Broken laptop!

Oh, very frustrating. I think the battery in my Acer laptop has failed, it refuses to charge and there is no light to indicate charging. I checked the power supply by swapping it with another one the same. All I have now is my iPad and I hate the virtual keypad. Maybe I will write more when I get home on Wednesday.

I am back home..... Fairly rapidly I came to the conclusion that the power supply inside the computer was at fault because it would continue to work even with no battery. So the first thing I did when I got home was to pull the thing apart. and then after about 15 minutes, decided that it wasn't a good idea since I hadn't even unpacked my case. So it is lying on my desk looking rather like a car crash. I will have another look later but my priority is to catch up on my blog and complete the story of my latest visit to Ukraine (because there were others!) I finished writing about Friday which ended up in a discotheque but I think we were both rather worn out by the experience so we had a quiet day, me in the hotel and Marina at home. So, that in a sentence was Saturday. But Sunday was destined for greater things!

I suppose it will all go back together again, or will I end up with a spare organ which I don't know what to do with? I used to do this when I was young, taking televisions apart. But with no idea what anything did and certainly with no idea how to put it together again. But TVs in those days were full of all kinds of exotic objects, silver foil wrapped around metal tubes, lots of metal cans. And valves which glowed in the dark.

Latest news is that I tested the power supply which is at the top of the circuit board close to the "acer" logo. I was puzzled for a while. The cable between the socket on the right and the circuit board is OK but, when I tested the voltage at the circuit board - nothing. Ah, simple my dear Watson, the power supply has a short-circuit on its input which triggers the protection in the external power-supply and it drops to zero. So this could be expensive, I need a replacement mother-board. I will write to the Acer repair centre with a photo and ask for a quotation.

Friday 27th

On my first full day here, we went skating. I haven't done it for many years so Marina had to guide me gently around the ice as you can see. It used to be a great way to meet girls, either at Richmond Ice Rink or at Queen's Ice Rink in the west of London.

After about 40 minutes, I started to get the hang of it again. I couldn't get any forward motion but as soon as I did that, I felt much more stable.

As you can see, the rink is right in the middle of a shopping mall so afterwards we went for a meal in the food court and then Marina had to go off to teach English.






 I wandered around for a while and then headed back to the hotel by Metro from Heroiv Pratsi i which is to the north of the city. That is a wild ride! I have no idea how old the trains are but I guess they date back to the Soviet era. Grandiose stations with lots of marble. And the tracks remain well below ground even when they are outside the city centre. Some of the escalators are extremely long - I noticed that on a previous visit to Kiev. The reason is that the Metro was intended as a nuclear shelter in the event of war.

Neither Marina nor I are crazy about discotheques but somehow that was on the agenda for this evening. She arrived in a taxi from her home and then we went to the disco - Com'pas. It is right next to where we went skating earlier in the day. We arrived at 9pm which as you can imagine is rather early for a disco. In Spain they don't open till midnight! Marina had booked a table and we ordered some food and drink and people started trickling in.

We danced, Marina posed on a staircase but at around midnight, the powerful music was getting a little too much for us. We took a taxi back to my hotel and then Marina went on to her home which is to the south, near the airport. I will post some photos here. I took some photos of her dancing but I will save her blushes and not post them here.

I have been fighting off some kind of illness but sometimes I think it is just psychosomatic. I got very stressed before I came here and it comes and goes. 

Marina loves posing!

to Ukraine..... again!

As promised I will write about my latest visit to Ukraine! During the last year, I have been to Ukraine 3 times, and the UK not once! Shocking? Well not really, I used to visit my ex-wife and two ex-girlfriends but after more than 25 years we have gone our various ways. That is how long since I had a girlfriend. I like to joke that I will forget what to do next time. The response usually is, "Oh no, it's like riding a bicycle!"

And then I used to visit my brother's family in Gloucester. But since I adopted three "children" in diverse parts of the world, that is what draws me now. Kharkiv in Ukraine is much colder than Gloucester but it is a novel experience. And I visit my friend Marina.

So, I am writing this in Barcelona airport to take a Ukraine Airways flight to Kiev and then onward to Kharkiv.

Yesterday was rather traumatic. About a year ago I started letting my hair grow and I changed its colour to a rather fetching blonde. For some reason on Tuesday, I decided to try a slightly darker shade in the hairdresser at INdiferent. Their main business is depletion (in other words ripping hair out with waxed strips) and I go for a regular massage. They also do photo-depilation which is a whole lot more permanent - it uses a mixture of light and laser pulses. Oh, OK laser is light too. 

