The Stig

Just thought that you may be interested to see me in my normal work clothes.

Toll roads in the Algarve

Tourism in the Algarve is allegedly down, airlines have cancelled winter flights and except for August the beaches are relatively empty, which is great for all of us that live here.
So in an effort to totally kill off tourism altogether, the Portuguese government are supposedly introducing Road Tolls early next year on the main A22 dual carriageway that runs the length of the Algarve.

There will be no toll booths as they cannot afford to build them, instead they intend to bill the motorists by having microchips fitted to number plates or building a device into the vehicle. Of course they can only do this to vehicles registered in Portugal, so if you are a foreign traveller in any car, motorhome or whatever, registered in any other part of the world, currently you will be exempt.

According to figures released, the estimated cost of a trip from my house to Faro airport which is approximately 100 kilometres, will to be in the region of 22 euros, EACH WAY. The only other option would be to take the EN125 road, which will add at least an hour on a run to the airport. It is also a traffic clogged death trap of a road at the best of times with an increasing death rate each year and this is only going to increase the situation.
The Portuguese love beaurocracy and red tape, and can be a real pain in the ass and a right bunch of numpties, but most of the time I love them to bits.

Health & Safety Portuguese Style

Surprisingly it is 5 years since the house was finished and due to settlement and earthquakes we have a few cracks in the internal and exterior walls, so it is time to get them repaired and the house painted.
Unfortunately Mrs Lynette managed to get hold of the pantone colour chart that has more colours than Joseph had on his dreamcoat, which in turn most of them managed to find their way onto a section of our walls in a test area to see which colour looked best.
Over a period of 3 weeks we have whittled it down to about 10 colours and finally to the chosen 2, which the painters are now busily applying and at their speed will take the next 4 weeks, I prefer to think that they are doing a thorough job.

Now that we have put the clocks back for winter, they arrive each day at 7am disturbing Mrs. Lynette's sleep and start by moving their tower frame across the calacada making a noise like thunder which doesn't put her in a good mood for the day and of which I always get the backlash.
Having moved the tower to todays chosen spot, they then secure it with a thin piece of wire as you can see if you look very closely at the picture, and that is all that's holding the tower from toppling over.
Now that the tower is secure, they ignore it and choose a ladder instead.


In the second picture, they throw all caution to the wind as they continue to work on the roof without the aid of a safety net, Billy Smart would be very impressed.



And if that wasn't enough, for his finale, he balances a ladder on a couple of pieces of wood on the roof, whilst he paints underside of the roof tiles on the roof above, piece of cake really.





It just gets worse, found this one yesterday, he was hanging onto the pillar with one hand and painting with the other, I hope he doesn't need to scratch his nose.

Engagement

Just thought that you would like to know that, today on Bonfire night November 5th , 39 years ago, Mrs Lynette and I got engaged, aaaaarrrrrr and they said it would never last.

Mind you, we have had a few fireworks along the way.

Nature Watch

What a pain in the arse wasps are, especially if you are unfortunate enough to get stung by one there, and yes I know it's November but we still have shed loads of the little blighters. So far I have been stung 9 times this year, they are everywhere.
I have found a number of nests, this one behind the garden thermometer hanging on the wall.
No more wasps in this one after I sprayed them, tell your friends buzzies, I'll be back.

And what about this little beauty for all you arachnophobes;




............found this one just as I was about to remove a few dead plants, think I leave it for a while.

The kittens are no longer kittens and we have managed to catch one of them last week ("Kibbles" named by granddaughter Alice) and took her to the vets to be spayed (the kitten not Alice), she was OK and strangely still wanted attention and a stroke when we returned so she must have forgiven us. She was the easy one, catching the other 3 will be a different matter, their Mum certainly wasn't impressed, she gave us a real throaty rumble.
Meanwhile "Shadow" kitten, so christened because he was never more than 12 inches behind his Mum when we first saw him, has grown up and is already catching rats, I saw him playing with one last week and went to fetch the camera, when I returned he was gone, so was the rat. Shadow is on the right having just been woken up by someone with a camera, along with Buttons (button nose) on the left and Kibbles. The only one missing is Stig named by Morgan, he was probably snoozing in a quieter place.

