An English Christmas - Part 1

Merry Christmas!

It's been a long time since I set foot on English soil. I left the UK for Portugal on August the 1st, 2011 and have barely looked back. And so a trip to England this Christmas was almost overdue.

The flight here was awful. Truly mind numbingly absurdly terrible. The traffic on the motorway to the airport was busier than I'd ever seen it and so my family and I arrived at the airport later than we'd planned to. After queueing for ages to check in our suitcases we eventually proceeded to go through security where we then had to empty out most of our hand luggage so that the officers could verify that our children's electronic games were indeed just electronic games. Thankfully passport control went without a hitch and then a member of the hi-vis jacketed ground crew escorted us across the tarmac and up the steps to board the plane. Phew! We'd made it just in time. Well, just in time to sit and wait while the crew patrolled the plane checking everyone's boarding passes to deduce the identity of a missing passenger. To my mind, in the sensible and technologically advanced world that we live in, I would have expected the crew to have walked the aisle on the plane with a hand-held barcode reader, scanning everyone's boarding cards, which would have taken fifteen minutes. But no such luck here. An hour and a half of people checking and re-checking printed lists ticking people off with ballpoint pens. Fortunately that was the last of the problems and the flight went without further incident. We landed, collected our luggage, picked up our hire car and set off through the stormy night towards my wife's brother's house in Sussex.

Yesterday I took my family out for a gentle walk in the local town, just briefly, in the cold, along the high street of the local town to look at the festively decorated shop windows and simply enjoy walking along an English high street. We visited a couple of haberdasheries and finally a bookshop, where my children enjoyed perusing the shelves of English books. And I must say it was rather strange to hear English conversation going on. Driving back was also strange. My wife had driven from the airport and this was my first attempt at driving on the wrong side of the road, and indeed in a car with the controls on the wrong side too. In that very short journey I hit my right hand against the drivers door three times in attempting to grab the gear stick! I'm sure I'll get used to it just in time to return to Portugal and then have to re-re-adjust to driving on the right side (in every sense!) of the road again!

Today, I've had a lazy family day, with the children playing games and watching a variety of cartoons while my wife and I have continually checked the weather reports for flood warnings along the planned journey to Wales to stay with her parents for the next leg of our English Christmas. While I was at it I also took the liberty of checking the Portuguese weather and it looks like Lisboa will be enjoying a balmy sunny 15 degrees on Christmas day; I'd be lying if I said I wasn't jealous! Tomorrow's UK weather however does look like it's going to be much brighter than it has been for the last couple of days and the rain will be easing off from this very stereotypical English downpour. So, with that in mind, my family and I plan to set off bright and early tomorrow morning for Wales.

It's Christmas!

Well, that festive time of year is upon us once again. The shops are full of silvery tinsel and cheesy seasonal muzak. And customers! Lots of customers! At least that was my experience last weekend when my family and I hit the shops in force to wrap up (Geddit?) our Christmas shopping. In the shopping centre, glistening stars hung from the roof and the nativity scene was so much bigger than last year that it even included it's own wishing well area in which to deposit your small change. Adjacent to the nativity scene was a makeshift barred off area where one could queue up to see Santa, who for reasons unknown was not at that time sitting on his splendid red and gold throne. And all this was dwarfed by the enormous decorated tree reaching up through the space next to the second floor food court, and rising majestically up into the glass roof above. It was all intensely festive.

A new Christmas tree was, as it happens, on the very top of my own shopping list. You see, last year I bought a ten euro tree from the supermarket. A branch fell off when I put it up. Another branch fell off when I took it down. And would you believe it that a third branch fell off as I took it out of the box this year. So, a new tree was in order. To be honest my wife and I had talked about giving the whole tree thing a miss this year since we would be spending most of the Christmas holidays staying with relatives in England. But that was not to be however, and under the pressure of screaming children I was coerced into buying a new tree. First I went to Continente, which is where I bought the tree last year, only to find that they had sold out of all except the 69 euro ones, and I'm not paying that much for a fake tree! Next I went to Conforama to see what trees they had, but alas they'd nearly sold out too, having only small white trees left. You can call me a traditionalist if you like, but as far as Christmas trees go, green is the only colour. At this point I left my wife and the two eldest kids in the shopping centre while my youngest and I got in the car for a quick trip to Aki, which is basically Portugal's equivalent to B&Q. A-ha! Success! Just inside the door, on the right hand side, was an area devoted to all that is Christmas: Trees, tinsel, baubles, fairy lights and even Christmas wreaths for your front door! A quick scoot up and down the rows of trees to look each one over for build quality and price and it was done. Number 6 was the one. My wife had instructed me to get a few extra lengths of tinsel and I couldn't resist getting a new set of fairy lights too, and so my son and I made our way to the checkout to pay for our glittery purchases.

Back at home and I set to erecting the tree. I opened the box, removed the instructions, glanced at them, threw them to one side and then set about putting it all together. I assembled the base, slotted the sections in the correct order and then spent then next hour fanning out the tinsel branches. Talk about tedious. I was starting to think that it would have been a good idea to miss out the whole tree thing after all. The children helped to decorate it with various baubles from the box and a collection of colourful paper stars and other decorations they'd made from a craft book courtesy of the grand-parents.

So the tree is up. The "wreath" is hung on the front door and the children's advent calendars each have a daily decreasing amount of festively shaped chocolates hidden inside. Christmas day will be upon us with all due haste, and probably before we think. There's still plenty of jobs to be done before Christmas though. Gifts to be bought and wrapped. The children still need to write their letters to Santa. (They're late with this every year, but I think Santa is a very understanding guy with an excellent rapport with the postal services of the globe!) Christmas cards need writing and posting. And it all needs to be done before we head back to England for the holidays.

Personally I'm not really looking forward to one or two aspects of returning to England. Driving on what is essentially now "The Wrong Side of the Road" fills me with utter terror. I'm completely paranoid that I will try and go anticlockwise around a roundabout! And what about the weather? I'm really not looking forward to the cold weather. And driving on those icy roads? Crikey! Of course the children are getting excited about it; more and more so with each passing day. (That is after all the whole point of advent calendars, isn't it?) They're excited about spending Christmas with family in England. And of course they'd like it to snow so that they could build a snowman and throw snowballs. (If memory serves me rightly, the last time that they built a snowman was Easter Sunday of 2011!) I suppose in all honesty, I'd quite like it to snow too and have fun helping them build the their snowman. Yes, to have some snow would be nice. One of the other things I am looking forward to is a walk out to the country pub for a delicious pint of real ale, and that would be so much more festive if the walk was through a crisp blanket of fresh snow.

I might have chance to post again before Christmas, but if I don't, here's wishing you a "Feliz Natal!"

Being A Tourist Again

First, an apology. I've been a bit busy recently doing other stuff and have neglected my blogging duties somewhat. I hope to redress the balance in the forthcoming weeks and finish off a few of the draft posts that I have currently sitting there waiting for those extra few lines or a suitable picture. So here goes...

A few weeks back my I took a short weekend break away in the Algarve. I'd taken my eldest son down there to meet with an old friend of his from England who was on holiday with his family in Albufeira. Now some of you will no doubt know Albufeira very well, having been there yourself on holiday, but for me, this was my first time there. (Well, that's not strictly true, but my first visit earlier in the summer doesn't count: It was a fleeting visit to drop someone off and I was in and out again within 5 minutes.)

I'll cut to the quick. Saturday morning, eight o'clock, and the sun was still hiding away behind the houses a little. Washed, fed and watered and by nine o'clock and we're motoring down the highway through a very foggy Alentejo. The sun was clearly trying it's hardest to shine and it's heat was lifting the moisture from the rain soaked Earth creating a magical blanket of dense rolling fog, drifting ominously across the carriageway. At some point between half nine and ten we stopped briefly to stretch our legs at the Grândola services. I was very much welcoming the relief from driving while my son was lavishing the chance to spend a euro in the Racing Car Games Machine. I think that any irony I may have displayed was completely lost on him! By the time we had resumed our journey the fog had lifted and the driving was much easier. We were in Albufeira by eleven fifteen and with only one wrong turning we managed to find the hotel and get easily parked. I swear that "extra" roundabout wasn't on Google Maps!

