The Dreaded Palm Weevil Strikes Again

After seeing others hundreds of examples and palm trees locally suffer, it was only a matter of time before I became infected, yep, I've caught the dreaded palm weevil.

Ten years ago there was none or very little palm weevil along the Iberian Peninsula, now due to trees being imported from the tropics in their thousands, it was inevitable that some of those trees were already infected and so the palm weevil was  introduced and within a matter of weeks can turn a once healthy palm from the one on the left to the one on thew right.

One of the palm leaves on my tree was hanging off and looking distinctly brown. so I removed it. I thought that it was due to the wind which has been so strong and had broken it off.
However, the gardener, saw the leaf and said that it had been chewed by the weevil and asked which tree it had come from. Once we arrived at the tree, he took a look, put his head next to the pineapple trunk and said, "sim, it is full of them"(he is Portuguese but speaks English). By putting your head next to the trunk and listening carefully, you can actually hear them munching away inside the palm trunk.

With that he set about removing more leaves to get into the infected area, seems the weevils borough down to get to the softer part of the tree and set up home all the while munching away at the palm and eventually destroying it.

 This is one of the little bugger's that we removed from the palm tree, along with another 15 of his brothers.



The grubs seem to cocoon themselves insides pieces of the palm tree while they hatch. The pieces of palm tree in the picture on the right each contain a grub which were dug out of the palm tree. We had great delight by standing on them and squishing them, they burst like the mother of all blackheads.

The next picture is of the actual grubs which  are enormous, they are the sort of size that Bear Grylls would have a 3 course meal from and we removed over 20 grubs from the tree.






I have now sprayed the infected tree and all my other palm trees with an insecticide, I can only keep an eye on things and see what happens.
That was last week, since spraying the tree, it seems to have flushed out another few grubs which have come to the surface of their own accord and I have had pleasure squishing them but could still hear them inside the tree.
Another week later and so far the trunk seems to be quiet, watch this space.

 

Thank you to my grandson Morgan for the video of one of the grubs removed from the tree, he has promised not to sue me for copyright violation for using his material.

Hotel Portugal

We have been playing mine host, entertainment manager, laundry skivvy,  head cook and bottle washer for the past 6 weeks as our boys and their families have been over to Portugal for their summer holidays.
Needless to say, we are now feeling a little jaded as 6 continuous weeks is a bit tough. However, fear not, peace has returned, they have all gone home, today the silence in deafening, aaahhh bliss.

The Lego has been put away for another year, the buckets and spades and the rest of the beach stuff has gone back into the dungeon and will not see the light of day for about the same amount of time. The swimming pool area has returned to the sedate peaceful area it once was and again is the place to lay back and read your book in peace.
What is it about kids and water, why do they have to shout at each other all the time when they are in the swimming pool?

No more crazy American comedy programs at 10 in the morning (now there's a contradiction in terms, the Americans just don't do funny),  and I have regained control of the remote control, I have felt almost naked for the past few weeks without it.

All I have to do now is return 3 hundred weight of sand that is in the back of the car to the beach and then remove 27 sandy footprints that form a nice pattern on the back of the car seats.

I love 'em to bits really, after all, grandchildren are the reward for not strangling your kids.



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Golf in the Antarctic

I don't know about Life in the Algarve, it is more like Life in the Antarctic at the moment.
Played golf yesteday, well tried to at any rate.

I made the foolish decision of playing in shorts and a polo shirt, well it is July in the sunny Algarve.
Half way down the 1st fairway, I realised that I had made a mistake and needed at least a sweater, by the time I got to the highest point, I needed a thermal vest as well.

The sun was out with not a cloud in the sky, but the wind was blowing a force 9 double hooley with the wind chill wiping a good 10-15 degrees from the 25 out of the wind, which there wasn't anywhere. Luckily I found a wind cheater in my bag and other put on wooly fleeces.
It has been like this for the past 6 weeks, apparently due to the Gulf Stream/Jet Stream being lower than normal on its path across the planet and there seems no end to it.