And this is "Monty" the mongoose, he calls late afternoon and if I am in the garden, he takes one look at me, ignores me and carries on, on his hunt to keep the snakes down to a minimum.
I have only seen 2 snakes in the garden while we have been here, one was about 18 inches and the other was over a metre, they could have been the same one for all I know and had just grown up. Perhaps I should set a trap and tag them, then again perhaps not.


Finally, we have the Partridge family, I think the big one is David, (think about it, if you are younger than 25 years old you may have to do some research) taking the rest of the family for a walk. They ground feed and just walk across the land most days, exactly like the picture although I had to borrow this one from Google.

Swan Lake

I'm not one for sending circular emails, especially when they are about ballet of all things, but I received this one last week which I thought was absolutely fantastic and at 4 minutes long was just about the length of ballet that I could stand.
It really is amazing, give a go and click on the link below;

http://www.nzwide.com/swanlake.htm

Portugal's Ace Reporter

Whilst the local English newspaper, the Portugal News is not the bestest writ, like wot my blog is, news offering in the world, it does offer us expats a modicum of an insight as to what is happening in Portugal, especially if you want to know about the weekly diary of Milo the dog, or about the many dogs and kittens are waiting to be re-homed or in this case, the increasing crime that is sweeping across the Algarve. This latest story caught my eye;

A British citizen who until Tuesday morning this week had been presumed dead by the police has emerged alive but reportedly mutilated and tortured after managing to escape from a house in the Algarve where he had been held captive for the past two weeks over an unpaid drug debt.

The British national, who has been identified as James Ross, 26, reportedly a married father-of-two from Wicks, Caithness, was kidnapped by a group of fellow Brits immediately after he landed at Faro Airport on October 5th.

Prior to his escape the case was being investigated by PJ police and all indications pointed to the man having been kidnapped and murdered.

After managing to flee from his place of captivity (a house near Boliqueime, Loulé), with the help of a passer-by who found him stumbling throughout the streets of Alfontes village, he was taken to an undisclosed hospital for treatment. The man is believed to have been kept “tied up and very mistreated.”

National newspaper Correio da Manhã (CM) claims Ross was held captive after being lured to the Algarve to pay off a £10,000 unpaid drug-deal debt owed to a man identified as John Mclean.

He was allegedly told he could pay off the debt by working on a cannabis farm, but was subjected to the horrific ordeal practically straight after touching down in Faro.

Police will question him about the circumstances surrounding the incident during his stay in hospital.

According to a PJ source the man was partially mutilated on one ear, Lusa News Agency reported.

A different source told Lusa that a Scottish man was being treated in a regional hospital for a partly-cut ear and a wound to a finger, and that the man had been escorted to the hospital by GNR officers.

Regional newspaper Observ-atório do Algarve reported the man, who they identified as a 26-year-old Scotsman, had had an ear, finger and 3 toes amputated, two broken legs and that he has been tortured.

...... "and that he had been tortured", bloody hell, I think that was a bit of an understatement.

Sorry about the glitch in the best joke of all time, I've fixed it now, keep scrolling down for joke.

The Man Who Never Was

I was surprised to hear whilst on our recent trip to Spain, a number of our friends had never heard of "The Man Who Never Was" or Glyndwyr Martin to give him his proper name.
It is a World War II story, code named "Operation Mincemeat", that has always fascinated me about how the Brits launched a man from a submarine carrying Top Secret information about invasion plans, in an effort to deceive the Germans.
Glwndwyr's body was eventually washed ashore near Huelva Spain, where he was subsequently buried after much investigating and meddling from the Spanish and of course Herman the German.
I had wanted to find the gravestone for many years, so on the way back from Spain and very close to Huelva, I set out in search of the cemetery and then the gravestone.
Finding the cemetery was easy, the gravestone was like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack. The cemetery was pristine with row after row of headstones and crypts all kept in wonderful condition.


Obviously looking like a tourist and standing out like a sore thumb from those tending the graves of loved one's, we were about to give up and was approached by a fellow Brit who knew exactly what we were looking for as he had spent the last hour do exactly the same thing. He in turn had been spotted by yet another Brit who knew exactly where the gravestone was. So he escorted my new friend who in turn escorted me, result, the gravestone of Glyndwyr Martin, "The Man Who Never Was".





