The Big Lego Event

"What time are we setting off tomorrow?" asks I.

"About a quarter past nine. It opens at ten," says she.

"You know that the kids want to go on the train to Lisbon, don't you?" asks I.

It was decided. We would drive down to Monte Estoril and catch the train into Lisbon, use the Metro to get to the Lego Exhibition at Campo Pequeno and have a thoroughly enjoyable family day out.

Sunday morning, at half past nine, which is good going for us, we set off in the car towards our usual parking spot in the centre of Monte Estoril. It was still fairly quiet in Monte Estoril so we drove past a number of empty spaces, heading for our usual spot nearer the train station. Unfortunately the road we usually park on, which leads down adjacent to the hotel onto the Marginal, was closed. There was a policeman stood there guarding the barrier, through which we could clearly see that the Marginal was also closed for some kind of bicycle race. Ten minutes later, having driven around the houses a little, we were back at the top end of Monte Estoril and satisfactorily parked in one of the previously ignored empty spaces. A quick walk down to the train station, tickets charged and validated, a good deed done helping a couple use the ticket machine, and, we were off.

Many fun and exciting games were played on the train including such classics as "I spy" and "Count the stations" which seemed to help pass the time. Also on the train I spotted a poster for the Lego exhibition, on which, if my Portuguese is anything to go by, it stated that the entrance to the exhibition was at Entrecampos, one Metro station removed from Campo Pequeno. We figured that the entrance to the exhibition must be around the far end of the Campo Pequeno building. Half an hour or so later, we arrived at Cais de Sodre in Lisbon. The escalators lead directly down from the platform to the Metro, where we destined to play the always enjoyable "Follow the coloured lines on the underground map" game. Green line to Baixa-Chiado then change on to the blue line to Marquês do Pombal, and finally, the yellow line up to Entrecampos.

Walking up the stairs back out into the sunshine and a somewhat fierce wind at Entrecampos we realised that we'd made a mistake. Clearly the poster was wrong. All the clues were there. The journey underground between Campo Pequeno and Entrecampos was too long. The road sign towards Campo Pequeno was pointing up a long and steep hill. And nowhere could we see anything that looked even remotely connected to the Lego Event. It was by now very nearly midday, so we decided to make the most of our situation. There was a small park area across the far side of the roundabout and a supermarket. We popped inside, bought some food and drink, and took 20 minutes out sitting on a park bench re-fueling, watching the pigeons and collecting our thoughts before heading back down to the Metro to re-trace our steps back to Campo Pequeno.

Anyway, enough blathering. We got there in the end. And had a fantastic time. I doubt that we will win the "Guess How Many Bricks Are In The Box" competition, but I did take a lot of pictures of the exhibits. Here are some of them.

More Creature Comforts

In June of last year I blogged a post called "Creature Comforts" with lots of pictures of all the creatures that seemed to be making their homes in my garden. Well it seems that it's happening again. Suddenly the weather is warming up and all the creatures are coming, perhaps literally, out of the woodwork.

A few days ago, while I was doing a spot of tidying upstairs, one of my children shouted through from his bedroom, "Daddy, what's that?"

"What's what?"

"This," he said, pointing through the glass of the closed french window out on to the balcony of his bedroom towards a creature, insect-like, and about 3 inches in length.

"Hmm. A cricket? A grasshopper? I dunno. Maybe a locust? But wow eh?"

"Is it dead?"

I had to laugh. Three year olds, eh? The conversation then progressed a little as the older children entered the room to see the creature. There were many questions, virtually none of them easy to answer. Did it fly? What was the skin made from? What were the sticky-out bits on it's legs? I managed to take a couple of pictures of the creature before it flew away. (Well, at least that answered one of the questions!) A few days later I saw another one of them in the garden. I took out my phone and, because there wasn't a sheet of glass between it and me, I managed to manoeuvre myself around a little and get some pictures from different angles.

Spring has sprung at work too, and the story is the same. All day long I can hear the croaking of the frogs that live in the pond beneath my window. No, not just croaking. Doing the springtime business. You know. Wossname. Procreating. What is more, if I sit in the far corner of my room, away from the window, the acoustics amplify the croaking sound quite considerably. And quite honestly, when the frogs are, ahem, getting amorous, they make quite enough noise, thank you very much. I've been out into the garden below and tried taking photographs, but it's difficult to get close enough to the frogs without them hopping of their lily pads and swimming away.

Now that we're heading towards the end of April, I'm sure it won't be long before all those other creatures mentioned in last summers post all return to grace my humble garden once again, including perhaps this grasshopper's (if that is indeed what it is) little green children! Perhaps, just maybe, this beastie is the same little green beastie that I took pictures of last year?