The lady at the hotel check-in desk informed us that our room wasn't ready yet, but that we could use the luggage room until it was. With the hold-all stashed away, we went off to find our friend's apartment and give these two 8 year old boys a massive surprise. Down the corridor we walked, counting the room numbers as we went, with the anticipation of meeting for the first time in over a year building up and up, until finally we reached room 110. I rang the bell. Footsteps could be heard from the other side of the door. The lock clicked, the door began to open, light from inside the room slipped out through the ever widening crack in the door illuminating the darker hallway.

"Uh. Hello."

"Hi," came my son's decidedly nonchalant reply.

What an anti-climax. From their reaction you'd have thought that they'd only been apart five minutes.

We spent the afternoon at first in the hotel pool. Although the sun had been shining all morning and had been hot enough to burn off the Alentejano fog, it was clearly not hot enough to heat up the pool. After half an hour the general consensus was that we'd had enough of the freezing cold pool and a walk to the beach to make sandcastles was a much better way to spend the afternoon. It took a while to get us all organised since there were eight of us altogether (my son, his friend plus two siblings and four adults, including myself) but eventually we found ourselves at the expansive and picturesque Praia Azul. The children spent the next couple of hours playing on the beach, running in and out of the surf, paddling in the shallow water and furtively designing sandcastles, dams, irrigation channels and other sandy creations.

That evening we hit The Strip in search of our evening meal. The Strip is a bazaar kind of place. It's like someone lifted up Skegness and placed it back down again in the middle of the Algarve. Admittedly there are no amusement arcades or chip shops, but the neon lights shine out in the sky, advertising all the wonderful places to eat, drink and be entertained. The road from the hotel led us out onto The Strip part way along, and so we walked down to the end and back again, finally settling into a restaurant called La Bamba offering a mix of both typical Portuguese and distinctly Italian food. The food was delicious and i must say, worth every last cent. With full bellies we retired back to the hotel, to put some very tired children to bed.

Sunday morning and the rain came. I caught the weather report on the television and the entire map of Portugal was covered in dark black clouds with little computer generated raindrops dripping from underneath them. Of course you didn't need to see the weather report to understand that the rain had come, but simply open the curtains! However, since it seemed that the rain was intent on continuing, and that we'd made plans to visit the Old Town today, there was nothing else to do but get our raincoats and brollies out and head off to explore.

I've been to old fishing villages in Cornwall before. And I've also been round the back streets of Blackpool too. Well the Old Town of Albufeira was a lot like both of those places at once! Ancient buildings left over from a bygone age of fishermen's tales mixed in with a splash of neon, highlighting the modern tourist tat-shops. The rain had eased off to a pleasant warm shower (nope, not drizzle!) and consequently was not spoilling our exploration of the winding back alleys with their multitudinous overcrowded habberdasheries. As we wandered around we stumbled across the beach, sporting an enormous sand sculpture which very curiously hadn't been washed away by the rain. Later we discovered a tunnel leading through the town wall onto a second smaller beach with a scattering of bars and restaurants along it's edge. All in all, the rain did little to spoil our walk, and although by lunchtime it had started to rain more heavily, we made our way back to the hotel feeling satisfied that we'd had a good experience of the town.

And sadly that was it. Lunch was eaten and it was time to get back into the car for the long drive north. We packed up our bags, said our goodbyes and made our way to the hotel reception to check out. The drive back home was uneventful, verging on the tedious, but seemed to go a little quicker northbound somehow. It had been a fun weekend for my son and I, but alas, our lives in the Lisboa suburbs awaited. Maybe next summer we'll take another trip down south with the whole family?

Linguistic Frustration

Does anyone remember that scene from Monty Python's, "Life Of Brian" where the Centurion catches Brian red handed daubing a huge stone wall with bright red graffiti? Brian is so busy painting that he doesn't notice the Centurion calmly walking up behind him and is somewhat startled when the Centurion says,

"What's this, then? 'Romanes Eunt Domus'? 'People called Romanes they go the house'?"

The Centurion immediately launches into a very intense (and dare I say, hilarious?) Latin lesson for Brian, correcting his appalling grammar and finally makes him "write it out a hundred times." Just for the fans, here's a link to the scene, with some enlightening comments underneath about how the Centurion's grammar is still wrong!

Well that's exactly how I feel when it comes to learning Portuguese. I learnt how to speak English by just kind of soaking it up when I was little, which is I guess, how most people learn their primary or dominant language. The first time around the grammar just kind of seeps into your brain by trial and error. When my kids say, "Dad, I've eated all my vegetables", I put them straight and tell them how they should have said it and over the years they gradually assimilate enough examples to somehow get it right. Learning a second language is much more difficult and I feel exactly like Brian, struggling to properly conjugate verbs and get the correct tenses on everything. I have nobody following me around 24/7 correcting my every mistake, putting me straight and supplying me with a plentiful supply of good examples for me to learn from.

It is often said that 70% of communication is non-verbal, which becomes very obvious to anyone who has tried to buy something in a shop in a foreign country. There comes a moment at the checkout when the attendant asks you if you'd like a bag, and even though you cannot understand the language, their tone of voice and the fact that they have just pulled out a plastic carrier bag from under the counter makes it absolutely obvious what it was that they just asked you. Buying stuff at the Farmácia is usually not too much of a problem either, providing you go in to it with the understanding that most Pharmaceuticals have Latin based names anyway, or at least are very similar to their English counterparts. Of course it often helps if you look up the name of the product you want to buy before you go out to the shops, and for that a good bilingual dictionary is invaluable. For months I have been driving around with a petrol car and refilling with "Sem Chumbo" (literally, "Without Lead") and now I have had to look up the Portuguese word for diesel, "Gasóleo." Initially I pronounced this incorrectly, putting the stress on the "eo" where it should have been on the "ó" and when corrected by the pump attendant, he helpfully informed me that I could quite adequately get away by simply asking for diesel. So, for the most part, buying stuff is usually quite easy; a combination of preparation, persistence and a fair amount of gesticulation usually wins through.

The moment when the shop assistant talks back is when it all goes wrong and the problems start. That moment after I ask for the item I want and they reply with an incomprehensible babble leaving me stunned, speechless and decidedly off balance. They probably only asked me if I wanted it gift wrapping, or if I have a loyalty card, or if I would like a small or a large box of whatever it is that I'm buying, but the honest truth is that I really don't know. I haven't got the faintest clue what I've just been asked. I only know that it was a question from the tone of voice, but other than that, no clue at all. At this point there is often a choice to be made. Do I say, "Yes, please", "No, thank you" or simply explain that I don't understand? It often depends on the situation, and sometimes there may be other clues to help me decide what response to give, but more often than not, I struggle.

So should I really worry about how bad my grammar is? Need I worry that I resort to wildly gesticulating over my shoulder to signify that something happened in the past? Well, no. That's the short answer. Whatever the linguistic barriers I've been faced with over the last year, I've coped, somehow. Truthfully though it would be really quite nice to be able to have a conversation with my neighbours about what they did last weekend and where they are planning to take their children this weekend with no doubt as to the sequence of the events. Telling my wife that I'd bumped into a neighbour yesterday and that he had something to say about going or coming back from the Algarve but not knowing which can be very frustrating. When I am at the bar, I'd like to be able to join in the conversation a little and do more than simply repeat the football score and saying how good it was. I guess it will come. I guess it would come along a lot quicker if I got myself some Portuguese lessons. But as the Portuguese saying goes, "Burro velho não aprende línguas", which literally means, "Old donkey does not learn languages."

