School's Out!

Portuguese schools finished on the 15th for the holidays and suddenly it seems that everyone has their summer mood on and dialled in to full blast. I can hear the neighbour's kids playing across the street. The two young boys laugh and chat as the football bounces to and fro off the sides of their enclosed garden. On the walk back from the shop this morning, with my bag of bread rolls under my arm, I witnessed a young man of perhaps 10 or 12 years being instructed by his father in the correct way to paint their garden fence. They seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the father-son time together as they stopped momentarily to wish me a hearty "Bom dia!" as I passed. A few days ago I was down by the beach and witnessed a large group of children, each sporting a lime green hat, escorted by their summer school teachers in their matching lime green polo shirts. As they descended the stone steps down onto the sand, with the plastic buckets and spades they held clattering against one another, there was an air of anticipation in readiness for the exciting day ahead building castles and paddling in the rock pools. So it does indeed seem that now that school is finished for the year and the summer holidays have started that people have a change of focus in their lives. Of course my own children's school hasn't finished yet and they still have a few days left until their holidays start, but they are looking forward enormously with an intense and building anticipation of this coming Friday.

The Euro 2012 Football Championship has of course been an influential factor in the lead up to summer. As many of you well know, last Thursday Portugal played against the Czech Republic, beat them, and went through to the final four. (No such luck for the English team on Sunday night though!) Since my wife was out working late that night I was relegated to a night indoors watching the match on our small television at home. This of course does have it's advantages, in that I can understand the commentary, but to be honest, I'd rather have enjoyed the atmosphere of watching the game on the huge screen in the bar with (ahem) a few beers. Nevertheless, at full time I did get to witness, at least in part, the atmosphere of the game, since as the referee's whistle blew, the neighbourhood went absolutely completely berserk. Screams of glee spilled out of open windows, the buzz of Vuvuzela's ricocheted through the streets and even the sound of air horns echoed across from the apartments on the other side of the valley. It was almost as if up until this point everyone was too scared to sound their horn, cheer out loud or clap their hands in case they jinxed it for the team. Of course tomorrow, Portugal play in the semi-final against Spain. Only time will tell if all these Vuvuzela's that had been stashed away in basements since the last World Cup will get to be blown again, reinstating that festival atmosphere.

Of course it wouldn't be summer without good weather, which over the last couple of weeks has been interesting to say the least. Last week it was very hot and very windy. Apparently Portugal, especially in the south, is prone to high winds during May. So the winds were just a little late in coming this year, but regardless, they are clearly another milestone pointing happily towards the onset of summer. Now the wind has calmed down and it's just hot. Really hot. According to the BBC Weather website it's been 41ºC (about 106ºF) here today, which has to be hot enough to get anyone in the mood for summer, hasn't it? I suppose that since the weather has cheered up from the overcast spell we were having a few weeks back I ought to make time to take my camera down to the promenade and acquire some better photos of the artworks down there!

Whatever the reason for this general good feeling and optimism, the fact is that summer is here. Personally that means that my family and I can become tourists once again and indulge ourselves in the beach life, meander slowly through museums, and generally do some exploring. It's coming up on a year now since we landed in Portugal, to be welcomed out of the airport terminal by torrential rain, and it does seem that we spent a lot of last summer getting settled. Now please, don't get me wrong, we did enjoy last summer and we did get to take in our fair share of tourist trap activities, but it was interwoven with waiting in council offices for our ticket number to come up and numerous trips to the bank because our card had been rejected yet again. This year we can really kick back and enjoy it.

Earlier today my wife and I were making the first plans for our summer holiday, namely, a camping trip. A colleague of my wife is moving away, and for a few Euros has sold us his family sized camping gear, complete with tent, airbeds and cooking stove. So we were talking about where to go first. My wife, a camping virgin, wanted to stick very sensibly to not travelling too far and only going for a weekend someplace to test out the gear and also how the children fit in to the idea of sleeping beneath the stars. Personally I was up for something a little more daring, but I can definitely see her point of view. We'll probably end up going to Guincho, which is about 5 kilometres up the coast, just for the weekend experimental test. We did fleeting discuss a second more lengthy trip down to the Algarve and along into Spain and Gibraltar. That will be lots and lots of fun. And so it seems that I too have great anticipation for spending the summer holidays doing fun things with my family.