Rites of Autumn

The leaves are falling, the nights are lengthening and we are starting to ache for sunshine and warmer weather.  That said, today has (latterly) been pleasant enough for a spot of gardening: dead-heading the roses and rudbeckias and suchlike fiddling.  

First thing it was a different matter: when we took the car down to the tin bashers this morning the rain had just begun, and I was glad of my waterproof.  (Ruined my hairdo, however).  Anyway, the car is hors de combat for three days, but since we have a spare, I won’t be stinging red BMW man for a rental.  I’m tempted to suggest that a case of Picpoul de Pinet would be suitable compensation for the inconvenience.  Said car romped through its MoT last Friday, having done scarcely over 1000 miles since the last one.  I managed to persuade the garage to do a minor service rather than the major one indicated by its age.  

Another rite of autumn, of course, is Martyn’s birthday next week.  Since our German/Swiss jaunt was not an unalloyed triumph, we’ve booked a week’s rental in the Algarve, staying in a villa a safe distance from the rather unattractive centre of Albufeira.  I doubt if we’ll be troubling the swimming pool that serves the complex: rather, we’ll be loading up the kindles and relaxing, and taking the odd trip into the hills and along to places I haven’t seen since 1986, such as Cape St Vincent and Lagos.  (I remember being amused and faintly cross at being asked at the hotel I used in Lagos whether I was signed up for the Saga excursion.  I was 35 at the time.)

Thinking back à propos swimming, the year before my last Algarve trip I had only recently learned to swim, so used the hotel pool in Sousse in Tunisia to build up some stamina.  Until a bunch of Bulgarian water polo players thought it was fun to bounce the ball off my head when I came up for air.  Some years later, the hotel complex I’d stayed at was victim of a dreadful terrorist attack.  

In Lagos, the hotel pool had a springboard from which I taught myself to dive.  Alas, all now in the past.  I did swim briefly in Jan and Mark’s pool a few years ago, but apart from a quick dip in the Queen Victoria pool during our Medi cruise, have not swum at all.  (I’ll pack my cossie, but suspect it’ll home unused.)