The full story can be found @ http://www.themanwhoneverwas.com/

Best joke of all time

Best Joke of All Time

As reported in the Daily Mail the other day, this joke was voted the best of all time;

A woman gets on a bus with her baby.

The bus driver says: 'Ugh, that's the ugliest baby I've ever seen!'

The woman walks to the rear of the bus and sits down, fuming. She says to a man next to her: 'The driver just insulted me!'

The man says: 'You go up there and tell him off. Go on, I'll hold your monkey for you.'

Gonzalez Byass

During the trip to Spain, Jerez to be more precise, I thought it was important that we should sample some of the local vinho. So all 20 of us enjoyed a trip to Gonzalez Byass, the home of Tio Pepe and now also Croft Original Sherry.
It appears that some of the crowd are secret sherry drinkers, and I thought it was a drink that only grannies had.
Do you remember going to the local Berni Inn for a treat on someones birthday, "What would you like to drink granny, oooh, I'll have a schooner of sherry please and make sure its a large one young man", would I dare do any other.

Our tour guide fancied himself as a bit of a comedian, he had a sense of humour that was dryer than the Tio Pepe he was talking about. He told us about the little Spanish mouse who comes out each night from behind the sherry casks to sample the latest brew of which they leave him a glass to drink from and a ladder to make it easier for him to reach the top of the glass, and of course a few peanuts to help it down, sad buggers.

More interesting was that when they had a famous person visit the bodega, they dedicated a cask of their recently brewed beverage and got them to sign the barrel, there were hundreds of them, here are just a few, the first one is the famous dummy spitting Spaniard, Fernando Alonso, the second is my hero and a far better racing driver, Ayrton Senna and the third one is everyone's hero, unless you are a German that is, Winston Churchill.

We enjoyed a nice trip around the vineyard on the Gonzalez Byass Express, finishing off with some sampling of their finest, which their were very tight with, we needed more samples.

Monetcastillo, Spain

Sometime back in July we decided, we would like to go to Spain to play some golf at the end of the holiday season. That being the case, we asked a couple of friends if they would like to join us and they said that they thought it was a great idea and would love to come.
So we searched the interweb and found what we thought was a fantastic deal, which turned out to be around 50 euros a night, full board and unlimited golf in a 5 Star hotel in Jerez, Spain, brilliant.
With such a great deal on offer, the word spread and our couple of friends turned into a dozen and a dozen soon turned into 20, that was when we had to close the door and say no more.

Unfortunately the time we chose to go away was about the time that the golf club captain has his golfing trip away, and we were being dubbed by some as the "Alternative Captain's Away
Weekend", but the original 6 were never joining that party anyway and it was never meant as an alternative, my apologies to Mr Captain if it was ever seen that way.


Just 2 days before we were due to leave, the tour operator Golf da la Luz, emailed us to inform us that the hotel had doubled booked and we would not be staying in a 5 star hotel but in the 4 star hotel, part of the Montecastillo resort next door. This turned out to be a total rouse, I later found out from the hotel manager, that we were never intended to stay in the 5 star hotel, we were always staying in the 4 star one and Golf da la Luz knew this all the time. Strangely, Golf da la Luz did this to us 2 years ago at a different resort, again using the same ploy. So if you choose the same company to organise any trip for you, beware, Dan the man at Golf da la Luz is about as much use as a bike in San Francisco and not to be trusted.
However, away we went, all 20 of us to Montecastillo near Jerez, Spain. I had been there twice previously about 10 years ago and at the time the course was on the European Tour as part of the Volvo Masters series and obviously was in fantastic condition. Today, perhaps due to the economic climate, the course and the whole area is a shadow of its former self.







Allan Pooley offering Lynette some advice, yeah right

Having said that, everyone played some good golf, some better than others, some found the course very long, which it is. The greens were lightening quick, which suited me, but obviously didn't suit me enough as I could only manage second place in the better ball with my partner, Gloria Pooley.

This is me with Gloria, can you spot the village idiot.

Winners of the pairs better ball competition,

Linda Anthony & Dave Bredo

...............and if all else fails, try table tennis.


David Haddon & Steve Collingwood closely watched by the net cord judge and umpire, Glynis Bredo.