I'm planning to go to the municipal swimming pool sometime soon and book my kids in for some swimming lessons. My eldest son is a little nervous about it because he only wants the lessons if they are conducted in English, and I can understand his anxiety, however, I do feel that it would be really good for him if the instruction was in Portuguese. That aside, the first problem for me is that I have to manage to book the lessons, and that means that I need to sit down and figure out some key phrases, and then hope and pray that I have figured out the right key phrases to get the job done. Wish me luck!

Tickets Please!

Buses. Taxis. Trains. Oh, the tedium! What with all my recent car trouble (I won't labour the point any further...) I've been using an awful lot of public transport to get myself about places. And it's getting somewhat tiresome.

The first thing you have to contend with if you want to use public transport to get anywhere is buying a ticket. And you'd think that after living here for a year that I wouldn't have any problems doing exactly that, but you'd be wrong. A year ago, when I first arrived, I would use the buses quite frequently to get to the shops, or to the beach, and so forth. And I'd step on and ask for a ticket. Two Euros and fifteen Cents each they'd cost. Blimey! Even with one free toddler it was an expensive business getting the family around. Then someone told me not to bother and to use taxis instead, which cost around a fiver to get to the supermarket or beach. But with a family of five many taxi drivers wouldn't allow us to travel; some would, with my littlest one on my knee, but most would not. And then I discovered "Pre-Comprado" or "Pre-Buy" bus tickets which came in two, four and eight journey varieties. The eight trip ones came in at around a Euro per journey and so I thought that my prayers had been answered. Free travelling toddlers considered, this meant I could get my entire family to the beach for the extraordinarily low price of four Euros. And that was it. My journey along the road of cheap public transport had reached it's destination. Well, it had for buses at least. Trains were another matter. Again, a year ago I bought some train tickets to allow my family and I to travel along the Cascais branch line that runs from Lisboa, along the coast to Cascais, and I thought that I had it sussed. The tickets came in the form of a re-usable green card with a microchip inside that I could recharge with tickets at any number of payment machines in the stations. Except they didn't seem to work on the Lisboa Metro system, which I'd read on travel websites that they should. After queueing up at a ticket booth to talk to an actual person, it came to light that I'd charged our tickets up in the wrong way. Instead of charging them with distinct tickets, I should have charged them up with "Zapping", that is, just a monetary value which would decrease by the correct amount every time I scanned it through the machine to use the train or Metro. Fantastic!

All was well with the ticket situation until last week, when the bus company decided to kill off the "Pre-Comprado" tickets and instead replaced them with rechargeable "Zapping" cards identical to the ones that you can use on the trains. Except they aren't the ones you can use on the trains. They look the same and they work in exactly the same manner. Except that now I need to keep two of them in my wallet; one for the trains and one for the buses. The train one I can recharge at a machine in the train station and the bus one I can recharge at the kiosk in the bus station. Easy as pie. Or so it seems right now. I can't wait until next week when everybody's bus ticket needs recharging and suddenly the queues at the kiosks grow to 20 or 30 people long with everyone desperate to recharge their ticket before the once-hourly bus leaves in 30 seconds time. It will be ridiculously farcical I'm sure. Perhaps that won't happen. Perhaps everyone will be organised enough to leave plenty of time to get their bus ticket charged, but I very much doubt it.

Of course, once you have your ticket, and have successfully validated it in whatever the appropriate machine is for your journey, you can get on, find a seat and settle down to enjoy your journey, yes? No. Not enjoy. Endure. The main reason that the vast majority of people travelling around from place A to place B do their travelling in their shiny magic wheeled boxes called Cars is because they don't want to have to share their journey with anyone else, isn't it? For me personally I can live with the crying children. I can live with having to stand because there are no seats left. What is difficult is the paradigm of having to travel in a carriage with many other people who are all absolutely intent of pretending that they are the only person travelling. It's a kind of strange version of Lift Embarrassment. You know, that awkward silence that happens when you get in a lift and everyone is staring at the blank silver metal walls desperately trying to avoid making any kind of eye contact with anybody else. This strange effect of quietly sharing transport under the pretense that you are alone is compounded when one or more travellers decide to break the silence and suddenly talk, either into their mobile phone or to the person next to them, and almost inevitably, in a loud enough voice for the entire carriage to overhear the conversation. And even though I can't understand most of what is being said, since it is usually being said in Portuguese, I somehow still feel embarrassed to be listening in.

However, like I said, I can deal with all that; the awkward silences; the crying children; the surprise changes to the ticketing systems. None of that is a real problem. The main disappointing aspect of public transport is of course the inescapable fact that, inevitably, if you want to get from A to B, that you have to wait for the bus or train to arrive before you can start your journey. For me to get to work I have to ride a bus for eight minutes (according to the timetable) and then a train for nine minutes (again, according to the timetable) followed by a short walk up the tree lined driveway, and yet because of all the waiting involved, the entire journey can take me fifty minutes. The journey home is even worse, since there is only one bus per hour and if the train timetable doesn't sync up with the bus one it can take up to an hour and fifteen minutes to get home. And that really grinds, doesn't it?

Perhaps I'm being somewhat unfair? Public transport isn't all bad. (Should there be a "that" before the word "bad" in the previous sentence? I'm not sure.) It's cheap and environmentally friendly. It's reliable. Well, mostly. And this morning it was even kind of relaxing. Yes, that is what I said. Relaxing. I was on the train and it was quite busy. I had to stand up, near the door. I looked down the carriage at all the people sitting and looking out of the train windows at the houses going by and the occasional glimpse of the sea in between the apartment blocks. A significant number of people were flicking through the morning paper or quietly chewing their way through a nice thick book. The gentle murmur of the few talkers almost completely drowned out by the hypnotic clickety clack of the rails. And I thought to myself that this journey has to be better than sitting in a car in some traffic jam somewhere, doesn't it? Nobody was getting stressed about whether or not they were going to be there on time. No one was gesticulating wildly about the incompetence of the other road users. At that very moment in time (and for a whole nine minutes!) it all seemed very calm and pleasant.

So Public Transport isn't all that bad. But? Will I be happy when I have a car again and not have to worry about making certain to be standing in the bus shelter by twenty past seven every morning? Will I be happy when I can get home after a long day in fifteen minutes flat? You bet I will!

Summer Is Over. Or Is It?

By 'eck it rained on Saturday night. It absolutely blooming threw it down. I was staying up late, watching a certain Mr Schwarzenegger kill a particularly nasty alien Predator, when I nodded off on the sofa, like you do when you're watching a film that you've seen at least 4 or 5 times before. And then I woke up. At first I wasn't exactly sure what was happening, like you don't when you are woken up suddenly by a strange noise outside. The television was proudly displaying the words "Sem Sinal" in the middle of the screen, indicating that it was, as the message says, "Without Signal." This was the final clue that I needed to understand what was happening through my dozy haze. No signal on the telly. It must be raining. Anyone who lives here and has a massive dish on the roof for receiving foreign telly (or has been reading my blog from the start and paying attention) will tell you that you can't watch the satellite telly when it's raining.

It was a massive release. Quite literally in that the heavens had opened in a most dramatic way, but also in a more figurative fashion too. Having not had any rain since May, it was as if the very Earth itself was breathing a sigh of relief to feel the moisture in it's soil. As the torrent came down I stood with the patio doors open, looking on, watching the dry dust from between the cobbles being thrown up into the air a couple of inches due to the sheer force of the rain hitting the floor. I stood there for about five or maybe ten minutes, watching and listening to the rain. Standing there in awe, like a person who'd never seen rain before. And then, as if some great universal entity was intent on making sure that I knew exactly what rain was, the downpour got heavier. The droning pitch of white noise suddenly went up a semi-tone (or there abouts? I'm not pitch perfect!) as the rain continued with a renewed vigour. Smell was the next of my senses to become aware of the assault, as I realised that the air had that clarity and freshness to it that a heavy rainfall brings. I stood there for maybe a minute longer before thinking that it was time to hit the sack. The film was no longer an option and I'd already nodded off on the sofa anyway, so what else was I to do? However, the compulsion to watch the rain for a few minutes more from the higher vantage point of the upstairs window was strong, and so I stood for a while looking out over the village and across the valley, in sheer wonderment at the rain pouring down onto the houses and gardens, forming rivers in the roadside gutters, washing away the dry summer.