A ball that normally traveled 200 metres was lucky to get 150 metres into the wind with the club buffeted and blown all over the place on the back-swing.  We had air shots, (not me I hasten to add), knobbled shots, (will have to own up to one of those) and a few that didn't even reach the ladies tee, because as you know, ladies being the weaker sex, always tee off far in front of the mens teeing area gaining such a huge advantage. Sometimes they are half way down the fairway, but that may be classed as sexist, I don't see how when its a fact and far be it for me to be provocative, ( I can already feel a few choice words coming my way).

My best shot was hitting the ball from the tee and sending it 200 metres in the wrong direction, it wasn't a bad shot, it was the cross wind, honest.
Once on the green, the ball was oscillating on the spot and if moved once you had addressed the ball by grounding your putter behind the ball, should incur a penalty but I guess not many, if any counted it.

Needless to say when the scores were announced they were all low, but sadly still higher than mine.

The flag on the old 14th green struggles to stay in the hole

Home Sweet Home

As reported a little while back Dino the budgie, took off on a little adventure and was missing for an hour or so. It may have been a gust of wind, (although I have to say it has never affected me enough to make me want to go AWOL for a while), or he just might need some need toys and therefore some new stimulation.

I had been putting off building him a house in his room for some time, somewhere were he can go and chill.

Dino's new house

I begged a piece of drainage pipe and cut the entrance hole and  fitted the the necessary attachments so that he could climb in and out.
I left his new "des res"around the house for a while for him to see and get used to and he was inquisitive from the start. He soon made it his own by enlarging the hole, pecking here and there and once I had given him a few sheets of paper to shred and make it more comfortable, he moved in and seems as pleased as punch, in fact I think its fair to say that he loves it.
He has always enjoyed playing with golf balls in the past and so I included 3 in his house for him to play with.
His instincts are obviously kicking in as he is now sitting on the golf balls and must be thinking that that are eggs and is  trying to start a new family, I am looking forward to a few baby Titleist's in a couple of weeks time, could be a nice little earner.

Cats and pots

Not happy with the current layout of the flower pots and containers on the terrace at Whittaker Towers we decided to splash out and buy some new ones.
As some of the pots are quite large, I thought it best to prepare them before putting the plants in, in fact I was well in front of myself as we hadn't even decided on the type of plants that should go in them.
So I drilled the holes and loaded the bottom with some crock to help with the drainage and then half filled them with compost.
Fortunately I had recently had another bulk delivery from the local council which I use to fill half the pot before putting a better grade compost in the top half.
Unfortunately, the next morning before I had chance to put the plant in the pot, I was too late, Stig had made himself a nice comfy bed and couldn't be persuaded to move out.

 A couple of days later when we had finally bought the desired plants I had to resort to a bit of bribery with a tasty tit-bit for him to move out, which always seems to do the trick with any animal and I quickly got the new plant in place. Poor Stig was now looking for a new place to camp out, looks like it didn't take him long as he quickly found a shady spot to have a snooze.

Lost, one large budgie

I was out in the garden the other day with Dino our Blue & Gold Macaw(affectionately referred to as the budgie), who always likes to help with the odd spot of soil chewing to help his digestion when I noticed that one area needed a bit of extra help in the water department.  I went off to start the irrigation after I had put Dino on a branch in a nearby tree. 
When I returned a couple of minutes later, Dino was not on the branch and he was nowhere in sight.
After a few calls of his name and some quick searching, panic was beginning to set in and a nasty taste started to arrive in my very dry mouth.  I went back to the house to check there, nothing and  explained to my wife what had happened. We both continued to search and checked every part of the garden, over and over again, nothing.

Baring in my that this is probably the only bird in the world that hates flying and chooses to walk everywhere, I knew he couldn't be far away, but after more calling his name, searching and whistling, he was still nowhere to be found..
I searched the adjoining fields on each side of the house where the grass was around 4 foot high. I checked all the treetops and surrounding vegetation, there was nowhere within 300 metres of the house that I hadn't searched. I went back to the place that I had left him, now some 30 minutes ago and tried to assess which way he would have flown. The wind was quite strong as it had been for the past couple of weeks and today it was coming from a northerly direction. Assuming that a sudden gust could have caught him unawares, it may have lifted him from the branch and set him on his way and he could well be somewhere down wind.