Liga Europa?

Just a quickie to round up this weekend's football highlights. On Friday night I met up with a good friend of mine down at the local bar for a few beers, to watch the football on the telly and generally unwind from the working week. All the usual Friday night shenanigans. And there's this guy in there that over the past few months seems to have befriended us. And I still don't know his name. Anyway, he's in there, not drunk, but getting there and he starts trying to tell us that one of the Estoril players, a certain Steven Vitoria, is moving to Benfica. What's more, apparently he's transferring for free. For Nothing! Nada! Simply the glory of playing for Benfica I suppose. (Splitter!) Anyway, then he starts on about how Estoril need 9 points, or can get nine points or something like that. And he keeps saying, "Liga Europa." So we get the sports paper, "A Bola", down from off the top of the cigarette machine, lay it out on our table and we turn to the page with the current league table. The three of us sat there for a good hour adding up the points that all the teams would likely get over the remaining matches, and figuring out who Estoril's most dangerous competitors to the much sought after 5th position are. Even considering the language barrier, there's certainly no fooling this guy. With five games left to play, and a group of four teams with only two points behind Estoril, the yellows needed 3 wins to maintain 5th place and therefore gain entry into next years Europa League.

The teams left on Estoril's agenda were Setúbal, Braga, Benfica, Beira Mar and lastly Gil Vicente. With Benfica and Braga being two teams in the reputed "Big Four" of Portuguese football, those matches were therefore likely to be losses. What's more, Beira Mar and Gil Vicente are both teams currently residing at the bottom end of the table, and so should technically be easy wins. So after much debate, and adding up Estoril's closest competitor's likely wins and losses it became very apparent that everything was reliant on the game with Setúbal, to be played away, on Sunday afternoon.

Setúbal is a largish town, just south of the Tejo and only about an hour's drive from Estoril. With kick off at four, we set off at around two just to make sure that we had enough time to find the stadium, a place to park and get a couple of tickets. I'd heard from a neighbour slightly earlier that day that the hardcore supporters had left in a bus at about half past ten, giving them plenty of time to get "nicely lubricated" before the kick off! As we drove into the centre of Setúbal, and spotted the stadium on the right, we also spotted a small bar on the left with many boisterous yellow shirted men spilling out of the door onto the street clutching beer bottles. The singing was underway, seemingly rising in volume with the passing of every car-full of Setúbal supporters! A young man was banging out the rhythm on a drum that had been decorated in Estoril colours. Clearly they were indeed a well lubricated Estoril supporting machine!

We followed the crowd of yellow into the stadium and up into the away end. Setúbal is a much larger stadium than the one in Estoril, with banked seating all the way around. The two main banks on either side of the pitch were crammed with green and white. Only a small section on one end, seemingly miles away from the pitch in comparison to Estoril's stadium, had been devoted to yellow shirts. Estoril played liked they'd never played before. The guys were maintaining control of the ball, possession was almost exclusively ours, and well, it seemed inevitable that eventually one of the many crosses in front of the goal would be finished off, resulting in a well deserved goal. Then, alarmingly in the 62nd minute, one of our boys gave away a penalty! No! All of our willpower was with Vagner, who had once before this season saved a penalty, to replicate this feat and keep us in the game. But alas, it was not to be. Setúbal 1, Estoril 0. And that was, in the end, the final score.

Driving home was a drudge. Not least because we'd lost, but amplified further by the half hour in almost still standing traffic queuing up to pay the toll at the bridge back in to Lisboa. The good news was that all the other teams that could have overtaken Estoril had not. Estoril maintained 5th place. Except there was one match to play. Olhanense v Guimarães, earlier tonight. Unfortunately, Guimarães won. And that means they now take the 5th spot on the table leaving Estoril one point behind in sixth.

Only one thing for it. Estoril Praia must beat Braga next weekend. At least we have the home team advantage.

These Boots Are Made For Walking

With summer just around the next corner it occurred to me that I really ought to get out and buy myself some new sandals. The ones I have, which I've been wearing for years, are just starting to get a bit ropey. The velcro straps are starting to wear and not stick, and the soles are wearing thin in places making them uncomfortable to walk in.

