain yet again. Because we seem to have too much of it at the moment. I know it seems like it’s all I’ve written about this year – but it’s been a trifle ‘inclement’ weather-wise again this week… The only thing I can say is thank heavens we don’t live in Grazalema in Cádiz province, about a two-hour drive from here (according to my map app anyway). It’s known as the wettest town in Spain but it broke its 78-year record yesterday – by an astounding 50%! 512.5 mm of rain in a 24-hour period, over half a metre. Up from 348.9 mm in January 1948. To anyone still using the old-fashioned Imperial units that’s over 20 inches! People reported water coming…

The calm before the storm. And after the previous one as well for that matter. You might wonder why I always seem to write about the weather. Or you may have read previous posts and think ‘Blimey, the weather there is awkward’… Storm Harry passed through yesterday – with lots of rain on-and-off through the afternoon and evening. And Storm Ingrid hits later this evening with polar cold and intense seas to add to the excitement. Snowfall down to 300 m – on the bloody Costa del Sol FFS! Could be ‘fun’ going out to dinner tonight… we shall see. Beats doing tax returns I suppose. I continue to wear my sandals I hasten to add. I might be mad but at least I’m keeping…

Weather you like it or not – ooh, a pun (or a ‘pune’ as Terry Pratchett used to call them in his Discworld books). I’m clattering away on the keyboard on Wednesday this week because PA is off on Friday so my usual Thursday afternoon slot would cause difficulties. And Wednesday afternoons are particularly long during school term times as L does her lipreading online so we lunch an hour earlier. With me so far? I have 12 and a half working days left before the tax return deadline for 2026. Only seven returns unstarted and two of those are Die Tochter’s and my own. So it’s probably a cakewalk but it doesn’t and won’t feel like it is until the last return is e-filed…

Last post of 2025. Not last week‘s as I initially thought. But this one. And not that last post either. You know the one – UK Remembrance Day? 11.00? Two minutes silence? There’s inflation in action for you – was only one minute when I was younger. Then there’s the small question of trying to remember what it was I was going to write about. Which was Burgered if I can remember… I knew this would happen – it always does. This is the problem with not writing things down. In my defense, the arthritis and rheumatism makes writing a little more ‘challenging’ than when I was younger. And it’s also back to wet. Which doesn’t make mobility any easier. I’m always majorly surprised I…