After Weighing It All Up ?

Another weekend had arrived, although their were no ‘Fiestas’ in our particular immediate local area, however, on this particular morning, just like the previous one as it happens 🤔 neither was there the usual blue sky or sunshine to greet me, only a mixture of white and light grey cloud. There was also a strong breeze blowing in, through the french windows on the balcony, but to be honest it wasn’t really strong enough to be classed as a ‘wind’, but it was enough to create some swaying momentum on the leaves of the tree’s outside the windows. It was 8:00am, and the thermometer was already registering 25 degrees(c), however, it was more humid than hot, but that would all change a little after lunch, when the clouds would finally part, blue sky would start to appear and the sun would break through to bring, by late afternoon, the now more regular daily 30 degree(c) temperatures. It was quiet and peaceful, I found myself flitting between perusing stuff on my iPad and drifting into a sort of semi-hypnotic state when I would find myself just staring out of the windows at the views, and listening to the chitter chattering of the birds, whilst drinking my coffee. It was only a couple of weeks ago that the ‘Works of Fiction’ had forecast that we would get seven days of 43 Degrees(c) temperatures, you may recall that I had scoffed at that in my last ramble, and rightly so for, as I had correctly predicted, it had only reached a rather uncomfortable 35 degrees(c), well at least down on this particular part of the Costa del Sol coastline and that, for us, is hot enough thank you very much 🥵 So these last couple of more overcast mornings, have actually been very welcome.

We are in a bit of a ‘lull’ mode at the moment, not really doing very much to be honest, in fact the bare minimum possible in the current temperatures, and we know that it is only going to get hotter and hotter, although we have been out on some walks during the mornings when the heat is more bearable. We could of course, if we had really wanted to, have gone out on some extended road trips, we have a couple of free weeks before our daughter and Son-in-Law arrive from Germany. But of course, being Summer, the prices of accommodations have sky-rocketed so, out of Yorkshireman’s principle, we will not pay that kind of silly money, we are not rich tourist’s you know 🤭 Or perhaps it could be just that we already live in a perfectly good holiday location, in rent free accommodation and with all the facilities that we need.

During the previous week we had used our swimming pool on an almost daily basis, and had had it all to ourselves, however, over this last week we had not made use of the pool at all, for we were either just too lethargic in the mornings or we had other more essential things that needed doing. By lunchtimes, the pool is now busy with small groups of children and their parents, although not exactly inundated, but noisy enough to be less than peaceful. Why is it that females, of all ages, always seem to scream, either in excitement, joy or distress 🤷‍♂️ whilst the males, of all ages, have to show off their ‘macho’ side by running at, and then somersaulting into, the pool to see how big a splash they can make, albeit there are signs that state that both are prohibited 🤔 as, I may add, are water toys like inflatable novelty chairs and air beds, which take up lots of pool space, especially after the owner’s have got out and left their toys floating aimlessly around. Swimming is pointless, and nigh on impossible, as is laying on a sunbed trying to read whilst doing a spot of sunbathing, no the time has now arrived when it is either get up early and get to the pool, before the ‘Little Darlings’ have been awoken from their slumbers and eaten their breakfasts, usually just before lunchtime, or just admit defeat until the first week of September when they all return from whence they came, I sound just like that ‘Victor Meldrew’ chap of that comedy TV series ‘One Foot In The Grave’ 😂 Usually, the permanent residents here, would have had the pool all to themselves up until the tourists or visiting families arrive, which is probably from around the beginning of May, for although our pool is an open-all-year one, apart from when there are drought restrictions that is, the water is not warm enough to swim in before May, and generally after the end of October. However, this year, due to those drought conditions, our pool was not re-opened for use until a few short weeks ago ☹️ But you know what they say, if you can’t beat them, join them, and so our own ‘Little Darlings’, namely our three excitable and ‘loud’ granddaughter’s, will soon join that throng around the pool and, if any one of those permanent residents complain, then they must just be grumpy old codgers who need to get a life 😂

Now I have to just tell you that the ‘Works of Fiction’ are not actually having a very good couple of weeks, well not as far as their ‘Crystal Balls’ are concerned, so apart from the 43 degree heatwave that thankfully never materialised, they had also, very recently, put in force, for the whole of the Malaga Province, an ‘Amber’ storm warning. Now it isn’t that unusual to get the odd, maybe one or two, Summer storms here in Spain, but generally speaking they are quite brief events lasting for no more than a day or two.