Parrot Sitters UK Branch

Meet Paul (little Jimmy) & Alison, who flew in from the UK to parrot sit while we went on a jolly to play some golf in Spain.
We have known little Jimmy, literally from the day he was born 30 years ago when he came into the world as our next door neighbour. As he grew up Paul would inevitably get in to trouble and his mum would tell him off. We always knew when this happened as we would see this little blond head bobbing up and down across our bay window and one of us would comment, "Jimmy's in trouble again, he's on his way round", where he would find comfort in a few custard creams and a bag of whotsits.
As soon as he was big enough, I enrolled him along with my boys in the (Nottingham Forest) Junior Reds. Paul never grew in height until much, much later on and I was still shoving him through the Junior Reds gateway at half price when he was 18, happy days, Forest even won a few games as well, how times change.

Pink Ribbon

It's October, that can mean only one thing, it's Breast Cancer Awareness Month across the world and Portugal is no different.
For the past 10 years, we have been raising money for Breast Cancer Awareness in the Algarve and this year very poignantly, the Pink Ribbon Golf Tournament at Parque da Floresta was held on 10th of the 10th of the 10th and if you are reading this too early in the morning, I mean 10th October 2010.
Over the years, in conjunction with the Parque da Floresta Charity fund, we have managed to raise over 80,000 euros which has all gone to Mamamaratona, Associacao Oncologica do Algarve.
Checking the weather forecast 7 days before the competition, it didn't look good. However just as at Celtic Manor last week, for the Ryder Cup, there is nothing that we could do, we just had to get on with it. Checking the forecast every day didn't help as it never changed one bit and sure enough on the Friday before the Sunday competition, it bucketed it down followed by the same on Saturday.
On the Sunday we began with sunshine followed by several sharp bust's but nearly 80 golfers were supportive enough to brave the conditions, after all its only water and you can only get soooooooooooo wet.
At around 11am in glorious Algarve sunshine, the golf got underway, with the format being a better ball stableford competition. Finally at around 6pm and several downpours later, the final group came in, the scores could be checked and the results announced.
Yours truly and the chief organiser of the Pink Ribbon, Mrs Lynette, managed to follow up last years second place with third place, winning a fabulous set of lead crystal glasses, probably the same set that we won for second place last year. My good friend Bob Kelly suggested that if we put the glasses as a 1st place prize, we could finally get rid of them as we had no chance of winning, well he used to be a good friend.





In second place this year, with a score of 44 points was Pete & Debbie Lanario who was over the moon at winning her first golf prize.
The winners with a fantastic score of 45 points was the formidable Portuguese pairing of Julio Marcela & Chico Borges, I think they both looked pleased as well.
Along with raffles, auctions and name the Doggie, which spookily was won by the same person as last year Louise Gemmell, (who kindly donated the Doggie back for auction), the total money raised on the day was just short of 3,000 euros, another fantastic result for Breast Cancer Awareness in the Algarve.

Thank you to everyone for taking part and very generously supporting the day.

It's Raining

It's October the 8th and we have just had the first rains of the winter. It couldn't have come at a worse time as it's the Pink Ribbon Golf Competition of Sunday 10th, tomorrow and the forecast is not good.
As usual in Portugal, when it rains, it falls by the skip full and I have just found out that the one flat roof I have, has 100mm of water trapped on it because the drain is blocked, always wanted a roof top swimming pool.
However, its still 23 degrees and we still haven't put the heating on.

The kittens managed to find a dry spot and decided to sleep the storm out, until I came along with the camera that is and disturbed their siesta.

Red Palm Weevil

Red Palm Weevil

There is an increasing number of Phoenix palm trees in The Algarve that are being killed off by the Red Palm Weevil, in fact palm trees across the whole of the Iberian peninsular are in danger of becoming infected, so far mine are weevil free.
Apparently the little bug(gers) arrived in 1994 and has been destroying Phoenix palm trees ever since. Now it has increased to such an extent that the local councils have started to put pheromone traps in the trees to try to catch them.

Getting Old

A message for those of us that are getting old.



Bugger it................


I've forgotten what it was.

Captain's Day

As I keep saying, these Taylor Made golf clubs are the dogs whotsits.