Anyway, back to my hair. What I asked for was very slightly darker. What I got was a whole lot darker, almost back to my original colour before my hair went white. So the following day, meaning yesterday, I went back to ask if they could lighten it. I was so annoyed with myself for changing something that I liked. I wish I had taken a photo for you because, after about 30 minutes with this chemical in my hair, it had turned orange! I was greatly alarmed but Jonny who is the boss in the hairdresser told me not to worry; that was just the first stage so that he could see what next to do. So he instructed the young girl to give me 20 minutes with some other liquid. And very soon, I could see that the orange hue has gone and, although the hair was wet and soapy, it looked closer to how it was before. 

The young girl was trying to justify the change in colour, saying that it wasn't very great - only one half shade darker, despite my insisting it was all my fault. So that didn't help my mood. But that lifted enormously when Jonny got one of the girls, Oana to wash and massage my head. I am very fond of Oana and she of me. We had an enormously funny time. She normally does depletion and massage. And so my hair is now a darker version of how it was previously but it could have been a lot worse.

I have a suspicion that either the tension affected me or that part of the chemicals passed through my skin because I was incredibly stressed last night - as though I was being pulled apart. It wasn't the journey today, I have taken the train down to Barcelona Airport many times.

I have to go through security now. There is a wonderfully quiet area with Pans and Co just past the security entrance which is when I am now. I will write more later!

Later....

Security is very well-organised here with plenty of space to prepare the containers and space afterwards to get everything together again. I passed! It was more complicated because as I am sure you now, computers and tablets have to taken out and shown separately. I have two laptops with me - this one which literally is on my lap - and another smaller one which I am giving Marina because I don't use it any more. As I arrived at Gate E which is a huge almost empty area, the regular Delta flight to New York was boarding and what should I see trundling up to the stand was the Ukraine Airways 737. Exactly an hour to turn around for the flight at 1.30pm. This is good news for me because any delay to this flight makes my connection to the flight to Kharkiv rather tight. 

When I left Girona, it was cold and grey but now the sun has come out and it is bright and maybe not too cold. I checked this morning, it is -5c in Kharkiv today.

This is travelling when it is a really cool experience, not always the case but when it is like this, it is lots of fun. Trains to Barcelona, rapid and on time, I left plenty of time anyway. Had a tea and a bun in the secret zone just past the entrance to Security and wrote the first part of this post.

I have indulged myself and pre-ordered a meal on the plane. The choice is brilliant. I chose fillet steak and some salad. I will have some wine. Maybe it will cure the cold symptoms which I seem to have. Sometimes I get symptoms without acutally feeling ill and often it is just down to stress. I chose a seat yesterday when I checked in online because I only have hand baggage, 5A.

I am way over the airline's weight limit for cabin baggage but usually there isn't a check at the boarding gate. And anyway, I hve a feeling that there are not many on the flight. It was never checked!

That was so cool, just as the Ukraine plane was pushed back, the big Avianca 787 Dreamliner from Bogotá pulled up at the next stand. I was expecting to see it because last time I arrived on Avianca, the Ukraine 737 was in the same place and I guessed that this was the same each day. Their regular parking slots.

The meal came in the style of business class, metal cutlerly and real plates but I was in a cramped economy seat so it seemed rather strange, the seat next to me was occupied by an man-speading guy so my elbows were close to my side.

The rest of the flight was normal, the ground below gradually turning to a uniform white as we headed north from Italy. I had comfortable time to transfer to my domestic flight to Kharkiv. Unfortunately there is no air-side transfer, I had to go into the main terminal and then back into Domestic Departures and go through the security palava again. It is complicated, with two laptops and an iPad to extract each time the bags are scanned.

Marina was not at meeters and greeters - she was delayed because she came by a combination of buses. That was no problem, I sat down and had a beer and when she arrived, we had a nice chat. There was a taxi driver hovering around offering his car and Marina beat him down to 170 hrivnas (about 6 euros). At one point he said, "Let me make a living"! This was for a huge journey, firstly 20 minutes to drop Marina off at her home, then about 40 minutes to my hotel. When we arrived, he asked for 200, talking about his family, no money etc. I gave him 170 but would have given him more if he had not asked. He called me greedy.