You won't catch me wearing anything like those silly flip-flop things. The idea that a rubber sole attached through your toes with a single strand of plastic is either comfortable, useful or even remotely looks fashionable is simply not an idea that I wish to adhere to. No, I prefer a nice pair of sturdy manly sandals that certainly don't make any flippy floppy slapping noises as you walk. If I wanted flip flops then I could simply walk down to any one of the many Chinese shops or seafront "bucket and spade" shops and buy a pair. But that really isn't the dominating issue. I have been in Portugal now for a while and therefore have previously had the need to go shoe shopping. And this is where it gets really really quite tricky. The inexorable fact of the matter is that your average Portuguese male clearly has much smaller feet than I have. Previously, when in need of some nice black comfortable office shoes for work, I have dutifully set out to the shopping centre, to trawl through the stacked boxes of shoes, scanning up and down... 35, 37, 41, 44, 45, another 45, 44 again, more 45's... looking, searching, desperately in vain for a size 47. Now and then I would stumble across a pair of size 46's, and with the taste of near victory on my lips, hope that just perhaps, they would be a large 46 and might fit. I did eventually find a pair of work shoes in the shopping centre at Sintra, but only after tediously scouring every single shoe shop within Cascais and Oeiras first.

It was with these memories in the forefront of my mind that I set out to Decathlon, a sports shop that also has a wide range of beach wear, sunglasses and the like, to try and get myself some new sandals. I had the foresight to ask my children to try on their sandals from last year and it was a good job I did, since it was immediately obvious from the many protruding toes that they also were in dire need of new sandals for the summer. I fully expected that finding new sandals for my children would be a breeze and that we would come away with me still wanting. But shock! And surprise! A plethora of sandals in all sizes up to and including 47! Fantastic result. I walked out of the shop with two pairs for me, a new pair for each of my children, a pair of flip flops for my daughter to wear in her school swimming lessons and, because I dropped my last pair, some new sunglasses for me. Oh, and a checkout receipt with some extraordinarily large numbers on it.

Now I have some shiny new sandals and the weather seems to have given up on the whole "rain, rain and more rain" thing, allowing me actually wear them. I'm happy. Next on the footwear list is going to be trainers. I'm hoping that I can get at least another summer out of the ones I have, but at least I know where to go to find some in my size!

Fun On The Beach

Forgive me yet again for writing what at this present moment, at least in my head, is probably destined to be another blog where I blather incessantly on about the weather. You can't blame me though, because the sun has shone and shone this weekend. And it's about time. In fact on Friday night, while supping down perhaps one too many beers, the news came on the television in the bar featuring an extensive article about the weather, and about how we would finally be able to say goodbye to winter with the onset of soaring temperatures for the forthcoming weekend. And, as I have already hinted, it didn't disappoint. Goodbye Winter. Hello Summer.

"To the beach! Get your buckets and spades, because we're going to the beach," I demanded, much to the great excitement of my children, my youngest particularly so. half an hour later, and we're all packed up in the car and ready to set off. We had still to decide which beach we would go to, but that was beside the point really. We would simply drive along the Marginal until we found a place to park that was next to a beach and let fate decide. I say "simply", but there's nothing simple about driving along the Marginal. It is infamous for a very good reason. And not because it is the scenic coastal road between Lisboa and Cascais. It's infamy stems from the fact that no one in their right mind would actually want to drive along this narrow, twisty and altogether ill conceived dual carriageway. Fortunately for us we managed to find a nice place to park up in Monte Estoril a few yards short of the junction onto the Marginal and only a couple of minutes walk under the subway to the promenade.

The first thing that we saw from the promenade were the boats. Lots and lots of small white sailing boats on the horizon. Clearly we were not alone in deciding to take advantage of the sunny weather that day! It was probably some kind of race going on, and as we watched they gradually got smaller, obviously heading out to sea. We let the kids lead the way down to the beach , and they predictably descended the first set of steps we came across, down onto the sand. The tide was out, revealing the rocks and associated pools and streams in which to explore and play. We built a couple of sandcastles, hunted for pretty shells and decided to construct a dam across one of the streams. All good fun in the sun. We were down there for a good couple of hours amusing ourselves and soaking up some vitamin D, before eventually the little ones started talking about food.

Roll on next weekend, when perhaps, we'll drive out a little further to a new and exciting undiscovered sandy beach? Personally I'd like to head out onto the west coast beaches of Ericeira or maybe even as far up as Peniche?

Rounding Up Easter

Well, I'm back at work after the Easter holidays and it's all very calm and sedate. The sun has been desperately trying to push it's way through the blue grey clouds all week and shine down on a series of decidedly dull days. The sun did manage to make an appearance over last weekend though, allowing my family and I the great privilege of being able to get out and spend the final throes of the Easter holiday doing something fun.

Saturday afternoon, and while my eldest spent his afternoon at Scouts, we were in Belem, enjoying a brief trip into the Electricity Museum, a picnic and some time on the play park. The temporary exhibit in the Electricity Museum entitled "Laughter" was now gone and in it's place a youth orchestra was playing in rehearsals for some concert or other that very evening. If we'd known about it earlier my wife and I might have had the gumption to try and book us a sitter and make ourselves a cultural evening out enjoying the music. So anyway, we rushed round the "boring" aspects of the museum, past the furnaces and transformers, to the interactive part where the children could play and learn about how electricity works. All good fun.