When I awoke on Sunday morning and looked out into our garden it was clear to see the aftermath of the torrent. Sodden piles of leaves had collected in the nooks and crannies and a few small muddy puddles remained. The air was refreshingly calm and cool. By mid morning the puddles were starting to dry out and throughout the day the air remained clear and the temperature remained lower than it previously had been.  In the middle of the afternoon another brief (and much less forceful) shower hit, as if to serve as a reminder to the downpour of the previous evening, but it was not to last.

At work yesterday the number one topic of conversation was the rain. And not one single solitary person had anything bad to say about it! Quite the contrary in fact. Many were raving about how fantastic Saturday night's storm had been and others were being a little more down-to-earth about things and merely stating how good it was for their gardens. For whatever reasons people were unanimously happy about the rain. This may seem a little strange to many, but when you have months without any rain at all, and then it absolutely hammers it down, it's a good thing.

This morning the weather was the same as it was yesterday. Cloudy and warm with a fresh wind, but no rain. Well maybe a few drops, but it didn't come to anything. Then, this evening, just as my wife and children were coming home from work and school, the heavens opened once again. It's not been quite as torrential as it was on Saturday night but it has lasted longer. Three hours on and it's still raining. I reckon it will stop soon.

So, is summer over? Technically, I suppose so, yes. Autumn is almost certainly here. But you have to remember that last October was really hot and sunny. And of course you have to also remember that Portuguese rain comes down all at once, not like that horrid English Drizzle. There's hope yet for more sunny days to come. Yes, many more sunny days.

Wine Making Time Again

Yesterday morning I was busying myself with being lazy when suddenly my wife called to me from the garden. She'd spotted in the street the man that cuts our hedges for us, Senhor P, who was apparently back from his month long Algarve holiday. Now our hedges grow pretty quickly and after a month of not being cut they are positively rampant. And so out I went, eager to grab him and ask him if he could give them a good trim sometime this week. With the obligatory Portuguese handshakes and courteous greetings out of the way I asked my question, he replied that he could, and I handed him the spare garden gate key. And then I noticed the buckets.

It was about this time last year when I first met Senhor P doing exactly what he was doing yesterday, which was fetching buckets of grapes from out of the back of his car and carrying them down the alleyway, past our front gate, and into his back yard. Thinking back a year, Senhor P must have thought I was a very strange man indeed, because with only a "Por favor!" (I really only knew my Portuguese P's and Q's back then) I'd simply grabbed a bucket in each hand and started helping to carry his grapes to his yard. And indeed I must have been a strange and very naive man back then because it was only when I first stepped into his yard that I realised what he had destined for his grapes. Of course, this year, as soon as I saw the buckets of grapes I knew what was going on and with a hearty, "Ah! Vinho!", and a quick mime of stamping on grapes, proceeded to continue my year old neighbourly tradition, reached down for a couple of buckets and walked off down the alley with them!

In his back yard he had the same equipment that he had last year, namely a large four foot tall, perhaps five foot diameter red bucket on top of which was a simple machine consisting of a hopper, some grinding gears and a turning handle. After the grapes had been weighed, on a handy set of bathroom scales, his son and I took turns in lifting up and pouring the grapes into the hopper while Senhor P himself took the important job of turning the handle. The grapes went through, along with the stalks and even a few leaves, coming out of the other side crushed and juicy, landing with a wet sloppy sounding 'Splat' in the bottom of the enormous red bucket.  While all this was going on I asked him how many litres of wine he would be making from these grapes. He replied that for every kilo and a half of grapes (or at least that's what I thought he said) he would get about one litre of wine. He then told me that we'd carried through about 80 kilos of grapes today but that he was getting a further 400 kilos on Tuesday. "That's about 320 litres", I thought to myself. My next thought was, "That's enough for one litre every day for the whole year, not counting his month in the Algarve", which surprised me at first, but then I thought about it for a moment more and realised that he must have always been planning to ferment more than the initial paltry 80 kilos considering the size of the large red container currently taking up at least a third of his back yard. It's only now, as I type this, that the thought crosses my mind that all that wine might not actually be just for him. After all, I know that he has a wife and at least two sons, one of which is married, to help him drink it all.

And so, grapes all crushed, the job was complete for now. Being neighbourly, I offered my services again to lift buckets of grapes on Tuesday, said farewell and made off down the alleyway. I hadn't got far when he called me back. Dutifully I returned to his yard wondering why he might have called me back and as I turned the corner through his gate I saw him coming out of his workshop with a bottle in one hand and two shot glasses in the other. "Ginja?" he asked? The English sensibility in me took over and so initially I declined. The prospect of getting drunk on my neighbour's home brewed firewater on a Saturday morning was not a good one. Besides, I'd heard of this drink for the first time only a couple of weeks ago, at a local Festa where a nice lady selling Ginja shots in chocolate cups had described the drink as a sweet liquer. However, Senhor P insisted that I have one and I didn't want to seem rude or ungrateful. As he poured us both a glass I told him that I'd seen the drink at the Festa, to which he laughed and explained that the stuff he made was completely different. Of course anyone who's ever tasted and kind of home brew will know that it never is anything like the commercial brands, so I really had no clue what to expect. Well, it wasn't really sweet to be honest. I mean, there was a hint of fruitiness in there, but a sour fruitiness. There was a distinctly Brandy like flavour behind the fruitiness though, and it certainly had a kick. My god, it had a kick. He offered me a second glass, which I declined. And judging by how clumsy I became half an hour later, that was probably a good decision!

Football Crazy!

I sat in the local bar last Friday night watching Chelsea FC losing badly to Atletico Madrid. Just after half time the landlord ushered me and my drinking buddy through to the back dining room. Now I knew this room existed, having previously watched people coming out of it through the narrow doorway, past the end of the bar area, with smiles on their faces indicating that they had satisfactorily filled their stomachs to bursting. However, what soon became apparent, was that he wanted to show off his new addition to the dining room, namely a very familiar looking large white sheet of plywood screwed to the wall. I instantly recognised this board as being the very same one that had previously been precariously balanced up against the wall in the main bar for use as a projection screen during the Euro 2012 football tournament. And so here it was again, in it's more permanent position, with Chelsea and Madrid battling it out in the relative dark of the dining room in super-gigantico-vision. Being projected onto the wall in such a massive way didn't seem to be helping Chelsea out much though! For those who care, the full time score was 4-1 to Madrid. Anyway, having felt suitably awed by the spectacle, and also a little uncomfortable at being singled out as the Inglês who'd be interested in the big screen, we retired back into the main bar to watch the remainder of the game on the regularly sized television. To be honest I was that focused on the game, and instead spent some considerable time harping on about my car, but as my regular readers well know, that's another story.

Anyway, previously that day, while at work, I had already had a football related conversation with one of my new colleagues. The nature of my job is split among two departments and I was being questioned as to where my true allegiance lay, by means of a football metaphor, to whit, was I supporting Benfica or Sporting? Focusing completely on the football analogy and ignoring any reference to work I replied, "Well, neither actually." as I retrieved my newly acquired Estoril Praia football club season ticket from my wallet and proudly flicked it down on the table between us.

