Peaceful in Portugal

Vale do Lobo, 2009

Monday 15 June: We were up til late last night, packing at the eleventh hour. Still weary, we wipe the sleep from our eyes and make way to the airport at 5am. Ouch. At Gatwick, we wait in a check-in queue that is akin to the length of the Nile. We are then submitted to the standard poking, prodding, searching, security checks at the airport. Removing shoes, removing belts, removing laptops. At 6am, I am mildly unamused. I sleep through the flight and am surprised to find myself landing in a muggy grey landscape. I hadn't checked the forecast, but I was told that Portuguese summers were guaranteed to be scorching hot (and I had packed accordingly). Still, away from British soil, even the weather seems wonderful, overcast or otherwise. In stark contrast to the dry arid red of the southern Algarvian landscape, the architectural neglect, the dusty pot holed roads, we approach Vale do Lobo to find palm lined streets, fountain sprays, lush green foliage, a plentitude of golf courses and numerous luxury villas. We are renting a friend's villa for the week and can certainly see the allure of the area. We open the door to our new home and adjust our eyes to the dark. Opening the doors, terraces, balconies, roof spaces, windows and curtains we discover an abundance of space in a unique and homely environment. Exhausted from the journey, we collapse onto the bed for an hour before contemplating the next move. Our rumbling stomachs force us toward an outdoor venture. We drive up into Almancil and find a pasteleria (a definitely worth stopping place, I was to quickly learn). We munch our way through bacalao, prawn and chicken pastries as well as a 'pastel de nata'. Delicious. Later, the rainclouds have cleared and we cannot resist exploring the beach so as the sun is setting, we stroll down towards the sea, admiring all of the white stucco villas along the way - each of them boasting charm and character. At the beach, I slip off my shoes and sink my feet into the cool evening sand. Aaaah. I'm on holiday. The sky is a brilliant pink, offsetting the darkness of the royal blue sea and the vibrant red stone cliff. It's a breathtaking setting. A real postcard moment. We walk along the beach, with only the sound of the sea and the clicking of our Canons between us. By the time we are heading home it is dark, and the villas are glowing with the light of candlelit suppers outdoors, and the light chinking of wine glasses and cutlery and conversation. I think I could adopt this as a permanent lifestyle.

Tuesday 16 June: I am lethargic. Sleepy and disturbed. A combination of poor sleep and heat, makes me stick to the bed like glue despite the sun creeping through the cracks in the curtain. Somewhere past 9am I get up. I take a towel up to the blazing hot rooftop and practice yoga in the morning sun. After breakfast we decide to head to the morning market in Loule, having been disappointed with supermarket produce as we normally are, the local markets are a natural choice. It's lively and vibrant in the market - vegetables, fruits, and fish. Lots of fish. The Portuguese are as proud of their sardines as they are fond, so although I'm not normally a fan, we buy a kilo for something less than 1 GBP. We buy some cheese, and local honey too. By the end of our shopping trip we are hot and tired. Time for a pasteleria. Fuelled, and still carrying the fresh fish, we head home to refrigerate our purchases before heading down to the beach. It's June, and not yet teeming with children and families, so we enjoy our pick of the best deck chairs and relaxing beach space. For supper, grilled sardines on toasted rye bread and cooked tomatoes with a glass of Portuguese white wine.. This was after the palava of gutting and grilling the fish, and escorting the beetle (now named Bob) from the rooftop terrace where we ate.

Wednesday 17 June: Another difficult start. It's 9am and I peel myself slowly off the sheets, taking a long half hour to do so. I force a few yogic moves up on the rooftop and wolf down breakfast. I'm starving. The plan for today is drive to Albufeira to find the dive shop where Richard can book into his diving excursions for the next few days. Albufeira is an ugly touristic, overcrowded mess of sprawling building work, heaped together across the landscape, a concrete jungle of uncorrelated buildings, apartments and hotels, in between the strip joints, the chinese restaurants with flashing neon lights and the enormous McDonalds restaurant. We drive for almost a whole frustrated hour, until we finally find the marina, and then the dive shops. Or at least one of them anyway. It's horrible the marina, like a large service station for boats. Empty and void of ambiance. It's clean but deserted and eery. We drive around looking for the other dive shop but fail to do so. Hot and hungry I insist we head back to Almancil for grub. Disappointed and in need of some summer fun, we go to the beach for the afternoon. En route back to the apartment, we decide to stop for a quick splash at the pool, mostly for its prime location in sea views. There are two inflatable boats on the surface of the large round pool, which catch our eyes and call us to play. We bounce into the larger of the two dinghies and splash about. I soon tire of this and decide to haul myself overboard. Bad move. I jump legs first onto the sharp stone ledge. Oooooooooowwwwwww. Jesus Christ. I look down at my leg and see flashes of white - the pain is so intense that I actually for a moment envisage this to be bone. Alas, it turns out that I am over dramatising the situation a little but nonetheless the pain continues to be excruciating. I cannot move. Fortunately the weightless wonder of being in water helps. I perch myself on the stone ledge and let my leg float for some time before I try moving it. It hurts like hell but I'm sure it's not broken. I climb out of the pool and limp back on one foot, praying that an overnight rest will be sufficiently recuperative so as not to spoil the rest of the holiday.