I checked in - they know me well here -  went down to the restaurant and had a quick meal and some wine. Then went to bed!

More!

I've decided to keep writing! There is so much to tell you. And then I go to visit my friend Marina in Ukraine again on the 26th and I will write about that too. 

This is a photo of us when she came to visit me in Girona.

I switched back to European time very quickly - I know I said - but it still surprised me because I suffered a lot from jet-lag when I was younger, travelling frequently to Dubai. And that is only 4 or 5 hours ahead of the UK, which is where I was living at the time. You can read about my working life in an earlier post... "Bill Gates and Me" !

I had a wonderful time in Colombia but I missed decent food and my large kitchen. The quality of the food, especially the meat, was not very good. The best food to buy was trout, much less spiny than the European version. We saw a trout farm on the river during the trek in Cocora. 

So, one of the first meals I had when I got back was lamb! No lamb in Colombia. Terrible.

As my first job, I was trained as a sound engineer in TV by the BBC in London and later worked in electronics but when I moved to Spain, I took up art. I joke and say that I "changed the chip" because it is so very different (brain.. left side - right side). But I am a little weary of that now (I am sure I will come back to it) and I am writing a book - it starts with my autobiography but then carries on into the future and gets a little bit crazy. I had some ideas for a novel about a world-famous concert pianist called Quentin but there is not really enough material to make a book. So I will try to imagine my future life where I meet this guy. He has much more money than one would expect, despite his fame. We build a theme park in a town near to Carcassonne in France. I move away from Catalunya when it makes a unilateral declaration of independence in 2018 and has to leave the European Union. (Haha, I could invent a trade deal with newly brexited UK!)  So the book is written as if from 2032. It assumes I am still here!! No point in waiting till 2032 to finish the book if I am dead. Money... you can't take it with you. Tampoco a laptop.

And Quentin tells me that some of my memories of my life are false memories. So I go back and re-write what he thinks really happened. For example, I write about a near-accident with a motor-cyclist when I was 20 where but for a few inches, he would have died (I mean, it happened - I was on my way to work at the BBC). Quentin persuades me that he died. I love to paint surreal art because it twists reality. It is fun. Sometimes it is a form of humour and I love humour. Maybe the humour will be a little black too. 

So, that is my plan - my project (I love the word, project) - for 2017. Plus sports. Lots of sports. Before I went to Colombia, I joined GEiEG which is a sports organisation in Girona - there are two centres. One is near to Hospital Josep Trueta and there is a convenient bus stop on the way into town. I go swimming in the 50m pool and I have started playing squash again after giving it up over 10 years ago when I came here. I decided it was too energetic for a 60 year-old (!) and in any case, I didn't think there were any courts here. Now I am 73 and don't really feel much different from then. So a few days ago I bought completely new kit and a beautiful green and white racket.

Last time I bought one, it was the equivalent of 50 euros. This was three times that - admittedly it is Tecnifibre which is an expensive brand even by modern standards. Last time I played squash, everything was in white, the shoes were Dunlop Green Flash and the rackets were made of wood (I am joking about the wood, that was longer ago that 12 years). I could have carried on playing with my old rackets, they were Prince and made of some kind of composite material but I gave them away a long time ago. In the old days, I used to carry a spare because they were quite fragile and the strings could break. And I was hitting the wall quite a lot. At 150 euros, I think I will stick with one racket!
I reached quite a decent level in the game - I never mastered tennis, a very different technique - so it will be interesting to see how I shape up against the younger guys and girls in the league here. When I was much younger and tearing around the court, the older more experienced players would take it easy and let me do all the running. Now the boot is on the other foot!

I played for the first time this morning - just a warm-up really. Then for the serious stuff of working my way up the league!


I suppose you are wondering what happened to Nini! Well, I kept on being nice to her in the face of her rudeness because I don't want to close the door on her. I wrote before, I cannot abandon my beautiful Colombian friend. She is like that for a reason (maybe hurt by things in the past, men probably - I know that is no excuse), inside she is a good person. I escaped lending them 70 milones as a mortgage. That was crazy. But I always had in the back of my mind that I wanted to continue helping her and her lovely family. So, for at least a year, I'm sending them 100 euros a month which will go towards food mainly. We just chatted on Skype in text which is the normal method of communication. So, from time to time, we will chat on Skype.