As I mentioned earlier, Dino chooses not to fly but when necessary, he can and obviously he has today but how far has he gone. Surely he can't have gone far as he will not have much muscle in that area and being a big bird needs a good flap to get some elevation.
The first house we came to had a large white van in the drive and as my wife went to knock on the door, while waiting for someone to answer,  she turned around to see Dino hiding under the van trying to get some shade out of the blistering hot sun, which could have been another reason for taking off from his position in the tree, he hates the sunshine. Macaws are originally from the Amazon and are not sun loving birds, they prefer to be high in the tree tops surveying all before them but in the shade, anyway panic over.

Sad Farewell

 I know it can be a touchy subject, never talk about politics and religion as a topic of conversation at a dinner party, but what has come to annoy me me of late are those people that immediately put the shutters up at the merest mention of the word "church" or "religion".
Don' t get me wrong, I am not a firm believer one way or the other and I don't know the difference between a vicar, a father or a preacher, if indeed there is any, although I do know that the Pope is higher up the Stairway to Heaven than I, (allegedly), although we are all supposedly God's children.
Having said that, since coming to live in the Algarve, I have been to Church more times in the past 4 or 5 years than I have in the previous 50 odd and strangely enough, I have come to realise that normal people seem to go to church, they don't have two heads or have a secret handshake and they don't walk around thrusting a cross in your face, in fact I have met some very nice normal people who have become good friends and outside of Church have never mentioned the words God, Bible or Jesus.
I don't do Church religiously (if you'll pardon the pun) each week, unlike my wife who does. I mostly only go for the big occasions, Easter, Harvest Festival, Christmas etc. or when the local children or youth group are performing at the Sunday service.

The local Chaplain at St. Vincents is Father Haynes, well he is until the end of the month and he too is also a normal person.
He and his family arrived at St Vincent's Church in Praia da Luz, Portugal, five years ago last month, the very week that Madeline McCann disappeared when she was taken from the holiday villa in which the McCann family were staying.

I am certainly no "Born Again" christian, but one of the reasons I do go now and again, has to be due to Father Haynes, who I have come to see as a friend, someone who likes a laugh, who plays golf, sometimes badly, sometimes as a real bandit, so much so that one questions if he is getting help from other parts.
He also has an uncanny knack and built in radar for finding lost golf balls, mostly lost by others and he always goes home with at least a dozen or so golf balls than he arrived with.

Last Sunday was one of those special occasions that I went to Church, this time it was special for me for the wrong reasons, as this particular Sunday would be Father Haynes last service as he and his family have decided to return to their native country of Canada and will leave Portugal at the end of the week.

During those 5 years, Father Haynes has become more than the local messenger, he arrived in the middle of an international incident, he has taken a broken Church and built a community, a community who will sadly miss him and his family.

Good Luck, Father Haynes, Susan, Sebastien, Gabriella and Caspian.

Danger UXB

There was trouble down on the quinta this week when the gardener noticed a metallic object in the undergrowth whilst he was cutting the grass in the garden of a house in Almadena.
The gardener was happily strimming away and decided to investigate further and on closer inspection the object looked suspiciously like a bomb at which point he made a quick retreat to inform the owner of the land who just happen to be some friends of ours.

The farm is fairly close to me and only a few hundred metres away as the shrapnel flies.
The bomb disposal team were immediately called out and took little time to weigh up the situation. There was no scratching of heads, no if's and's or buts they just produced a blanket to put over the bomb, (probably thought it was cold) before deciding that the best cause of action would be to blow the bloody thing up.

There was a slight bang, the earth moved a little and disappointingly there was no almighty mushroom cloud. Thankfully there was no radiation fallout (we hope), just enough explosive to render mark 2 above a wet trump as you can see in the video below which was reported and videoed by the National Portuguese newspaper Correio da Manhá.