Sunday morning was spent out with the children. I had pumped up the tyres and raised the seat a little on my daughter's bike before we all set out down the road to play with bikes, scooters and radio controlled cars on the new (and therefore unused, safe and car free) road across the way. It was a perfect Sunday morning, spending some quality time with the kids, even with the traditional, almost obligatory grazed knee.

Estoril Praia played hosts in the afternoon to a team called Nacional, beating them 4-0. Result! It was an amazing and exciting game to watch, with the first three goals all coming in the first 11 minutes of play. A red card in the 49th minute landed the Yellows goal number four. More importantly though, this means that Estoril are back in fifth position in the league table and therefore in with a very real chance of securing a place in the next Europa League. By my reckoning, with five games to go, two of which are likely wins, and two likely loses, a win against Setubal in a fortnight's time is crucial in achieving this. Vamos Amarelo!

So that was it. The Easter holiday is done and dusted. And now I find myself looking forward in anticipation of the long Summer Holidays. Right now it's still a matter of counting the weeks, but I'm sure as the weeks pass by, I will start counting the days. And regards the weather? Well the chit chat among many of my work colleagues is fast becoming a resounding, "Two weeks; And then it'll be lovely."

Spring Is Sprung...

Two weeks ago, or thereabouts, I started writing a blog post in my lunch hour. I never got much down until I got distracted by something or other and before I knew it I was logging off, destined to finish it later. Here's what I had...

Spring is sprung,

Da grass is riz,

I wonder where dem boidies iz,

Da little boids is on da wing,

Ain't dat absoid,

Da little wings is on da boid.

...A little poem that was bandered about in the springtime when I was a lad. And I am reminded of it today, being the third day in a row where the sky is a lovely gorgeous clear blue sky. There are no clouds. Well, maybe just a couple of small wispy white ones. There's a blustery intermittent wind, keeping the temperatures down, but when it drops you can really feel the heat of the sun, gloriously beating down, gently warming the skin. Conversation among my workmates over lunch yesterday was about the heatwave that we were experiencing here this time last year. Looking back at my blog posts from March 2012 it clearly documents many sunny days of clear blue skies with pictures of people strolling along the promenade in Monte Estoril in T-shirts. But it also documents the fierce winds and storms that wrecked the roof on Faro airport. I suppose by comparison, this springtime has been kind of like an average. We haven't had half the stormy weather that I remember from last year, but by the same token, we haven't had the same number of days of gorgeous sunny weather either. And now the cold wintry weather it seems is drawing, inevitably, towards a conclusion. Three sunny days in a row has to be a good omen, yes?

It's still cold at night though. And more so these last couple of days, what with the clear blue skies during the day, when the sun sets the heat just dissipates and floats off into outer space. I'm utterly determined to not buy any more firewood though. Nope. Not doing it. It would be like throwing money on the fire. So instead, when it gets chilly at night, I just get another blanket to throw over me while I watch the telly. And if it gets really nippy, I'll fill a hot water bottle. There, I've said it. I'm getting old.

At the time that I wrote that, there were only a few school days left until the Easter holidays started and it looked very much like spring was definitely on it's way. And then it rained. The storms started up again. Downpour after downpour; day after day. My family and I would have very much liked to get ourselves down to the beach this Easter, or to the park to kick a football about, but it's proven very tricky indeed to predict the weather. The App that I use on my Kindle may have to be replaced, since it obviously isn't that ACCUrate! Maybe that's a bit drastic though? I mean, I should be familiar with unpredictable weather, right?  After all, I am a stereotypical English person, who, true to form, just can't stop banging on about the weather. And I'm obviously aware that the UK this Easter has once again been blessed with the usual snow flurries! So I shouldn't really moan. The weather here might be a little up and down right now, but at least the signs of spring are starting to show through the clouds.

So Easter holidays are nearly over. (In fact, for my children, they are already, having returned to school yesterday.) The changeable weather did allow us just a couple of dry afternoons to be seized in the great outdoors, and so here are just a few pictures, with clouds included, from a couple of places that my family and I visited.

Parque Dos Poetas (Poets Park)

This park is a fabulous place to go for a stroll and to admire the sculptures. And, much to my childrens delight, it has an excellent play park at the back.

Fábrica da Pólvora (Gunpowder Factory)

We actually planned to look around the museum, have a picnic and then let the kids loose into the the play area, but the museum was closed. Ah well, next time maybe. The kids enjoyed the park though.