Tuesday 11th - back in Spain

This is the last post that I will write for my journey in Colombia. I am on an AVE train from Barcelona to Girona. I bought the ticket with one minute to spare and just managed to catch the train.

I think I slept about 4 hours on the plane – I was happy with that. I guess most people sleep in their day clothes but I change totally into my pyjamas which puts me in the mood for sleep. The flight was very comfortable and quiet. The plane was advertised as an Airbus A330 but I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was a Boeing 787, the Dreamliner, very new*. No blinds on the windows, they dimmed with some kind of polarising effect. So I awoke at 4am Colombia time to a purple sun which looked rather like a very bright moon. Most people were still sleeping but since it was now 10am in Spain, I thought that this would be a good time to re-synchronise my clock. I went up front to the galley to ask for a tea.

* Avianca changed to the 787 for Bogotá-Barcelona in January

I keep on thinking about yesterday, I was emotionally very mixed up. Milena almost crying, Alejandra in a medical clinic not knowing when she would be free and Nini who I thought effectively had said goodbye the previous day. I had been expecting her and her mum at 3pm due to a strange idea of mine. I finally contacted Nini when I was in Bogotá Airport.

Part of me wants to go back, a big part. But maybe I will have to do it in economy class next time.

And I am writing this at home the next day, Thursday 12th. I went to my local bar last night for a meal and a glass or two of wine. I went to bed at 11pm, slept soundly till 7am. My body clock seems to accept the sudden change in the hours quite easily. 7am is 1am in Colombia but it felt like daybreak. But it was a shock to discover how dark it was. I thought I had woken up in the middle of the night, so I carefully checked my clocks. I felt as thought I had only slept for a short time which added to the confusion!

I had a list of things to do. Some in Celrá and then I took the train to Girona at 11.30 and returned at 2pm.

I think that just about ends my Colombian blog. But I will write more here about my adventures if you like. At the end of this month I go back to visit Marina in Ukraine.

Tuesday 10th - going home

I am writing this in the VIP lounge in Bogotá Airport at 7.15pm with a beer, having taken the short hop from Pereira. I am on my way home to Spain. Today was quite eventful, I will tell you about it....

The B787 Dreamliner - all set for the long journey to Barcelona.

I said previously that Alejandra had 'flu but she said that we could meet for coffee at 11am but she had to go to the medical clinic for some tests and she sent messages from time to time to say that she was still waiting to be seen. Meanwhile, I had walked to Plaza Bolivar where I bought a pair of near-view glasses the previous day - very weak, 0.5 dioptre. There was a scratch in one of the lenses and the girl promised to change them. I visited a couple of banks to ask if I could open an account simply with a passport but the two I visited said that it required a Cedula, which is the eqivalent of my Spanish ID, a NIE. Alejandra said later that some banks do allow it.

Omaira rang me while I was talking in one of the banks so I let it ring and then I called her back when I was in the street. She said that she and Nini would accompany me to the airport. She asked what time I was leaving. I said 3pm. So I got it fixed in my mind that they were coming just before 3pm. Totally wrong, they came at 1.30pm. And that was just about the time that Alejandra finally was free to meet me... maybe a little before. Around 1pm. By that time I had walked back to the apartment from Plaza Bolivar. My bags were packed and I had to check out of the apartment at 2pm.

I walked a short distance up the street, Calle 14, to a coffee bar and met Alejandra and her daughter Raquel. And, of course, while we were there, Nini and her mum were arriving at my apartment. Really, Nini should have used Skype to fix a time rather than have her mum ring me. And yesterday, Nini sent a message which was rather like, bye-bye. So I wasn´t expecting to see her.

But had I understood their plans better, I would not have been able to see Alejandra and by now you have probably realised that I have a little bit of a soft spot for her. We chatted over coffee. She explained the snags about my lending money to Nini. And as we walked back down to my apartment at about 1.30, I suggested we all go up there, collect my bags and put them in Reception. We must have missed Nini and her mum by minutes. How odd is that?!

Then I was free to 3pm and I took Alejandra and Raquel to a rather classy restaurant about 10 minutes walk away. The food was very odd. We all chose starters, partly because we didn't have much time. Alejandra had a fishy dish, Raquel had pulpo (octopus) and I chose lomo which to me is like a pork chop. But it came in small red circles of meat. It was marinated, not cooked. Raquel had enormous difficulty fighting with the octopus. It was her first pulpo, so her mum helped her cut it.