My brother once said on my facebook page that the heat of the Portuguese sun had altered my brain because of my new found fascination for football. Back in Blighty I was not into football in the slightest. My main hobby was playing bass guitar in a metal band and the other guys in the band were all into football in a massive way. There were occasions where we'd have to re-arrange rehearsals because of an important cup tie or league game. The reality of course is that I haven't acquired this fondness for the beautiful game in so much as had it thrust upon me. It's difficult in these parts to avoid the game with Estoril Praia's stadium five minutes walk down the road and two of Portugal's biggest teams in Lisboa only half an hour's drive away. Perhaps the sun has gone to my head? Perhaps not. With my old band mates we always had music to fall back upon when the football conversation got too much for me, but here, it's either football or work. Ah well, what's a man to do, eh?

Last weekend was the first home match for Estoril Praia this season and so, of course, wanting to make the most use out of my season ticket I went. And I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed the match, but perhaps for the wrong reasons. It was almost comical watching the teams run out onto the pitch and line up with the referees and linesmen between them. The opposition were clearly used to playing difficult games against the likes of Benfica and were obviously substantially more muscular than the skinny Estoril players! It was immediately apparent from the first kick of the ball that Estoril's opponents had every intention of putting those extra muscles to full use and beat us to every tackle and every header. Well, not quite. There was a fleeting moment about 4 minutes into the game when Estoril had a cross in to the penalty box with an open goal, but alas, the striker struck, and missed! He missed the ball! I cannot believe he missed the ball. It was like watching a clip from an episode of "You've Been Framed." Alas, we were very lucky to pull back a penalty in the closing minutes of the second half and equalise to a final score of one goal apiece.

Yesterday I took the liberty of checking up on Estoril Praia's standings on the Liga Zon website and was very pleasantly surprised to see that we'd had another good match. As you can see from following this link, the third game this season was against Vitória Guimarães, to whom we drew 2-2. What's more is that we'd apparently had a fantastically dramatic match, if the little graph is anything to go by; One-nil up, then two-nil just after half time and numerous yellow cards on both sides before Guimarães made one back. And it's truly a shame that Guimarães pulled that second goal of theirs out of the hat at the 94th minute, as a win would have put Estoril significantly higher up the table. Ah well. I suppose there is still a very slim chance that Sporting will lose to Marítimo on the 16th and stay at the bottom of the league. A very slim chance indeed.

Journeys (including Campismo, Part 3)

Well, I'm back in Estoril. In fact, I have been for a few days now. It's good to be home. Camping is good fun and all, but, it's nice to be able to sleep on a mattress that isn't full of air. And having woken up this morning in my lovely comfortable bed, I had an important journey to make in my car. To the Volvo garage.
Please forgive me. I'm jumping the gun somewhat. Lets go back a week to the morning I left the Alentejo.

The alarm on my mobile went off at 7. That gave me a couple of hours to get the last few things packed into the car and the tent dismantled before the sun became too hot. But first, put the kettle on! Tea made, I set to getting things done. By ten the sun was beating down and the going was slow. I remembered back at Guincho campsite there was two of us taking the tent down in the shade of the pine trees. Doing it single handed in the mid-morning sun was much more strenuous work! By eleven I had finished. One last brew and I would set off. I said my farewells, thanked my hosts and off I went.

I followed the twisty roads out of the Campo to the IC1 and headed towards Ourique at which point I joined the motorway northbound to Lisboa. I won't go into detail about the kilometres clicking away with each passing olive grove, barragem and pine woodland because you've read all that before, but suffice to say, by Aljustrel services the car was not behaving well. I decided to stop at the services and try and let the car cool down some before continuing, but again, a few minutes after leaving the rest stop I found myself getting the reflective warning triangle out of the car-boot once more. The call was made and I settled down under the shade of a convenient bridge, with an inflatable cushion from the camping gear to sit on and my book to read, to wait for the recovery vehicle. Fifty minutes later a white van with glorious orange flashing lights on top came into view and before I knew it the car was loaded on to the back and we were off. Unfortunately however, not to Lisboa. Apparently the driver was only authorised to take me to his garage, which meant travelling North up the motorway about 20 kilometres and then south on the parallel road back to the town of Aljustrel. Once at the garage we discussed the problem and quickly realised that (a) they couldn't fix it (whatever 'it' was) and (b) it would cost me for them to drive me home. Faced with the choice to stay on in Aljustrel and pay hotel, food and laundry bills or pay for them to get me home, the decision was an easy one. By this point I just wanted to get home! And so off we went, via the cash machine, on to the motorway, past Aljustrel services again, under the bridge where I'd sat and read my book, and eventually, back home to Estoril.

***

A couple of days ago we decided to hire a car and use the other half of our Pena Palace / Moorish Castle tickets. The Moorish Castle is a medieval castle but has many facets to it's history including a period of Islamic occupation, restorations by at least two Portuguese Kings and according to one of the plaques just outside the castle, there are archeological remains on the hilltop dating back over 7000 years.

This last picture features, as promised, the view of Pena Palace from the dizzy heights of the Moorish Castle.

***

Tomorrow I start a new journey in my life. Well, perhaps not a new journey, but the continuation of an old journey along a new road. Tomorrow I start my new job. Unfortunately, due to my continued car trouble, it seems I am destined to travel this new journey by train!

Campismo, Part 2: Life In The Campo

The Campo. It's a bit like Yorkshire. Well, not quite. The rolling curves of the Alentejo hills are decorated not with typical English tree varieties like Oaks, Chestnuts and Sycamores, but instead awash with Olive, Pine and Eucalyptus¹ trees. The segmented farmland is not built with dry stone walls spreading in labyrinthine patterns from grey slate topped farmhouses but instead is dotted with whitewashed Quinta's and low lying corn fields. I remember last December when I last went to stay at my mate's Quinta and took the train there from Lisbon. After the train crosses the river Tejo you find yourself in kilometre after kilometre of flat open olive groves and vineyards and it's only as you continue south towards the Algarve that the terrain becomes steadily more hilly until you reach the Monchique Mountains. The motorway drive is not quite as scenic, but there are times when the road rises a little revealing a billowy carpet of green olive treetops. But it's in the shadowy foothills of Monchique that my mate lives. The drive up to Monchique from his house is always a stunning drive, reminiscent of that scene from the original "Italian Job" film where the winding twisty road is perilously straddled on one side by a wall of rock and on the other by a sheer drop. Quite, quite breath-taking. I hope by this point you're getting a picture in your minds eye of something a little like the views from my friend's Quinta across the valley to the outline of the hilltops across the other side. Personally, I like the summer sunsets the best. The dusty dry orange earth seems to reflect the sunlight up into the hills creating a hazy orange hue to the skyline. However, according to my friend the best time of year to visit the Alentejo is Easter, when the hillsides are filled with a rainbow bloom of wild flowers. This sight will remain for now, firmly written in marker pen, on the very top of my to-do list!

So, Car Trouble aside, we had arrived safely. The tent went up. The tea was brewed. And.... Relax. Take in the scenery. Chat with friends. Eat, drink and be merry. (Tired children put to bed.) Beers. Wine. A lovely evening was had by all. And finally, to bed.

Morning came around seemingly much sooner than one would have expected and as the cockerel crowed the sun beat down upon our Canvas Palace. By half past nine the sun was heating up the bedroom compartments to Sauna-like temperatures. We had no choice but to crawl out and face the day head on. And so it began; the first week of our stay in the Alentejo. The weather was consistently good with baking hot sunny cloudless skies day after day allowing for plenty of summer holiday activities such as reading, drinking coffee in the local cafe, sunbathing, more reading, drinking beer in the local cafe, swimming in the pool, etc, etc. On days when the sun wasn't too hot, or indeed in the early morning or late afternoon it was nice to walk up a few hills and explore. On one particular walk my family and I discovered a lane up to a small lake where we found a picnic table and a couple of delightfully comfortable hammocks (pictured) in which to relax and gently let the time slip past.