Thursday 17 June: Yoga is a futile attempt this morning so I go down to the pool for a refreshing morning swim - the pain in my leg prevents me from doing much more. The pool water is cold. I swim around it's circumference freely, as the pool is empty whilst sunbathers wait for the water to heat up. After breakfast we decide its time for another snooze on the beach. The wind is plummeting along the coastline pretty fast, steering most people away from the water. We find a spot sheltered from the wind, and laze around in the sun until we get hot enough to dive in. A few more conspicuous tan lines later, we go out to Almancil for lunch. Back at our favourite little pasteleria, we eat salad, quiche (only I eat quiche, for real men don't eat quiche of course), and inevitably a pastel de nata each. Next we do some grocery shopping and go in search of a recommended restaurant for supper. We get lost down some dusty Algarvian roads and discover beautiful, large gated villas parked up with gleaming cars. I contemplate about what kind of work in this area generates such wealth for its locals. In our attempts to locate the restaurant we are stopped by a achingly good looking young Portguese man, wearing large expensive sunglasses and a designer t.shirt, collars up, of course. His mannerism and well spoken English suggests that he is from one of the aforementioned large villas but who knows. He assists us in our search and mentions that the restaurant we are looking for is nothing special - that in fact his wife cooks much better. Dammit, he has a wife. We suspected as much, about the food that is. Tired, we head back home. We pamper ourselves with luxurious showers, lotions, face masks and facials.

Friday 19 June: The alarm is beeping at 7am, and I am glad. I welcome the opportunity to detach from the discomfort that is my bed. Richard is getting ready for his morning dive, and other than a few scattered clouds, it looks like it's going to be a perfect day for it. I muse about how to create my day, in his absence. As ever, I am more concerned with what I ought to be doing than what I'd like to be doing. After much faffing about I grab a mat and head to the beach for some early morning yoga. I find the beach almost empty and miles of sand flattened by the outgoing tide. I choose an isolated spot, in the sun but near enough to the sea to be catching the downwind drift. Half an hour of Ashtanga practice is satisfying. I take to reading my book - finally conquering whatever fears lurk around my writing career. I read until the breeze is raises small goose bumps on my skin and my tummy rumbles it's morning call for breakfast. I eat some cereal and pack up for a morning of writing by the pool. I like the pool. Not only because it's the picture of a perfectly tranquil and fun holiday, but because of it's prime position overlooking the sea. Richard arrives home finally at 3pm by which time I am ready to eat my own hand. Fortunately he has stopped in Almancil and brought with him some bacalao and pastries. For supper we dine at a local restaurant at the Marina. It was excellent. No menu - just the fresh catch of the day. We follow the waiter to the fish counter. They all looked sumptous, and, er, enormous. We opted for the sea bream, a healthy looking fish and a good size for the two of us. And, clams for starters. And prawns. And bread. And cheese. We start with the prawns and by the time the clams are down with a glass of wine, we're about done. And then the sea bream lands. All 10kgs of it. We dig in, unphased by the pleas of our stomachs to stop, unrelenting in our pursuit for culinary pleasure, determined to eat this fine fish that has given it's life for the sake of our feed. The forkfuls get increasingly heavier, and each lift to the mouth becomes slower as we work our way around the body of this beast. We leave a little flesh on the bone but are undefeated in our attempt to eat fully. Hooray. Dessert next. We both go for the fresh mango mousse. It is wonderfully cooling. By the time I am reaching my last few spoonfuls, the flies and mosquitos pecking at my bare legs is almost unbearable. Alas, I must leave the dessert unfinished. Driving through Albufeira, our attention is caught by the flashing neon lights and boozy Brits of the southern Algarvian coast. We park up to take a closer look. It's somewhere between Skegness and Las Vegas. It's dreadful. About ten minutes is sufficient for us. Back in the car we decide to take a look at the old town, curious as to whether it is equally as corrupted. The old town is very old. The same cobbled streets as the rest of Portugal but with much much narrower streets and tiny multi coloured houses. It's very quiant, and now with the buzz of several tourists and restaurants, it's altogether quite atmospheric. We don't stop, we find a route out and head home, which, in the dark, takes longer than usual.