It is thought that the bomb was once a souvenir from way back whenever, and the collector got tired of having it around waiting for another revolution and so dumped it in the nearest field.

I don't believe it!

Yesterday was Friday the 1st June and the weather was unbelievable. It was greyer than a February morning in Manchester. The wind was blowing a double hooley and had the window shutters and been rattling all night long. The chairs on the terrace were blown all over the place with the cushions scattered around the garden and it stayed like it all day long.

In the evening, it was enough to make you go to the pub, which we did. We didn't stop long and returning early as the pub singer was worse than a Norwegian Euro vision song entry and was still daylight. As we approached the drive we found that the house which is atop a small hill ,was covered in cloud with the visibility no more than 200 metres.

I hope June gets her act together and starts bustin' out all over a bit better for the Queens Jubilee weekend, which we are celebrating here too, which starts today.

The forecast here is cloudy sun, temp 26-27C, that will have to do. At least it looks like being 15 degrees more than the UK is forecast

What is happening.......................

The weather here in Portugal is as screwed up as a Manchester City fan before injury time and we are into the back end of May when it should be nice pleasant sunshine.

January to March was fantastic, the windows and doors were open for most of the day. Then April arrived and it persistently rained it down all through the month, just like the UK without the floods though.
Only last week we didn't bother to go outside because it was too hot in the mid C30's and while playing golf we needed around 5 litres of water to keep upright.

Today it’s thundering, raining, blowing a hooley and freezing, I’ve even put the shorts away and had to resort to putting trousers back on and at this rate, I'm gonna have to put the heating back. 
It is so bad that I have cried off golf and decided to stay indoors with a hot chocolate and an Irish Whiskey.

Eddie the Lizard

Last week it rained every day, this week its as if someone has reminded the weather department that its May and its time to throw the heating switch.
Today was a blistering 33 degrees in the sun and the forecast is hotter for the weekend.

As I was opening the windows down stairs, I noticed Eddie the Lizard on the inside of the shutters. Look at how he has blended his skin into the same shade as the shutters. How fantastic is that, when I saw him in the garden last week he was green, well I think it was him.

Which reminds me, I must give the shutters a wash down, better wait until Eddie disappears first, wouldn't want to roll up the shutter and squash him in the process.

The lawn mowers came to visit

A few hundred goats and sheep with Parque da Floresta golf resort in the background

We had a visit from the local shepherd this week, he brought along a couple of hundred lawn mowers and weed munchers, all taken care of by some fantastic dogs and a few strategic whistles from the shepherd who made sure that they didn't stray too far.

Nice man the shepherd, always asks permission for the animals to graze on our land. 

As there are no fences or walls around the land, it is classed by  Portuguese law that they have the right to roam anyway, but at least he asked and who am I to stop anything that keeps the weeds down.

It was an ideal opportunity to practice our language skills, now that we go to Portuguese lessons every week.  We gave up after 30 seconds after he saw the difficulty we were having and spoke back to us in perfect English, what chance have you got, even the shepherd speaks English? Still only been going for three months, another 20 years and we should have it cracked.

And don't forget Maddie

It was 5 years last week years since Madeline went missing from her apartment where she was staying whilst on holiday here in Praia da Luz, in the Algarve. At that very time, I was enjoying an evening meal in the village which was only a couple of hundred yards away when it happened.
I was reminded today, that it is also 5 years since the current Vicar and his family arrived in the Algarve to take up his new position as Vicar at St.Vincent's Church in Praia da Luz.

When Father Haynes arrived he apparently knew nothing of the previous weeks events as he and his family were in transit on route from Canada (where they are originally from) to Portugal.
The situation then had to be explained to Father Haynes as he was collected from the airport and driven to Praia da Luz to take up his new post.
Welcome to Portugal.

Two Newcomers

The last thing that you would expect a bloke to blog about are babies, but spare a thought for these two.

Danny and Sarah are my wife's brothers son and daughter in law, they had been trying for a baby for some time and then Sarah became pregnant.
After a difficult pregnancy which went the full term Ellis was born last month at 8Ibs 13 oz.