In fact the first week flew by, with a steady stream of people arriving on the Quinta in preparation for my good friend's 60th birthday party. Now this was not the first time that I had visited for his birthday, after all, he'd moved out to Portugal some six years ago with his Missus and three younger children to start a new new life. (I guess it would be folly of me to suggest that his move hadn't in some way inspired my own!) And so it was that with each passing day one or more of their older four children would arrive with their partners, university mates or drinking buddies. And so it was also, that with each passing evening the pre-party parties went on later and later. Finally Tuesday came. The day of the Big Party. People arrived from all over the Campo it seemed, driving in from 30km away, including English and Dutch expats, a German punk rock band with their entourage and even a smattering of Portuguese friends. The barbecue was lit and the drink flowed. The music got louder and louder. Not even the accidental breaking of a bass guitar (shame!) and the near brawl that followed could stem the party atmosphere. (Well, it did for a while!) And so the party raged on and on into the small hours...

The following morning I awoke, surprisingly somewhat later than the "half past nine heat limit" and opened the tent flap to rain. Yes, rain. Rain in August. That never happens. Well except for last year when I distinctly remember landing in Portugal on my one-way ticket and walking out of the airport terminal to a torrential downpour! It was a welcome relief I suppose after a week of scorching relentless Alentejano heat, which is almost always a few degrees hotter than Lisboa heat. The tent stood up to the downpour well and we quickly learnt the knack of entering the tent without getting a stream of cold water down our backs! It was perfect weather for the day after such an impressive party; sobering and cooling.

The following day was Thursday and the day that my family and I had planned our return to Estoril. However, despite numerous phone calls to people who were mechanics or to people who knew mechanics we had yet to make any significant progress on the reparation of our car. The decision was made that my family would get a train back home while I stayed on to try for a few more days to get the car fixed. They acquired a lift to Santa Clara train station and caught the 11o'clock train back home. By 3pm I had a text message confirming their safe arrival. And so I was all alone on the Quinta with my old friend, his Missus, their numerous kids, their numerous kid's numerous friends and the rustic geezer from over the hill.

I spent the next four days making phone calls in an attempt to fix my car and contemplating the vastly different lives of all the people that I'd made company with over the last week. I'd met young people who reside in London taking the tube to and from their high powered finance jobs everyday and who relished the opportunity to spend a few days living a life so absolutely completely different to their normal one. I met an intriguing German guy who'd moved out to Portugal 25 years ago with his sister and made his life through fixing cars and trucks by manufacturing his own spare parts. I'd met a Portuguese single Mum who lived and worked as a Sous Chef and part time Cleaner in the Algarve, and of course, I met her extremely vibrant children. The rustic geezer was a constant throughout my stay. He was essentially lodging while he built his house on his own little slice of Campo over the hill. He had very little money and was quite easily the most resourceful and frugal man I have ever met. In my short stay I saw him fix a broken parasol with a length of bamboo, a broken plastic garden chair by sewing the leg back together with wire and heard that back at his house he was busying himself building walls from discarded beer bottles. "No such thing as rubbish", I once heard him say. And on the rainy day I met, on his 88th birthday, a Portuguese man called Seraphim². It truly is a shame that my grasp of Portuguese is so terrible because I would have loved to talk to this man more, after all, he'd lived through two world wars in a country that was essentially neutral under the reign of Salazar. Life in the open Campo is a whole world apart from life in suburban Estoril where everyone is connected to water and electricity supplies, where your neighbours are mere metres away, where life (at least to me) just seems a whole lot more civilised and (dare I say) easy. But perhaps that's the draw of the Campo? Perhaps that's why people decide to settle there; to live apart from the greenback chasing rat race?

"What about the car?" I hear you say. Well, I'd done all I could to get it fixed over the past two weeks, and quite honestly, it was time to go home. It was the 22nd and I did not want to out-stay my welcome. More importantly for me however, I needed to get back to Estoril and start getting my head around starting my new job. Finally, I had reached the conclusion that it would be so much easier to get the car fixed in Cascais than it would in the barren (at least in terms of Volvo specialists) lands of the Alentejo.  And so, I packed up the tent, started up the car and set off North.


¹The presence of the non-native Eucalyptus tree in Portugal is one of great Political contention. Much of Portugal's native woodland has been replaced with fast growing Eucalyptus trees with the intention to farm them for their timber. Unfortunately the trees contain high levels of very flammable Eucalyptus Oil and it is no coincidence that many of Portugal's forest fires happen in such areas.

²I don't normally mention people's names on my blog to preserve anonymity. However, I'm told that when Seraphim was born the Portuguese were only allowed to choose names from a very short list for their children. This also explains the extraordinarily high number of girls named Maria in Portugal.

Campismo, Part 1: Car Trouble

After what seemed like an eternity packing and unpacking and re-packing the car in an attempt to squeeze in everything we wanted to take, we finally set off. Oil and water levels verified and topped up? Check. Petrol? Check. Passports? Check. Kids strapped down with enough entertainment to last them three hours? Check! Let's go!! And after one brief stop off at the garage to check the tyre pressures we were at last, and very much thankfully, on our way. Hurrah!!

Once we were on the motorway there was a distinct raising of spirits in the car and a further second raising of spirits, at least from the designated driver, ie, me, as we crossed the bridge over the Tejo. The stresses of suburban life but most importantly the stresses of driving through Lisboa were behind us. The kilometres drifted past with the sun beating down and with each passing olive grove, barragem and pine forest we drew ever closer to our destination at an old friend's farmhouse in the southern Alentejo.

Time was also ticking on and as we started to think about which service station to stop at for lunch the trouble started. "Cough, cough", went the car. " Everything okay?" asks my wife, to which I reluctantly replied, "No, everything is not okay", and it seemed that the decision to stop at the next services or the one after was made for us. I managed to limp the car up the slip road and into the nearest available parking space. We got out and clutching the blue cool-box found a picnic table to eat our lunch and talk about what we going to do. We were just under an hour's drive away from my friend's Quinta (Farmhouse in Portuguese) and so after much deliberation we decided to go with the "It's an intermittent problem and the car will get us there" option. So we finished our lunch of bread, cheese and fruit and set off on the continuation of our journey.

We got about 30 kilometres down the road and were just leaving the motorway when, at the toll booth, the car started to misbehave again. Just as before, I drove the beast into the nearest available parking space at the side of the road adjacent to the toll booth office. Out came the insurance documents and a mobile telephone and the call was made. All we had to do now was sit and wait for the tow truck to come and get us.

So we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And then, with an unequivocal inevitability, my mobile phone rang. It was the tow truck driver. He spoke no English and my Portuguese is hopeless over the telephone but fortunately for us, the guys that worked in the toll booth office were both bilingual and keen to practice their English. So now, once more, we had nothing to do except wait for the recovery truck. Well nearly nothing. We still had to decide on the destination of our tow truck ride? We needed to make a decision as to whether the tow truck took us onwards to my friend's house or back all the way to Estoril. Tricky choice. After much discussion we eventually decided to throw caution to the wind and go onwards to my friend's Quinta. Our children were hungry for a holiday and we would worry about getting the car fixed later. (Besides, we'd learnt from our previous Car Trouble that the recovery vehicle would only take one passenger, which would mean that if we returned to Estoril the rest of my family would have to get a taxi to the nearest train station at some considerable expense.) An hour later, and one more phone call later, my friend arrived at the toll booth with his 9-seater van, albeit on the other side of the carriageway. The tow truck had also arrived and both of the toll booth attendants had joined us in the lay-by for a veritable roadside knees-up. The attendants, refusing to allow my children to cross the carriageway, ushered my family through the service tunnel under the road and back up the steps on the other side to where my friend had parked up his big blue van. Then they set off in one direction, with me in the tow truck headed in the other direction, both destined to circle round somehow and finish our journeys almost simultaneously at my friend's Quinta in the Campo.

