This week, we’re in Norfolk, England! I’ve teamed up with Claire from clairetaylorwriting.com to bring you the similarities and the differences between living in Alicante, Spain and Norfolk, England.

This time, it’s a relatively quiet day on the Costa Blanca. It’s a Thursday, it’s my grandad’s birthday and it’s a full day of work. Here’s what happens.

Thursday 17th January 2019:

My alarm starts buzzing at 8:30am. Yes, you heard that right. My alarm clock. What?! Lauren has started an alarm, what is this madness? Yeah, it confuses me too.

So, the final thing I did before the bells chimed midnight on New Year’s Eve was wash up. Why you ask? I decided this would be the year I manage my time more effectively. Starting with having a more structured routine. Scheduling time for cleaning. Scheduling set times for blogging and setting set times for daily routines. It’s working.

I give myself twenty minutes waking up, playing a few games of Brawl Stars and Clash Royale before heading to the kitchen to feed Rio and make myself a cappuccino. Rio dives off the bed at the speed of light and skids the entire way to the kitchen. He’s lucky we have tiled floors.

It’s my Grandad’s birthday so I send him a quick message to say Happy Birthday. We sent him a cricket style birthday card and a gift voucher from an online card shop so hopefully, it makes it there in time.

I log on to the computer and get cracking with work. I have blog posts to write for a dance company that I sort the social media for, so it’s a case of trudging through to get to the word count whilst naturally sprinkling keywords and SEO friendly terms. I much prefer the freedom to post how I like. But, needs must.

The alarm rings shortly after 12 and that signals that it’s time to stop blogging. I allow myself two snoozes, just in case I’m in the flow. So, sometimes it’s a case of typing super speed – like I am now! It means I keep things in proportion. I’ve noticed it’s made a hell of a difference with my productivity. I know that I have to do it. No time for procrastination.

I make a drink of juice and sit on the balcony in the reading corner. Rio jumps up beside me and we sit and watch the sea flow. I play a few games on my iPad and scroll through social media. It’s such a nice use of downtime. Watching the boats up on the horizon is such a wonderful thing. We’re so high up that we can see right into the distance and sometimes I watch the cruise ships and huge fishing ships beyond the horizon and wonder where they’re going. Some people watch planes, I watch the boats. They’re so serene and peaceful, seemingly moving so slowly across the sea.

I take Rio for a short walk mid-afternoon before getting ready to go to work.  I make a coffee to walk to work with.

I commute to work, Thursdays are a long day for me so I head to the sweet shop and pick up some chocolate and sweets before heading to the local supermarket and grabbing some fruit and fizzy pop to keep me going.

After class, long after the sunset, the temperature is cold and bitter. I’m glad of my coat at this point. Alex takes us home and we have pasta for dinner. After today, I won’t see Alex until Monday evening as I’m off to Edinburgh for the weekend. I scramble around making sure I have everything in my case before settling into bed to watch Hunted on Channel 4.

Another day has ended. It’s time for bed.

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Similarities and Differences

Norfolk is a county that lies in East Anglia in England, bordering Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and Suffolk. The county town of Norwich is renowned for being a beautiful historic town with Romanesque buildings. It is a popular tourist destination for bucket and spade beach holidays combined with arcades and a typical fish and chips along the shoreline.

With an area of 2,074 square miles and a population of 860,000+, it is minute compared to the 5 million in the Valenciana community region. The county of Norfolk is largely rural compared to the mountainous, wetland and beaches geography of here. The region of Valenciana is one of the hottest summer temperatures making here a popular tourist destination for sun worshippers. Similarly, Norfolk is often one of the hottest places in the UK in summer.

Interestingly, Norfolk is one of the few counties in England that doesn’t have a motorway.  The local airport, Norfolk International Airport has very few connections, however, it does have a link to Amsterdam which connects to the rest of the world. Similarly, Alicante also has limited flights. However, we too have a connection with Amsterdam which provides onward journies.

The one bit of unique tourism to me though was the fact that in Norfolk they home the oldest and best-preserved mammoth skeleton ever to be found across the world. It’s definitely something very exciting and interesting to have in your county!

 

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Hasta luego,

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*Please note, next available date is currently July 2019.

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