Sarah and Ellis

Unfortunately for little Ellis, he has failed all his hearing tests and so far he is totally deaf, but as you would expect, he is still very precious to Mum and Dad.

It's hard to believe looking at these pictures, that both these babies were born in the same week.

Alice and Bailey

Like most men, to us all babies seem to look the same, except this one. This is a picture of my best friend from school days, daughter Alice with Bailey.
Alice gave birth a couple of weeks ago at 24 weeks, which even I know is a bit early.
Bailey weighed in at an unbelievable weight of 1Ib 12 oz, amazing.

Alice incidentally is a fantastic singer who needs a break, so Mr Cowell hit the play button and listen to Alice's demo tape.

Alice's cover version of, "If I ain't got you" (original song by Alica Keys)

2nd St. Vincent's Charity Walk

It was the St. Vincent's Church Charity Walk this weekend and we have been busy baking cake's and generally organizing the event.

Some of the walkers including Barney the Labrador before they set off

It is the second year of the event and it is always difficult when you try to repeat things that had been a fabulous success the previous year. 
Although the numbers were not so many, lots of new people just turned up and joined in, and set off on a gentle 7 kilometer walk through the Algarve countryside.

Barney leading the way

 I was in charge of the backup vehicle for any that couldn't go no further and also directional sign collector.
I didn’t have to walk far, I just got out of the car, took the signs down once people had passed by and got back in the car again slowly following the back of the field.
Hopefully I will be remembered for my small contribution when I  appear at the gates sometime in the future, hopefully later rather than sooner.

After about 5 kilometers and faced with a 1 in 4 steep hill,  I picked up Peggy who is 82, just for a short ride she insisted up the hill to the top, where she was adamant that she was getting out to finish the walk, your secret is safe with me Peggy.
Her husband Tom who is 86, was having none of it and insisted on carrying no matter what came his way to the finish.
When he is not walking, Tom races dinghy’s in the sea at Lagos at least once a week at this time of year. Earlier this week when the wind was very strong, a good day for man and his dinghy, a sudden gust managed to catch Tom out and capsized his boat throwing him overboard into the water. 

While he was in the water fighting to right the dinghy, the dinghy righted itself and sailed off without him. 

Tom, Bob & Peggy

Not deterred, Tom tried swimming after it when someone spotted him and realised what was happening, a tourist boat picked him up and took him back to shore, despite his protestations about going after his dinghy.
The harbor master had been watching and in turn arranged for someone to take Tom back out in search of his own dinghy which they found a little later, half way to Africa.
Tom got back on board and returned complete with dinghy back into Lagos harbour.
All's well that end well.

Anyhow, I digress, on the return from the walk, organiser Bob ably assisted my Mrs Bob,  had open house for everyone who took part and held a fantastic BBQ.
A small little event like this helped raise over €1500 towards the St. Vincent's Charity Fund.

Well done and thank you everyone.

Nightmares

I have been having these terrible nightmares,
I wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and I can see Gloria Gaynor at the bottom of my bed.

First I was afraid................... then I was petrified.



Hit the play button(with your speakers on)

Easter golf competition

It was the final day of the Easter golf competition at Paque da Floresta, traditionally an AM-AM(team of four) with 2 scores to count.

As I stood on the 18^th tee, the clubhouse in the distance was as usual full of noisy golfers who had finished their rounds. Some of them believe they are talking but are in fact nearer to shouting with the conversation mostly about the one or two puts that they had left on the edge of the hole. There was none of that in my team, we sunk everything, in some instances from 40 yards. There was no on course leader board, if there had been, I knew that we must be up there amongst them, just one more hole and we would know for sure.

We were all away safely and arrived at the green ready for another handful of points to finish the job off.

A 20 foot putt went straight into the hole and I stood over the ball knowing that 2 putts would be a good finish.

That was it, job done, we had all played well and contributed to the team score.

