Between the 8th to 14th November Guardia civil officers issued 3,316 fines for driving while distracted, 2800 were for using a mobile phone while driving, 32 for adjusting or programming a GPS satellite navigation system, 124 for using headphones, 368 for other behaviours that were considered to be distracting whilst driving. The clampdown is part of a special campaign. A positive point that arose was the fact that 25% of the vehicles stopped had a hands free kit.
Last week i decided to give a different operating system a go. Mainly because the hard disk on my desktop failed and the new HD has no operating system on it and i havent got any up to date O/S s on disk. So did a little bit of research and decided Ubuntu 10.10 was about the best free to download. It took three attempts before i got good download so it was a good job i was useing a CDRW disk, once downloaded it is possible to run the operating system without installing it. i tried this and it looked good so installed it. basically i put it in the CD drive answered a few questions and it was installed, and up and running. The default browser is Mozilla Firefox which i have never used before either, so i spent the day exploring, trying applications out and putting my important files into folders. i am very impressed, internet, music, video, printer, scanner, email etc all work without any messing around.i had one or two questions regarding how different applications work but there is an excellent Ubuntu forum, You can post a question and it is normally answered within minutes by very helpfull people.
As this is not Microsoft, programmes like MS office are not usable. but there are many good alternatives that are included in O/S installation and more available from the Ubuntu software centrethere is a programme you can download that converts some Microsoft programs for use on the operating system.
A new version of Ubuntu is released every six months, but i am quite happy with this version with firefox and would quite happily use it without going back to Microsoft Windows again. which i will keep on my laptop just in case i find i have to use Microsoft at any time.
We appear to have the changeable weather arrived, Friday it was a nice day but cold, Saturday it was bleak, cold and rainy, Yesterday it was a beautifull day, clear skies and warm sunshine, and today its a grey rainy day again and quite chilly. Its actually not that cold but we have acclimatised to a warmer climate. I dont know how we would cope if we were in the UK, with below freezing temperatures and snow.
We went to Grand opening of the new El Olivo Market this morning situated the Dolores side of Catral on the Calle de Hondon. the market will be held every Tuesday and Sunday from 09.00 till 14.00.
When we arrived at around 10.30 there was not many people and for the area the market site covers, only a scattering of stalls, there was a variety of goods for sale of the usual market items and several bars and cafes. It was obvious that some of the stall holders and cafes have gone to a lot of expence and effort to create a good impression and get businesses going. But with the Dolores Sunday market just down the road, and also the big Lemon tree market near Torrevieja also on Sundays its not going to be easy.
Available for for hire to stallholders are open fronted portacabin type stalls and numbered marked pitches over the rest of the site, If they are all taken it will be a very big market on a par with the lemon tree.
For the opening today the Market site owners had hired a security firm to direct vehicles to the car parking for which is for around 1500 vehicles, there were also donkey rides, Bouncy castles and a free giant Paella.
The market is on a large flat plot and with only a moderate wind the gusts were playing havoc with the stall holders awnings and because of the new grit surface there was a lot of dust in the air.
The K9 animal charity has now opened its own charity shop in La Marina urbanisation,(La Escuera) the shop is in the same shopping complex as the famous Domti and on Carrer De Alfredo Kraus. it is a good size shop with a wide variety of second hand, clothes, books and other bric a brac, im sure if you have any items to donate they will be welcome, call into the shop and browse for a bargain, help the animals and recycle at the same time.
