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.