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Published: January 2nd 2009
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Praia Da Luz , Lagos, Western Algarve. Portugal. (Click on the photos to enlarge)
We have come to a standstill.
It’s probably why I haven’t updated things in a while.
After 3 months of continuous travel we were ready for a time-out so we came here a week earlier than planned in the first week of December and we are probably going to stay until the end of January. Not too hard a decision to make really as this area is one of the warmest in Iberia (although not the driest!).
We are in the Western Algarve in Portugal and to our delight it is really rather nice here!
More verdant, prettier and friendlier than Spain although disappointingly expensive.
Our income is once again shrinking . We have our Icelandic savings back but they are suffering with poor savings rates and to add insult to injury, our budget diminishes day by day as the Pound is steadily sinking below the Euro horizon but it feels worth the extra expense to stay here.
One of the main advantages, I’m slightly ashamed to admit, is that loads of locals speak English because, of course,
we are in Brit. ex-pat and holiday country. It does make for a nice change though after 3 months of Franglais and Spanglish. I’m not going to even try to learn Portuguese......the vowels are far too hard never mind the consonant pronunciation rules and apparently the Portuguese won’t like you for speaking Spanish. They don’t get on as a rule with their Iberian neighbours. A bit like Scotland and England I imagine.
A second plus is that we have met some very kind and welcoming people here on the Turiscampo site. Many of whom come here each year and who have welcomed us in a variety of ways, not least Gladys and Bob’s awning parties which have introduced us to a whole new crowd of friends.
We have had a good December.
Our sons Tom and Chris and Chris’ girlfriend Emily came out to see us. The latter two went home for Xmas but Tom stayed on until Boxing day.
It was a treat to see them again and I hope they enjoyed it. They certainly made life a little busier and I can’t say I’ve drunk so much alcohol in months. The weather was certainly
a factor. As soon as they arrived, the rain clouds were chased away and the sun shone virtually every day. Drinking beer and wine and the sun seem to go together. The cold winter Atlantic made a good beer chiller on a couple of days when we even managed to sunbathe in one of the pretty little coves around Lagos.
Martin won’t let me publish his “beached seal” photo but there’s an interesting one of Emily emptying a “sea creature” from the emergency beach toilet.
It was a sea slug, honest.
We have had some interesting meals during their visit. When cooking at “home” it often involved a nocturnal relay between Chris and Em’s 2 ring hob in their bungalow and my cooker with the precarious transportation of foil wrapped dishes across the dark campsite.
Then there was the duck that we roasted (bought from Lidl) that utterly refused to give up its meat from the bone despite being attacked with a variety of knives (and even poultry scissors) and we ended up with a virtually vegetarian meal that night!
And Chris’s experimental beach-barbequed octopus that eventually got fed to the seagulls on
the beach.
More successful was the Piri-Piri Chicken we had at a mountain restaurant in Monchique. Hot spicy and in vast quantities that left us with grease running down our chins and licking our fingers. Mmm.
Tom’s Pre -Xmas treat for us at a local restaurant was equally delicious too. Thanks Tom, your internet research paid off.
We spent Christmas day around the caravan with me cooking a Christmas roast on my little caravan cooker! Quite proud of that one.
Before dinner we sunbathed in the awning not quite believing that it really was Christmas day.
We had a run out to a quiet little resort called Salema in the morning to discover groups of ex-pats congregating around the quay with bottles of wine and glasses in hand , chatting and taking in the view. Quietly civilised really. The Portuguese had probably all headed back to their families and were doing more sensible things like stoking their Yule Log and sleeping off their post Midnight-Mass feast.
We took Tom to the airport on Boxing Day morning and spent a surreal afternoon in the campsite restaurant for a buffet and “all
Happy Christmas.
I sank three sips whilst bathing in
on Chrismas day in the awning... you can drink” between 2 and 4.30 pm. A cracking party that included eating loads of prawns and funny little fried nibbles, dancing with Germans and Dutch to a surprisingly good vocalist/ guitarist, doing the conga round the place and waiters dancing on the bar! Consequently I fell asleep at 7 pm then woke later and couldn’t sleep for the rest of the night. Where do you go to when you can’t sleep in a caravan and you’re still slightly hung over? It was a long night.
Unfortunately Tom took the weather away with him and it has been very wet again for most of last week. When it rains here it really likes to do it well and I have been fighting a losing battle to keep the awning floor acceptably dry as the clay based soil causes little rivulets of rain to drain down under the ‘van.
We had a trip to the local version of B&Q to find some plastic sheeting to put down under the breathable groundsheet as it never seems to get a chance to dry out properly. At one point the awning roof was also
leaking around the front seams and we had to dodge the drips as well. I think we may have cured that now (fingers crossed) by readjusting the frame so there is less stress on the seams. As it is January 1st, can someone tell the weather that December, the wettest month, is now officially over and it can now relax and blow a little drier air over Turiscampo for a bit! (To be fair though the rain has been all over Spain too.)
The New Year’s eve do in the site restaurant did not live up to the promise of the Boxing day bash. It definitely was the worse for not having on the “turn” we had that day. The amateur organist and DJ never really got the party going so it was a bit of an anticlimax .
So here I am, sitting in my tropically humid awning typing my blog on a warm, dark New Year’s Day’s evening , wondering what 2009 will bring. Whatever it might be, it’s certainly going to be interesting so I think my New Year’s resolution has got to be:
“Make the most
of whatever comes my way”. (And don’t buy ducks at Lidl.)
Happy New Year to you all Donna X
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