And with the journey at it's eventual end an enormous sense of relief filled our hearts. Clearly the second leg of our journey to Spain and Gibraltar would no longer happen, but none-the-less, we were happy to have arrived in the Alentejo safe and sound. That night we tried to forget about the car, enjoy the company of our hosts and relax over a few beers. Tomorrow we would make some phone calls and try and get the car fixed.

Being A Tourist

Summer it seems is ticking along nicely. The weather is fantastically summery and there seems to be an almost endless list of things I haven't done yet! Sometimes it's difficult to find motivation when the sun is high in the sky and beating fiercely down. However, I have not been completely idle. In between lounging about reading, the car breaking (again!) and the normal day to day stuff, my family and I have been out and about enjoying some of the tourist traps. Yesterday we all went off to Lisbon to visit the Gulbenkian Park and enjoyed the "Centro de Arte Moderna" located there. (Click here for the English version.) And earlier in the week we visited the "Parque e Palácio da Pena" (English version here.) and enjoyed both the sights inside the Palace and exploring the extensive gardens with it's many follies and statues. Photography was not allowed inside either the Art Museum or the Palace Interior, but I did take a few snaps outside Pena Palace...

In that last picture you can just make out the Moorish Castle on the hilltop. The tickets we bought for Pena Palace are valid for the Moorish Castle too, so expect some photos from that very hilltop soon!

The Camping Experiment

Having squashed as much of as little as we had decided to take into the car and having filled our stomachs with a hearty lunch of whatever was left in the fridge we set off towards Campismo Guincho. It was destined to be a long journey and although my wife and I were a little worried that the children would become tired, bored and irritable by the time we arrived they all thankfully seemed to endure the entire 20 minutes of it. But my tedious sarcasm aside, the distance was hardly the point. A change is as good as a rest so they say, and so we were all looking forward to spending a few days in the wild outdoors,except the campsite at Guincho is hardly by any standards "wild" having everything you'd expect from a campsite, right down to the coin-op launderette and overpriced camp shop. So we arrived and having checked in, we drove around a couple of times before deciding on a shady spot under the pine trees to pitch our tent. The practice run in my friend's garden the week before paid dividends and the tent went up easily and quickly. The children were eager to help, holding the bags of tent pegs and standing by in awe at the enormity of our canvas palace.

Time for a cuppa. Handily, there was a space just over from our pitch where the children could kick around a football, so as they were busy doing that I had time to sit back, put my feet up and enjoy a much needed cup of tea. I knew those individually wrapped bags with strings were good for something! And so I sat there waiting for the water to boil on my new camping stove, admiring the view down the lane and over the hills of Sintra with the children playing happily. Bliss. At least until my tea was drunk and the kids had become bored with the football. Time to hit the pool. Cozzies on, towels rolled, armbands inflated and off we went. The swimming lasted a little longer than kicking a footie around had done, and although the pool was quite busy there was plenty of fun to be had splashing about. Except for my youngest, who somewhat understandably didn't like the idea of getting into water with your shorts still on. I mean, after all, who does that? At bath time you're supposed to take off all your clothes, aren't you? So we had some tantrums from him and in the end decided that he would go back to the tent with my wife, leaving myself and our elder two to splash around in the pool and enjoy ourselves until we could stand the cold water no more, which as it turned out, was only about half an hour anyway.

Time for tea, and to put the new stove thoroughly through it's paces with pasta in a tomato and veggie sauce. Whilst my wife was busying herself preparing vegetables on a chopping board balanced delicately on her lap, I set to lighting the stove and putting some water on for the pasta. Cooking for five on a camping stove is not the easiest thing in the world to do. It took an age to boil the water and the wind blew the burner out a couple of times in the process too. I had previously, on the way back from the pool, noticed that some people on the site had what looked like panels of foot long bamboo poles near to their cooking stoves and only whilst cooking my pasta did I realise what they were for! No matter. I repositioned my impromptu cooling box seat to make a small windbreak and carried on regardless. Twenty minutes on and we all settled down on our picnic rug for our first camp cooked meal. And seemingly only minutes later, empty plates were being carried dutifully across the campsite towards the washing up area. Never had such a meal been such an adventure!

As the night drew in, we started to settle the kids down for bed. Of course, being the first night out under the stars for the little tykes, this was not going to be easy! Pyjamas on. A trip across to the shower block. Teeth brushed. Story time. Ok, lights out. Some hope. A second trip across to the shower block. Another story. Ok, lights out. "I'm not tired." Nope, maybe not 'lights out' quite yet. "One more story please, Daddy?" More stories. Anyway, eventually my wife and I had all the kids sleeping and out comes the Travel Scrabble.

Two in the morning and my wife and I are being woken up to take a child to the shower block.

Three in the morning and my wife and I are awoken once more to the noise of the wind blowing the left side of the tent in. No joke. I threw some clothes on, found the car keys, retrieved the mallet from the car boot and set to furiously banging the loosened tent pegs back into the ground. Panic over. Or at least we hoped.

Four in the morning and my wife and I are being woken up to take a child to the shower block.

After a very eventful and tremendously blustery night, with thankfully no further major incidents, we decided over breakfast that we'd take a short walk down to Guincho beach across the dunes that morning to catch some beach time before the sun was too high in the clear blue sky. We packed up our buckets and spades into a bag and headed off. A few metres out of the campsite and we turned left onto the boardwalk across the dunes, through the nature reserve, towards the beach. The wind across from the sea was bracing and fresh. Soon enough we came to the other side of the nature reserve and descended the steps down onto the beach. We stopped briefly at the foot of the steps at the "Bar das Ilhas" for a quick coffee, or in other words, an Ice Cream where the children are concerned. Then we struck out onto the beach and suddenly the bracing fresh Atlantic wind wasn't so fresh and bracing any more. It was fierce and biting and the sand stung our faces, our arms and our legs. Clearly a relaxing morning building sandcastles and digging enormous holes in the sand was out of the question and so we set off back to camp with our metaphorical tails between our legs.

We spent the afternoon on the campsite, swimming in the pool, playing on the swings and socialising with our camp neighbours. A French family's car got stuck in the sandy earth, requiring a helpful push, and on the other side of our tent, an English lady set up camp having cycled a ten week marathon charity bike ride all the way from Cambridge through France, Spain and down the west coast of Portugal. New people were arriving all the time, mostly young couples and groups, presumably in time for the upcoming Oeiras and Cascais music festivals. One couple struck up camp opposite us (on what was our football pitch!) in their camper van.

The second night was a lot calmer than the first. The children settled a lot easier and the tent did not fall down at all. My wife and I stayed up late and played Whist over a few bottles of beer. The German Scout Troop camping near the shower block prepared to set off on their Night Hike. There was one moment at around midnight when, judging from the blood curdling screams, the four Portuguese girls in the pitch behind us apparently discovered some kind of disgusting minibeast in their tent, but that aside, the night was uneventful.

Friday morning had come around far too quickly and the pressure was on to squeeze in another pool session for the elder two kids before lunch, as afterwards the time would need to be spent packing down the tent and shoehorning it all back into the car ready for the arduous and lengthy journey home!

So, what have I learnt from my little Camping Experiment. Buy some extra guy ropes and pegs. Pitch the ten facing away from the prevailing wind. Take more toilet rolls. And don't forget to take the table and chairs. Oh, and most importantly, that camping is lots and lots and lots of fun. Roll on the big trip to Spain and Gibraltar.

