Climate

The leaves are still falling, but the weather was good enough a few days ago for yr obed servt to get out with the mower.  With a lot of wet grass and some chopped down rudbeckias and sedums now populating the garden waste bin, it’ll take a bit of schlepping to the front when the toon cooncil deigns to empty it.  

We have finally got round to the images for the Christmas card, rather later than usual.  Nothing spectacular this time, but they’ll do.  We’ve had to replenish supplies of envelopes, labels and card (though the printer ink is holding out so far…).  Finding labels compatible with our address list was a real struggle, and we were finally obliged to buy from the generous and altruistic Mr Bezos.  We've largely finished writing the cards (pending fresh supplies of card), and are reminded (notably by my arthritic knuckles) how rarely we need to write these days.  

Correction

In my last blog I said 50% of Sainsburys was held by a Qatari institution.  I had misheard: the correct figure is just short of 15%.  Think I’ll still stick to Fortnums.

Apologies for absence

No dramatic reason for the long gap since my last posting.  We’ve been bumbling along much as usual, spending a lot of time watching the torrential rain.  Some places near us were getting a month’s worth of rain in a single day.  It has improved over the past few days, so we have been out and about a little.  On Wednesday we were guests of Chris and Jon for lunch: great company, and a splendid lunch in sensible portions.  (We find we can’t shovel it down the way we once could: just as well, given our circumferences.)

Meanwhile, having discovered that a Qatari institution is a 50% shareholder in J Sainsbury, we emptied our on-line shopping order, and shall not be buying from them in future if we can help it.  Now that we’re out and about again, we’re concentrating our regular shopping on Lidl, and saving a fair bit in the process.

Today we finally got round to spending a garden gift voucher on some bedding plants to give us winter colour.  

 

I can’t remember whether it was a birthday or Christmas gift, and if the latter, which Christmas it was, but thank you, Marion and John, nonetheless.  Quite a pleasant drive out to our nearby garden shop, though the low sun and a none-too-clean windscreen made for a slightly testing drive!  Anyway, the pots on the steps are top-dressed and re-stocked, and we hope the pansies will do as well as last year’s.  Some of the geraniums are now potted up and stashed away in the greenhouse: cuttings in the spring, perhaps.  

Elsewhere in the garden things are a bit confused: the penstemons are growing as one expects them to in Spring, and we have a clematis in flower that we don’t expect to see blooming until later in the autumn.  The acer ‘Garnet’ is in its autumn colours of bright scarlet.

It won’t be long before it’s as bare as the dogwood behind it.  (And the observant will notice some leeks growing nicely in the rose bed.  Well, why not?).  

I think we have a couple more fine days in prospect, so perhaps I’ll sort out the baskets at the front.  The fuchsias and geraniums need to be under cover soon if they’re to stand a chance of a safe dormancy over the winter.  The one on the wall by the door is still doing pretty well, so as it’s well sheltered, I’ll leave it a bit longer, and settle for chopping back the trailing ivy, which threatens to take over the world.

Not sure about travelling

The villa was very good: spacious and well equipped, with a big, reasonably private terrace with a barbecue, a dining table and chairs and a couple of loungers.  And a sea view.  The walls were a little on the thin side, so we were keenly aware of tantrums from the child next door.  But as ours was the last villa in a row of twenty, we only had one party wall.  We were some distance from the pool and the noise that comes with it, so the most noticeable sounds were the sea breaking on the rocks and beach a few hundred meters away, and bird calls: mostly sparrows and azure winged magpies.  The place felt rather damp, though, but probably because of the high humidity of the air.  All in all, a good experience: we got a bit of exercise and saw some interesting places on the fine days, and it’s always a pleasure just to sit and read when outdoor activities aren’t possible.

We ambled along to Faro on Monday at a pretty decent hour, and turned the car in without (so far) any nasty surprises.  We’d checked in on line, and saved our boarding cards as photos on our iPhones (perhaps we should get an ungifted child to show us how it should be done properly).  Long queue for passport stamping as on arrival, and it was a sweaty experience again.  I hate to think what Faro airport is like in high summer.  BA Club Europe tickets got us into the CIP lounge at Faro, which takes a lot of finding.  And when you find it, it’s marginally better than the general waiting area if a bit quieter.  Small, and with a miserable catering offering, sweaty plastic chairs, and no information on flight departures.  

The flight back was in an ancient A320 that started its life decades ago in Brazil.  The service on board was adequate at best, and the food in Club Europe was unimpressive.  There was a time when British Airways could be relied on to provide good service: not this time.  Back at Gatwick, the airport experience was not too bad: long, long walks as usual (all told, we walked over 3 km on Monday in airports alone), but a fairly brisk passport clearance process.

It’s hard to know what our travel policy should be.  We no longer do long trips by road, and our recent experience of international rail and air travel is not encouraging.  Maybe it’s back to the floating care home, and to hang with the expense.  

Trip coming to an end

Lazy day on Saturday, when the weather was again mixed.  Sunday we took a ride up to Silves, the ancient capital of the Moorish Algarve.  The town is dominated by a red sandstone castle of ancient origins, but what we see today dates largely from the 1940s, when it was rebuilt following damage from numerous earthquakes.  