There was no emotional breakdown, no blubbering or shaking of shoulders, we just congratulated each other on playing well with plenty of smiles and laughter, confident of at least being in the prizes. Then of course I remembered, there are always the holiday bandits to contend with, with a bit of luck they could already be on EasyJet on their way home.

After checking our scorecard 3 times, our final score of 92 points with 5 teams left to come in.
As we entered the clubhouse the results so far were listed on the board, with a best score of 91, we were leadersw in the clubhouse.

We then spent a nervous 30 minutes on the balcony, a deserved beer in hand, watching the final matches finish,each time assessing the teams body language and skill to guess how they had done, they don't look happy, that was a crap putt, cross them off.

The prize giving presentation later that evening confirmed that we had become outright winners and whilst there was no green jacket, we instead all received yet another golf bag for our ever growing collection, nice Nike bags though…………………. you’re the man!

Will it or won't it burn

Apart from an earlier deluge of rain during the night, there was little or no wind making it an ideal day for a bonfire.

There are only 2 days left before the "no more bonfire's" deadline until later in the year, when it is deemed to be safe again to light fires in the openafter the dry summer months.


All I had to do was get the rain soaked wood to burn.


A few firelighters, a bucket ful of pine cones followed by a good splash of petrol should do the trick.





Going..........








Going............












Gone.

Hooray it's raining

The UK is basking in 22 degrees of sunshine, here in Portugal we are at last are getting some rain and by the look of it outside, we should get at least 22 buckets full.

This is the first proper rain that we will have had since September last year and it is very much needed and the last blast of thunder came from nowhere and shook the house. The cats scattered and the parrot squawked as if the world was coming to and end, at least it will wash away the Sahara dust cloud that decended on us last week leaving everywhere a murky shade of orange.

Unfortunately, I was planning on lighting the bonfire today to get rid of all the garden rubbish from this year’s pruning and general clean up, looks like I might need a few extra firelighters, a good dose of petrol should do the trick. I have light the bonfire today as the deadline for no more bonfires this year is in 2 days time and it could take that long to get it going and I have already informed the bombeiros (fire department) as you must for all bonfires in Portugal.

I certainly don't want to be left with this ugly monstrosity through the summer and I couldn't light it earlier in the week as the wind has been blowing a hooley and with the ground so dry, it was too dangerous, watch this space.

Every days a SUN day in the Algarve

    Algarve Weather Forecast

   

   17º C Clear   17º C Clear    16º C Clear    17º C Clear   17º C Clear    16º C Clear    17º C Clear

  Sunday   Monday  Tuesday Wed'day  Thursday  Friday  Saturday

Last year we had the wettest winter on record, this year we are back to the good old days and are set to have one of the driest winters on record.

I think that I am right in saying that it has only rained twice since the end of September and that was during the night, it could have been longer than  that, I can’t really remember the last time that I saw any wet stuff fall from the sky.

Tried to do some gardening during week, the ground was so hard, the spade was bouncing back, so I have had to put the irrigation on, in February. Not to be outdone, I found a pick-axe that the gardeners had left behind and had to use that to break up the soil where it was set like concrete.

Reminded me of my younger days down the pit when I was a wee lad and I used to wield one of those things on the coal face for 18 hours a day, those were the days.

When it doesn’t rain for a couple of weeks in the UK, there are always immediately calls for a hosepipe ban, no chance of that here, we have been told by the authorities that  there will be no restrictions in the Alagrve as the local “Barragems”, that’s dams/reservoirs to you and me, have enough water for the next 2 years, this seems to be something that Portugal really does get right.

……… and if that wasn’t a kiss of death for it to rain now, I don’t know what is.

Having said all that, it does get very cold during the night and we have had some very sharp frosts, although being a top of a hill we haven't had too many here, but only a kilometre away (as the crow flies), down in the valley, it has been down to minus 4ºC and as low as minus 8º in the north of the country. 

Along the Algarve the frost was so severe that a number of plants ingardens in the Faro area have reportedly caught the dreaded Black Frost(can you say that, must be Jack's colonial cousin), and have died. 

Never mind, a few cuttings from the luckier ones and the new shoots will be back in full splendor by the summer.