2019-05-31 Hanging around the villa - thoughts on travel and owning stuff, Xavier, Spain

0830 Up and about. A bit groggy, but not too mad. Must have called it a night at around midnight and got a decent night sleep. C cooked eggs for everyone for breakfast and a few coffees later and felt right as rain. The weather is truly beautiful. The villa is great, but there's work next door. Doing the pool area so drilling and cutting all week which puts a bit of a downer on things. Think we got about 300 Euros back as a gesture from the owner. Can't really make up for the place not being as relaxed though. Never mind.

1300 - A few beers by the pool, reflecting on life. I totally love holidays and traveling light. Just having a few belongings and a few gadgets. I feel like the world is my oyster. I've seriously got to think about what I'm doing with things where I'm just wasting my life away at home. There is so much to see and experience. It's always been a dream of mine to cycle around the world, one day I've got to make that happen. Just take a year out and do it. I've got the cash now where If I lived fugally, I could probably travel on my bike non-stop for the rest of my life. Wouldn't be much of a sociable life, plus I now have a wife and responsibilities it's not really feasible. Still, travel even short holidays to Spain make me realise just how little I need. A pair of shorts, flip flops, a few T-shirts, Jumper, MacBook, Camera, Phone, GoPro, Credit Card, Passport. That's it. That's all I need to have the huge adventure that is life. I miss those days when I travelled through Australia for 3 months. No internet, just a cassette player. That was the life. Ofcom have just released a study that shows Brits spend 50 days year online. What a waste of life. Much preferred it back in the day when I wasn't constantly connected to the Matrix. This is always a theme of my life and certainly when I travel. I really need to take that philosophy home. Do what makes you happy. I need to clear out a load of shit I have at home. I've collected way too many belongings in the 39 years I've been on the planet. I really need to have a bloody good sort out. I also don't need any new stuff. No new gadgets, no more Amazon. I'm pretty good at mot buying stuff to be fair.

On the stuff business, I've even brought too much gear out here. I really don't need half the stuff I have. I brought way too many clothes. I guess when dressing to impress you have to wear a different outfit every night for 7 nights. Pointless, but that's the way society is. I've always been a bit different, I hate designer labels. They actually look stupid to me. If I see someone wearing a Hugo Boss polo, I just think what a wanker. That's just the way I'm wired I/m afraid. I think maybe people think I'm a bit of scrooge, but what's the point of spending 300x more on a polo shirt that's been made in the same sweatshop in Vietnam because It's got some label on it. I should really take that list of things I need in life, and just work with those for the rest of my days.

The other thing that's been cool is I've been relying on one plug point. That's cool because it makes you think about what device to charge when you can only charge one at a time. I'm also trickle charging my MacBook, so that means I have to limit how long I can use it for. This is nice as thinking about power as a finite resource across all my devices means I don't waste time on any. I use them as a utility. Then shut them down. This is a really cool philosophy I need to adapt at home.

Anyway, time for more beer, sunshine and book. Reading Head Hunters now, decent book, but I need to nail it as I want to get on with the next one.

Still loving this daily writing, even more so when on holiday. Write, walk, drink, read. Life is sweet.

1530-1730 Walked out to Cap Prim with Ethan. Was a fairly hard walk. A good old climb up, the roads, then off road for a bit. The veiws were spectacular. Well with the effort. Everyone else hung out at the villa. Boring old fat gits. It was a really nice walk though and E was a pretty cool bloke for a teenager. Chatted a fair bit about video games and how his mates would never have done anything like it. Good for him to get out and about. It's sad that a lot of modern kids don't have the drive to go on mini adventures climbing hills and rocks and things like that. It was a long hot walk back so I jump d in the pool.

The evening was basically a repeat. Groundhog night. Lots of booze and red meat. I need a break, but then I always need a break. It turns out D is a bit of a knobhead, C certainly thinks so, made it known when cutting the cake too. Still it was a fun night, bit of wall ball. Still feel a bit like we are crashing a family thing. Never mind they did invite us.