Shopping mission

Despite occasional rain and clouds, there's little wind now, daytime temperatures are around 18-20C, and there's the scent of orange blossom in the air, here and there. I had a lie-in and de-stressed after the craziness of yesterday's journey to Salinas. After lunch, I walked through the road tunnel to the Plaza de la Merced, aiming to see if I could trace on foot the proper route for getting out to the autovia following the rio Guadalmedina. 

I wandered briefly around the Mercado de La Merced. It's had a modern makeover, with half of it now being dedicated to specialist bars and restaurants and the other to traditional food stalls. I have yet to visit and find it bustling with activity, and I've been there at several different times. Once I'd walked in the right direction, I was able to join the dots in my mental road map. I then wandered up side streets, and discovered where some of the modern university buildings are. 

I called in a Chinese store near the much busier Mercado Atarazana to buy some replacement light bulbs, then crossed the river to reach El Corte Ingles, to see if could get a motion activated light to install above the door outside the apartment. It's terribly dark there, as the landing light has a time switch. The switches are hard to see in the dark because of their positioning, and the tell-tale light in one of them by the stairwell doesn't work. It's irritating and just a little risky, so I decided the best thing to do was find and install something suitable. Better to light a candle than curse the darkness, as the saying goes. First, I had to work out the right thing to ask for - una luz con interruptor de detección de movimiento would do the job, in the absence of a slang term or brand name to quote. Before I had a chance to ask someone, I found the shelf in a corner of the hardware basement, and instantly identified what I needed. And reasonably priced too.

From there, I went up to the computer department and bought a Devolo wi-fi network booster plug for the apartment. I meant to do this on my last visit but didn't. Given the L shaped layout, and the amount of steel in the apartment framework, it's no wonder that kitchen, hallway and side room have no signal at all.  I just hoped it would be the simple solution needed.

Setting up the booster for use later on, I didn't succeed using the router's WPS button to broadcast the access code to handshake with the plug's WPS. There are no instructions for the the route to tell how long the WPS button has to be pressed for its signal to be picked up - if it works at all. I was, however, able to use the manual setup option, and key in the passcode. I used the office Windows 7 computer to do this, as I couldn't find out how to access the setup routine using my Chromebook. In the course of trial and error obtaining a WPS signal, the router lost its internet connection. I had to switch it on and off several times before connection was re-established, and each time the reboot was slow. Never mind. It took half an hour instead of five minutes, but it makes such a difference being able to listen to Radio Four news on a phone while I cook or eat a meal in the small dining room next door to the kitchen. NOw I need to borrow a drill and install that light!