Saturday 20 June: All day we laze about in the sun, we splash about in the sea, and play frisbee by the water's edge. We even treat one of the numberous cheeky little sparrows to a lunchtime snack, as he comes and pecks the food from Richard's hand. For supper we eat on the roof terrace and then head to the praca to see if the live music is any good. It isn't. We go instead for a beautiful sunset walk on the beach. The beauty of it all has me dancing, skipping and jumping irresistibly along the cool sandy stretch.

Sunday 21 June: I take my mat down to the beach at 9am, by which time the early morning beach enthusiasts are already down there. Shame, it's nice to have a whole beach to yourself with yoga, but I have more than several metres of space, so I can't grumble. I notice that the sun is hot, and I hope not to attain yet more stripes in my search for the perfect surya namaskar. Turns out hoping was not enough. I return home to find more tan lines. Grr. I only need look at the sun for it to layer me with another colour. I have breakfast on the roof top to try and even out this morning's addition of stripes, but before long I am melting in the plastic chair and need to move. I head to the cool of the bedroom, the balcony door ajar, to let the breeze through and begin to update my blog. This is all too much for one morning it seems, and I fall asleep on the bed. Upon waking I decide that sleeping by the sea is a far better proposition than in the bed so I take my belongings (including, rather ambitiously, my laptop) and head to the pool. There, I lay on a sunbed and nod off once more. It's great, this holiday stuff, lounging about and sleeping all day. I feel I ought to be making more productive use of my time. I have four books to read and writing to do, but I guess all those normative values are best left at home. Now is the time for choosing to do whatever takes my heart's fancy. At midday I plunge into the pool and refresh myself with a swim. Each time I think about working on my latest story, it makes my stomach churn, so I engage myself instead with the writings of A.P. Carlisi. After several hours of reading sunbathing and dozing, Richard sends a text to say he's back at the Marina having completed his two dives and will be on his way home with lunch. I'm starved. I go home at 3pm, unable to withstand the hunger any longer and awaiting, is Richard with a large bag from Bolo Rei, our favourite Pasteleria. Woo-hoo. Beach time. Picnic supper on the beach at sunset. Aw.

Monday 22 June: We go to the morning market in Loule to collect local gifts of fig cake for our friends and family, and buy some fresh local produce whilst we are there. Richard also manages to pick up some cheap flip flops to replace his currently smart ones. I am somewhat miffed about that. Another beach day, as well as another beach picnic supper. People watching on the beach is great. There are the sports enthusiasts, out for their evening run along the coast, there are the daring evening swimmers, there are the party animals screaming and playing, the presence of alcohol clearly in their stream.

Tuesday 23 June: Last opportunity for yoga on the beach and an early morning splash in the sea. Back at the house, Richard is having breakfast on the roof top so I join him. It's a glorious day and a relaxing morning, it's hard to believe we are flying back home today. We decide to spend the morning on the beach. It's breezy, and chilly, especially under the shade of the umbrella. I should mention here that by now we have both acclimatised to the conditions and are in need of temperatures above 27 degrees to keep us warm. The sea does look inviting though. We give it a go. It's cold. Very cold. To warm up we stroll along the beach down to the next one, to lunch at a beachside restaurant called Maria's. Bellies full, we walk back down the beach to our towels and this time put the umbrella up at a low angle, so as not to lose it to the wind again. It's lovely and cosy under the umbrella and I fall asleep instantly. At 3pm I wake up realising that we only have an hour left, so I should wake myself up with a refreshing splash in the water. At the water's edge, I decide otherwise, I'm cold, the water is cold, and I don't like cold. So, what to do? Jump of course. It's time to pack up and leave. The departure process is very relaxed. We move easily and swiftly around the house, clearing up and preparing to leave. By 6pm, we are in the car and on our way to Almancil for supper. All our favourite pastries are gone. I don't know whether it's a look of disappointment on our faces, or sheer perplexion at what to eat, that the friendly waitress pipes up to suggest a chicken toastie, which she cutely pronounces 'shicken'. Not very Portuguese I know, but it's good and it fills the hole. We don't leave without our customary pastel de natas. Our very last.

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