We stopped at the viewpoint in the outskirts (v. supra) where Martyn noticed some large black and white birds.  Storks: they used to migrate to Africa in winter, but with plentiful food to be had hereabouts, they are tending to stay here year round.  (One commentator suggests adding McDonalds to their usual diet of small vertebrates, fish and large insects.). Looking down from the castle, many chimneys have nests on them, and the clacking of the storks’ bills was clearly to be heard.  At one point, several dozen took to the air and gave us a nice little display.  In the castle (where lethal drops from barrier-free parapets abound) an archery competition was in progress with scant attention to ‘elf’n syfety.  The archers - long- and crossbows - were done up in period costumes, so we were well entertained.

Anyway, Silves joins the long list of Portuguese towns we’ve got lost in: Faro, Albufeira, Lagos, Pêra and all the rest.  The map we got at the motorway rest stop challenges the chocolate teapot for the uselessness championship title.  Memo to self: take Dotty next time.  But Silves is modestly attractive for being authentic, and not devoted to the tourism industry.  There is a lot of modern development in the outskirts, but the centre is cobbled and labyrinthine.

After getting lost (yet again) down by the coast, we elected to return to familiar ground, and had lunch at the Pedras Amarelas at the Praia de Galé Leste, where we’d gone on Martyn’s birthday.  Excellent lunch, and the somewhat more lively sea provided good views as we dined.  The surfers appreciated it too, and some experts were out there showing off to the entertainment of all.

We have the joys of Faro and Gatwick airports tomorrow, plus a ride in another 21-year-old A320.  I’ll reflect on the overall experience once we’re safely installed at Forges-l’Evêque.

Rain

It poured down all day yesterday, so we did a lot of sitting around reading and doing puzzles on the iPads.  Thank goodness we have decent wifi at the villa.  We made it no further than to the nearby supermarket.

We were consequently determined to get out and about today, since there was some blue sky to be seen first thing.  We picked up a map at the Silves motorway services: not in the filling station shop, but in the restaurant.  Someone’s missing a trick there, eh?  The map was helpful in some degree, but we still got lost on the way back to base.

We had a pleasant stroll round the old town of Lagos, where I spent a short holiday back in 1986.  36 years later, the centre is recognisable from the narrow streets, the castle and the coastal fortress.  I don’t remember the square with the jacaranda trees, though.  The development has continued, however, to a grotesque extent.  We continued to Praia da Luz, where we had a decent lunch.  The restaurant overlooked the beach, where the surfers were putting on quite a good show.  

Thence to Cape St Vincent, which has become rather more of a tourist trap than I remember from last time.  But that means that there were were more viewpoints towards the cliffs of the south-westernmost point of continental Europe.  No sign of the fish and chips van, but Die letzte Bratwurst vor Amerika was doing a respectable trade.  The rain began just before we left Cape St Vincent, and we were quite wet before we got back to the car.  On the way home, it rained pretty well all the way, including one episode when I had to lift off the throttle and put on the hazard flashers.  

The car worked well.  Given that the engine is 2 cc bigger than that of a 105E Anglia, and has one fewer cylinder, its progress to a quiet 120 km/h motorway cruise was impressive.  A seven-speed automatic box helps, as does a hefty turbo-charger.

Memo to Monarchs and Politicians

It was while we were in the Ticino that we learned of the death of her late Majesty.  Skulking indoors in the wet, windy Algarve, we’ve been watching the resignation speech of our latest Rt Hon First Lord of the Treasury.  Perhaps we should notify our future travel plans to the Palace and N°10.

Yesterday being Martyn’s birthday, we went out to lunch at a nearby hostelry overlooking the beach and some dramatic sandstone rocks.  A good skewer of big prawns and dollops of monkfish, served with fries and some sautéed vegetables.  As we dined, we watched the local surfing school practising with varying degrees of success.  We had an enjoyable stroll earlier round the boardwalk at the nearby bird sanctuary in warm but overcast weather.  By the time we were at lunch, the rain had begun, and has continued on and off ever since.  The weather forecast threatens showers (at best) for the rest of the holiday.  

Our shopping yesterday included a vitally necessary bath mat: the bath is extremely slippery, and showering scared us both.  I don’t want a repeat of a trip to Barcelona a few years ago, when I slipped and fell in the bath.  Luckily, my arm made contact with the marble edge of the wash basin: had it been my head, I don’t think I’d have been reporting the episode now!  That too was a trip to celebrate Martyn’s birthday, so a repeat performance would be highly unfortunate.

The garden here is beautiful: lots of bougainvillea, strelitzia, oleander and other subjects that enjoy the sub-tropical climate.  The geraniums hereabouts have obviously overwintered many times, judging by the thick woody stems.  As for the fauna, a couple of sparrows come and make off with whatever we leave for them, and I’d a good view from the roof terrace this morning of azure-winged magpies.  Unmistakeably magpies in flight, they lack the awful machine-gun call of their northern relatives that disturbs our peace at home.

I did a spot of research earlier into our rental car.  It spins along happily enough, but lacks a lot of the refinements of less pretentious VWs.  Mechanical refinement is there in spades, however: I had wondered about the sound when I put my foot down: it turns out to be a turbocharged 3-pot of just 999 cc.  I’ve yet to try it on the motorway, and have no great expectations.