We walked back up the road and parted company because Alejandra had to go back to the clinic. We hugged warmly. I asked her out for a date in February. She said yes. I know that is crazy but if we lived closer, that is what I would want to do. Maybe she will read this - I like her lots.

I arrived back at the apartment just before 3pm expecting to find Nini and her mum there but somehow I had got a completely false picture in my mind. I do that sometimes, I create a scenario. I tried phoning Omaira but, despite doing so earlier, all I got was three bleeps. I waited till 3.10 and then took a taxi to the airport.

By the way, earlier I had said goodbye to Milena and she shows all the signs of being a little bit enamorado with me, I hope her husband doesn't see all those kiss emojis. I gave her 200 mils for being a great friend and support. It was easy to do, I had 250 mils in my wallet and I realy don't know when I will be back. So I left myself with 50 and gave the rest to her. I don't need any money in the airport and very soon I will be spending euros again.

I took the short flight from Pereira to Bogotá and that just about brings me up to date. It is 8pm now and the flight is at 9.20pm. It arrives in Barcelona around 1pm local time.

Another beer? Yeah, why not!

Monday 9th - Fiesta

Today, Fiesta doesn't mean a party! It also means a Bank Holiday (in English-speak), Epiphany. A few days ago, Christmas Day in Russia and also Ukraine where I will be at the end of the month. And Día de los Reys in Spain.

I walked to Plaza Victoria, got rather bored because almost everywhere was closed. Had a coffee and bought some food in the supermarket. Nini texted me in the morning when I was in the cathedral to wish me a pleasant journey which I took to mean bye-bye because I don't actually travel till tomorrow evening. I spent a lot of time yesterday discussing with Omaira how I could help them buy a house, maybe with a mortage of 16k euros. A basic house of concrete blocks and a steel roof would be around 70 milones here (23k euros). We came to an agreement more or less but I knew that it would not be acceptable to Nini - so a non-starter. (We fell out earlier about it when we were waiting to delivery presents to the children before Christmas). In any case I promised nothing because I had to take professional advice. There were many snags - crazy idea.

Why was I in the cathedral? I will explain. Estephanie has a disease which is not curable, it requires repeating visits to hospital for operations. I had an idea to find a healer here to help her. Or in the absence of that I would try it myself. I have studied under Matthew Manning in the UK and I sent an email to him to ask if he had any contacts in Colombia but his PA replied to say no. Yesterday, Sunday, she was running and jumping around when I went to visit Omaira at home. My fingers were tingling and I so wanted her to be still so that I could put my hands on her. But I had to be content with absent healing and holding her hand as part of a game from time to time. The concept of healing by touch is rather alien to my friends here I guess and I was concerned not to alarm her mother. So, I was not able to do anything. Incidentally, the paranoia in the UK about touching children does not exist here, neither in Spain. It wasn't about that. I think Luisa would have been alarmed if I attempted healing on the little girl, in fact I asked her permission at one stage. So I was in the cathedral praying for her. I believe amazing things can happen. I don't like to use the word "miracle" because it suggests something very rare and special. Something that makes saints in the Roman Catholic Church. It is more mundane than that. It can happen. And I don't call it "faith healing", it doesn't require faith. It requires the will of the person to get better. Strange as it seems, not always the case. But obviously not applicable in the case of a 3 year old girl. I have a phrase stuck in my mind, I think it is not mine originally, "Make sure before you die, you do something amazing."

Today was rather like one of those grey November Sundays in the UK when I got rather depressed and drank too much. I drink far less alcohol here than I do back in Spain but today was an exception. Don't worry, we are only talking about half a bottle of wine with an egg and bacon sandwich and a strange liquor called Amarillo (yellow). I don't like the taste very much so I didn't drink too much of that anyway. I bought it in the supermarket because I liked the appearance of the bottle and the yellow liquid.

But this afternoon I had absolutely no idea what to do, so I spent it at home. Alejandra has 'flu but she said that we could meet tomorrow morning for a coffee. That will be nice. And then in the evening I go home - a flight to Bogotá at 5.30pm and then around 9pm, to Barcelona. This is my last night in Pereira. Tomorrow I will be sleeping above the Atlantic!

Some people push themselves to physical limits. For pleasure. For some odd reason, I push myself to emotional limits!