Five P's

The summer holidays have begun, the children have finished school and have nine weeks (I think) of unbridled freedom to do whatever they want. Well, almost whatever they want. Of course we grown ups want some time to do the things we want to do too. And some time to do the things we perhaps don't necesarily want to do but never the less need doing anyway. So my better half and I sat down and made a list. Well that's not strictly true. She made the list. I watched. The football. Anyway.... As an old mate of mine used to say, probably following on from his many years of disciplined Army training, "Planning and Preparation Prevent Poor Performance". Five P's. Actually I'm sure he had a sixth between Prevent and Poor but I'm going to refrain from swearing! So now we have a list. And a very long list it is too. Lots of important jobs like completing our UK tax returns, booking Christmas flights back to England while it's still cheap, and of course, making sure that all the children have new school uniforms ready for September. Perhaps that last one is a bad example because the kids are bound have a summer growth spurt between now and then. More urgently on the list is the disposal of our dead Clio which still sits morbidly outside our house. That's a "three pointer" on the list though since it needs the full tank of petrol syphoning out, formally de-registering with the proper paperwork and then finally disposed of, so it could take a while, but I'm sincerely hoping not all summer. The list goes on. And on. I'm hoping to get a lot of it out of the way and sorted fairly quickly though, so as to leave plenty of time to enjoy the summer.

So, a couple of nights ago my wife and I stayed up late and started to plan the camping trip that I mentioned to you in my School's Out blog a while back. I was on Google Maps planning routes and she was trying to locate a suitable campsite located smack bang in the centre of Utopia, which for those who don't know is a small region on the Portuguese - Spanish border. I think I had the easier job! We don't want much from a campsite really. A clean shower block is essential, but swimming pools and games rooms would simply be a luxury that we would quite happily do without. She managed to find three or four sites and sent some emails off to them asking about availability during August. The following morning I went out shopping for essential camping items. Cascais Shopping was decidedly unhelpful and I could only find some very expensive single stoves stashed away at the back of the Sports shop up on the top floor and in the farthest reaches of the penultimate isle of Continente. Decathlon across the other side of Alcabideche was similarly stocked to cater for the "young couple's camping holiday" having only single stoves and small berth tents. Next stop was the hardware shop in Estoril, where I hoped to pick up a rubber mallet for banging in tent pegs and suitable gear to enable syphoning of petrol from the deceased Clio. I came away with a mallet. And that was it. A whole morning trooping round shop after shop and all I had to show for it was a 3 Euro hammer. "Tomorrow, Jumbo", I though to myself as I drove home.

The following morning, fresh and ready for a new day of supremely successful shopping, I set off for Jumbo.  After some time going up and down the isles, loading up on the way with some much needed bread and fruit, I was about to give up on my quest for Camping gear. Then, I suddenly spotted a small "end of isle" section with some paddling pools and inflatable armbands. Co-incidentally my wife and I had been discussing the night before exactly what kind of swimming aid our youngest might require on our holiday and hence steered my trolley straight for them. And what should I find just a little way along the row but a stash of reasonably priced Camping Gaz stoves and fuel canisters. I'd hit the motherlode! One double stove, two canisters and an inflatable life jacket later I was heading to the checkout.

That afternoon I phoned a friend of mine who lives down the road a little way and has a lawn, to ask him if I might borrow a portion of it to experimentally erect the tent. I wouldn't want to bore you with a pole-by-pole description of putting it up, but suffice to say that I quickly assertained that (a) it was clearly large enough for my family and (b) it definitely required two people to put it up! Twenty minutes later, there it was, in all it's majestic splendour; A canvas palace! Thinking back over the shopping trips of the last couple of days and seeing the tent up made my heart sing in anticipation of the holiday.

The list is getting shorter by the day. Today the car is in for a service and the nice man at the garage has told me that he can make arrangements for the disposal of our dead Clio too. The UK tax has been dealt with as far as is possible for the time being. The majority of the camping holiday is planned for, shopping done, and my wife waits anxiously at her inbox to hear back from the campsites so we can book a pitch at the aforementioned Utopian Campsite. And so we wait. Unfortunately waiting is not something I think I can do much of right now, and if I'm honest, I don't think my wife is in much of a mood for it either. And so the conversation over lunch today turned to our weekend pre-holiday camping trip 10 kilometres down the road at Guincho....

Creature Comforts

There's a large bird of some sort who has taken to sitting on the telegraph cable adjoining our house to the pole across the street. He sometimes sits there for quite some time, especially in the evenings, singing away to himself in a whooping shrill tone to anyone who'll listen. (I keep saying "he" but to be honest, I've not the faintest idea if it's a male or female.) He's not alone here either. The house across the street has a family of at least 3 housemartins living under their balcony. Again, I'm not entirely sure they are housemartins, but I Google'd it and they do look very much like the one pictured on the left here. They dart gracefully in and out of the of their garden, up and round the telegraph pole, swooping over and under the wires and back down into their little nest above the garage door. Sometimes they rest their wings and sit on the electricity cables and sing a while.  Anyway, the point is that I was, for some reason, very much aware the other day of birdsong. And since then, every time I go out I've been listening to the vibrant warblings of a great variety of birds. Sometimes tuneful. Sometimes just a repeated chirp. A trill here and there. The air is full of birdsong. And that, sadly, is something I never noticed in England. Well, that's not strictly true. When I was a young boy I was in the school's Young Ornithologist's Club, but at that age I'm sure we weren't very serious twitchers. What I'm really referring to is my house in Lincolnshire, which was a "New Build" on an unfinished estate with very few, if any, trees and far too much concrete and red brick. I'm sure if I'd have ventured out into the surrounding countryside, armed with a pair of binoculars and a quiet mind I would have seen and heard many birds, but on my housing estate it was a rarity. I do remember a time when flock after flock of Geese were (presumably) migrating overhead, and making a racket about it too, but to attract smaller suburban birds there really needed to be more trees. And that is the difference I think. Here most houses have hedges bordering their gardens, a lemon tree, or perhaps a taller pine. And consequently a veritable plethora of nesting spots for birds to set up home.

And there's a Gecko in my garden. It could be a Gecko. My wife calls it a Salamander. It's definitely a lizard though. Maybe we should give him (or her?) a name. He lives around the back, in among the rafters by the barbecue and wood storage area. I have seen him (or maybe his cousin) around the front of the house too though, skulking about in the shadows of the garden walls and balcony pillars. To be honest I first saw him last Autumn, sitting on the whitewashed garden wall, basking himself in the evening sun. Of course he probably went someplace safe over the winter to hibernate, but he's back now.

Of course there are some creatures I'd rather not have about the place. (Suddenly I sound like a Dr Seuss book!) With the onset of summer brings a plague of flies, constantly buzzing about inside the house. Annoyingly they don't land either, like English house flies do, so I can't splat them with my plastic swatter. Then, there are the ants. Long trailing lines of them marching around my garden and past my front door in an almost comical cartoon fashion. Don't forget the mosquitoes. Thankfully we haven't seen too many of them so far, but the vast array of products stocking the pest control section in the supermarkets are evidence enough that they must be out there somewhere. All these mini-beasts are of course very curious things to my children, especially my 5 year old girl, who has been studying mini-beasts as her topic work at school last month. But not me. I believe the correct internet vernacular to describe my feelings about these insects is "Ew!" Some insects I don't mind so much though. Today my children spotted this tiny green grasshopper on our small picnic table.

Every bar in the area right now is proudly displaying signs saying, "Há Caracóis!" meaning that they are selling snails; To eat of course! The landlord of my local bar even joked (I hope) that he'd harvested them himself, by hand, from his very own garden wall! Well he's not getting his hands on this one that I found hiding away from the sun under our balcony!

Leftover Photos

I've had these photographs sitting around in a folder on my desktop for a while now, waiting for me to find an excuse to upload them as part of a blog, but I've decided to just upload them all in one go as a kind of photographic "Bubble & Squeak". I know I could have described them as a veritable smörgåsbord of photography, but quite frankly, that's far too high brow for me. The first three are from the Park of Eduardo VII in Lisbon and the rest from various places in and around Estoril. Enjoy!!