The night the ‘forecasted’ heavy rains and thunderstorms were due to commence I sat on the balcony, waiting in eager anticipation, because I do like to hear a good thunderstorm with awesome lightening displays and watch the large raindrops leaping off the roads and pavements below. However, whilst I did see some electrical storms, they were well above the thick sheet of night clouds, and a very long way out to sea, so there were just sporadic glows of white and orange and I watched them as they drifted slowly towards the African coastline. But they were not accompanied by any thunder, or rain, of any description, light or heavy, so I felt disappointed, even cheated out of my evening’s entertainment, although I guess that I should know by now not to rely on what ‘any’ weather agencies forecast, as none of them have a very good track record 🤷‍♂️ However, in their defence, they were not totally wrong, just geographically a little off piste, for their were floods and exceptionally strong winds in Madrid, which just in case you are not familiar with its location, is actually in Central Spain, far closer to the ‘Costa del Ajahar’ than our own Costa del Sol, and it is a little over six or perhaps even seven hours away from us, but to be completely fair, neither did they get it completely wrong about Malaga, albeit the Province of Malaga is quite a large area, however, Malaga City itself, did get some heavy rainfall, but this inclement weather once again stayed well North of us.

But I will give this particular ‘Works of Fiction’ some due respect, as normally, when they do get their forecasts wrong, they usually just come out with the statement that ‘Meteorology’ is not an exact science 🤷‍♂️ So it is indeed rare for ‘any’ Government Agency to actually ‘publicly’ admit when they do get things wrong 🤔 I guess in these not so good global economic climates, it would be no good me suggesting that they ditch their old forecasting technologies which they appear to be currently using (Crystal Balls) and invest in some more twenty-first century alternatives, like perhaps weather satellites and associated AI technologies 🤭

As I was commencing the first ‘draft’ of this particular ramble, it sprung to mind that in my last ramble, and now in this one, I have mentioned some of the Spanish ‘Costas’, but like myself I suppose, well at least until very recently that is, I too had heard of many of them by name, but I certainly did not know what every ‘Costa’ was called, or indeed their exact locations along the three areas of the Spanish coastlines, so, as a bit of what some may probably consider to be useless information, I am going to include a map (below) which shows them all by name and location, its okay, you really don’t have to thank me, ‘Mr Google’ actually did all the hard work 😂

Now you may also recall, from my last ramble, that we were having a bit of an issue with our bathroom scales, the problem being that after our ‘Fiesta Weekend’ celebrations, they were rather inconveniently not reflecting the weight’s that we actually wanted them to show us, so Shazza and I both agreed that they must have been faulty 🤷‍♂️ So, we decided to replace them and, before the end of that same week, we did go out to purchase a new set. Now I had expected to have been offered a wide selection, we only wanted a basic set, one that would just reflect our weight, nothing more, nothing less. So I was surprised to find that, in the particularly large store that we were in, which sold ‘everything’ on the domestic front, fixtures and fittings, for every room in the house, even the garden, to only discover ‘one’ make and model of bathroom scales 😲 But hey ho, at the end of the day we only needed one, but this particular one had ten different functions, yes ten 🤔 Although not a setting to ‘adjust’ the weight reading, to the one we would have preferred it to show 😁 The problem was, this all singing and all dancing model had to be set up with individual ‘personal profiles’, via an ‘Application’, that we had to download from the Interweb thingy on to our mobile phones. For goodness sake, we only actually wanted a basic one, one that we could stand on and it would tell us what we wanted to see that would make us feel good about ourselves, not one that reflected that we were coming close to becoming overweight ‘Fat B******s’, now was that really too much to ask 🤷‍♂️ Anyway, we couldn’t be bothered hunting around town just for a set of scales, that in itself could have excaserpated the problem because we may have ended up having to stop at any Cafe/Bars we passed for refreshments, Anti-Covid Vaccines and perhaps even a few Tapas, just to quench our thirsts and keep our energy levels up in all this heat 🤭 So we took what appeared at the time, to be the sensible option and purchased this one available model of bathroom scales. Well, when we got it home and unpacked it, installed the batteries, and then started reading the instructions, it directed us to a ‘QR Code’, fortunately we did have a QR Reader App already downloaded on our mobile phones, but, when we scanned it, a message informed us that this ‘QR’ Code was no longer available 🤔 We both set about checking the Internet to see if we could obtain this ‘App’ via an alternative method, but alas, it appeared that the ‘App’, for this particular model, no longer existed 😡

Well I won’t go into specific details, as I am sure that you can already imagine the number of expletives that were by now emanating from the both of us. “How can a ******* shop sell a ******* item that can only be operated by a ******* ‘App’ that no longer ******* exists ?” Do I need to mention that we were not best pleased, probably more so because that was our joint week’s worth of allowance on using any expletives being used up in just one two-minute outburst, but at least it had put some extra ‘coffers’ in the swear box 😂 I lost count of how many times we both kept making that same statement over and over again and, to make matters worse, we would now have to go to the trouble of re-packing this useless piece of 🤬🤬🤬, and then take it back to the store in Estepona and try to explain, in Spanish, why we were returning it !! I have to say though, that we have never seen our swear box fill up in such a short space of time 😂 We considered not bothering taking it back and just throwing it in the bin, or better still, selling it on EBay 🤭, but it had cost us €50 bloody Euro’s and I wasn’t going to lose that kind of money, that was more than the total cost of a two-course meal, for the both of us, including an Anti-Covid Vaccine each, at a local restaurant, so this was serious ‘treat weekend’ money that we are talking about here, after all, we are a couple who are just living off our pensions incomes out here and, if we do not stop making such stupid purchases, we may both end up selling copies of the ‘Big Issue’ along the seafront promenade to make ends meet 🤭

Now I am sure that you already know the feeling that you get inside when you build yourself up for an argument, already anticipating meeting some resistance from the store, for attempting to return a faulty product, and trying to get your money back and not a credit note. This of course can be bad enough in your own native language, in your own country, never mind in a language, where the particular language course that we were using, didn’t teach us the necessary essential vocabulary for incidences such as this 😳 Well, thankfully, we needn’t have got ourselves all into a lather about it, as when we showed the ‘Customer Service’ girl our receipt, showed her the picture on the box showing the mobile phone and ‘Bluetooth’ symbol and said, in our bestest Spanglish of course, that it didn’t work. It was as if she already knew the issue, perhaps she had experienced a lot more ‘Returns’ of this particular product, anyway, she just simply scanned the product information off the box, and then issued us with our Refund, without any fuss or bother, she even apologised for the inconvenience and smiled, although perhaps the smile was more of a “Damn it, another customer who hadn’t thought that it was their own stupidity, or lack of IT know-how, for being the reason that they could not get it working”

In the end, we kept the money and just decided that we would stick to our original bathroom scales, as it appeared, somewhat miraculously, a few days after our weekend of over indulgence, and after us once again taking up our much more usual and healthier dietary regimes over the following week, that they actually appeared to be working normally again, in that they were once again reflecting the weight that we wanted them to show 😂 It had taken a few days for my weight to gradually, bit by bit, come back down again, from the shocking 1.7Kg increase it had reflected on that disastrous Monday morning weigh-in, but, just four days later I was down to 72.7Kg, so I said to myself, give me one good reason as to why I would choose not to believe it 🤷‍♂️ But by now it was also the time of the week for our next ‘Treat Weekend’ and just before another ‘official’ weigh-in day, oh dear, I thought to myself, this may not end well again 😲 So we had a conference, no not me and the bathroom scales, me and Shazza, and we both agreed, that perhaps it would make more logical sense to conduct our weigh-in sessions at the end of the week, or better still, on the Saturday morning, which would then give us both time, after our ‘treat weekends’, to spend the next five days on our normal dietary regimes, which would give us time to rectify any ‘temporary’ discrepancies that may have occurred. Of course, the motion put forward by the members, all two of us, was carried unanimously 😁

I am still no nearer to finding the cause of the ‘bloat’ though, as whilst my ‘Middle Age Spread’ has shrunk a little, which is actually great news, as it was the primary reason for my dietary regime change and not the actual weight loss aspect, although obviously, the two are linked. But one morning, having not eaten anything for breakfast, which is a usual occurrence for me, we went on our walk into town, whilst it was still relatively cool, we of course stopped for our usual coffee, but no ‘Tostado’, however, as we were walking back I could feel my stomach starting to bloat, it was enough for even Shazza to notice, although to be fair it was not as bad as it has been on previous occasions 🤷‍♂️ However, I have decided to maintain ‘my’ amended ‘Plant Based’ diet, as it is certainly contributing to the current weight loss and, in truth, I would be more than happy to still lose another couple of Kilograms. But I am also trying to eliminate potential causes of the bloat myself, so in this last week I have once again started to eat just very small quantities of Shazza’s home-baked sour dough bread, happily with no unfavourable results 👍 My next action will be to cut out the bread again and this time try eating some potatoes, either french fries over our treat weekends, or baked potatoes with my salads during the week, just to see what, if any, effect that has 🤷‍♂️ If that doesn’t provide the answer then I shall seek to try to eliminate other foodstuffs like Rice, Pasta’s, Legumes etc. Of course it could very well be that it is not just one thing that is causing the issue, but a combination of eating all, or at least some, of them together 😩 But, at some stage, I will not want to continue on the weight loss path as that can then potentially bring about it’s own ‘other’ health issues, I have certainly well and truly gone past the stage of wanting to be the next ‘size zero’ glamour model 🤭 So, ‘After Weighing It All Up’, I have but one simple goal, one that see’s me just being able to fit into, and then remain, comfortable in ‘all’ of my shirts, I have just the three stubborn one’s that I continue to do battle with 👕🤺 And, if in that process, I can lose just a couple of extra Kilograms, then that would suit me very nicely but of course I already know that taking off weight is one thing, but keeping it off is another and there is no way that I am going to give up our treat weekends 😳

And in other News 🤔………………..

Well it looks as if the next seven days are going to be quite interesting, and all with potential impacts to some degree or other, first, we are awaiting the results of two very important events, yes the Euro 24 football games involving both our teams, England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 and Spain 🇪🇸, although they are playing different teams and not each other so at least we have a 50/50 chance of at least one of them progressing to the Quarter Finals 👍 Secondly, there is the first vote in the French Elections and, according to the pre-election Polls, Macron’s Party is not looking good down in third place. Then, later in the week, there is the UK General Election to see which party have been telling Bigger Lies than any of the other’s, and be the one’s which will convince the general public to vote for them. However, I fear that the only losers in this particular election will actually be the British General Public once again, for none of the parties, if and when they get to come to run the country for the next five year’s, will have the financial resources in the Treasury Coffers to be able to do anything about the state of the country, for perhaps even another decade, and how do you get that money, Borrow, Sell off National Assets (to foreign buyers) or Raise Taxes, or, as I strongly suspect, a combination of all of them 🤷‍♂️ Then to just round the week off, we have the second round of voting in the French Elections, a final result that ‘could’ have serious consequences on the EU as a whole, not least the value of the Euro against all other global currencies. So perhaps it is a good time, if you haven’t already done so, to take a holiday, whilst you still can, but don’t forget to take your TV’s, as at least the football may provide some excitement in what could be an otherwise dull week. Then again, you could always ‘Stop worrying about things that you have no control or influence over and spend your time more proactively on the types of things that you can influence or control’ 😉 On that note, let me just go and have another stand on those bathroom scales, I may have lost a Gram or two in the time I have been bashing away on this keyboard 🤭

Until my next ramble…………………..

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, (La Vida Es Buena)