Last week was Captain's Day @ Parque da Floresta and with the help of my new Taylor Made Burner golf clubs, I was awesome. So much so that the clubs and I amassed 38 stableford points. This was enough to take first place and winning a Callaway golf bag and another cut in my handicap, which makes it a reduction of over 5 shots since I had the clubs only 3 months ago.

Still waiting for Monte to give me a ring and a late call up for the Ryder Cup squad but so far the phone has been quiet.

Played again on Wednesday and I was crap but had an excuse, had a tummy bug and didn't feel well.

Harrison's first day at school

Harrison Starts School

Meanwhile back in the UK, Harrison started school and today was his first day. He was very proud of his uniform, I hope the hat isn't part of it, bless.

Time to neck the parrot

Major trauma at Whittaker Towers, the spin dryer has packed up and had to be sent away, fortunately the sun is still shinning so my best undies can dry outside.
The freezer part of the fridge freezer has packed up and we are waiting for a spare part to arrive and to top it all, The Kittens have had great fun in scratching through the fly screen and ripped the netting and Dino - for the third time has found his way into the utility kitchen, got inside the washing machine (because the owner of the washing machine has left the bloody door open again) and chewed through the rubber door seal, now there's water everywhere. I think the parrot needs to go on a rinse hold then fast spin, that will sort him.

The Bandits Strike Again

It was exactly 12 months ago that Lynette had her purse stolen from her handbag and this week some friends had her handbag stolen too and the bandits get so brazen.
Our friend had called at the local cashpoint and put the cash in her handbag which she then put behind the drivers seat in the car on the floor. As her husband as driving, they then made another stop at a another supermarket some 10 kilometres away and whilst hubby went into the supermarket and Mrs Hubby remained in the car listening to the radio, the cheeky bastards opened the rear car door (which had now become unsecured from the central locking because hubby had got out) and quietly lifted the handbag and scarpered and no one saw or heard a thing.
Fortunately the handbag was recovered by a local Portuguese farmer the following day in a field as he was tending his sheep and goats and he was able to contact our friend and return the handbag, which had obviously been cleaned out of the valuable stuff.
They figured that they had been targeted at the cashpoint in the area of Lidl's supermarket in Vila do Bispo and followed to the supermarket in Budens when they made their strike.
It is not the first time that Lidl's in Vila do Bispo has been the spot where the bandits select their target and remove contents from their car. Last month a couple were asking for bogus directions to somewhere whilst the other persons then took whatever was on show inside their car.
In fact, it was Lidl's in Lagos that Lynette lost here purse last year and I think its about time that Lidl's took more responsibility and got Carlos the useless security guard that walks the floor inside Lidl's shops, should get his arse outside and made himself more useful.
Needless to say, all those concerned are pretty sure that the perpetrators, (I like that word), were of Eastern European origin.

Morgan's on the prowl, look out Tiger

After only his 4th competition, Morgan is on the Golf European Money list after coming second in the last junior competition of the summer at Parque da Floresta Golf Club. Although his 10 euro winnings is not enough to get him into Colin Mongomerie's Ryder Cup squad, he was absolutely over the moon to be in the prize money for the first time.

My friend Bob's youngest sister was 50 last week and she had a BBQ to remember.
Bob is the eldest of a large family originally from The Wirrall, Liverpool. Various brothers & sisters and their children came over from the UK and one brother, Brian came all the way from Australia to help "Our Cathy" celebrate.
Bob being "the organiser" had set up a pig roast for the barby and the fun was to kick off at about 4pm. We thought that we would give it time to "warm up" and arrived at around 4:45pm.
We had only been there a couple of minutes and hadn't even had time for a first drink when we were introduced to the pig roast. The pig wasn't up to saying a lot and looked pretty browned off with the experience as his master, "Carlos the roaster" was happily basting away. What hapless Carlos hadn't realised was that he had set his roasting equipment a little too close to the foliage of the adjoining garden behind a dividing wall. Still with no drink in hand, I asked, is there someone next door also having a BBQ on the other side of that wall", as I could see flames and plenty of smoke beginning to appear.
In a surreal moment from jokingly looking at the fire over the wall, we quickly realised that the whole place was about to go up in flames. Within a matter of seconds the tinder dry bushes was up in flames as everyone scattered fetching anything that held water. The nearest thing at hand was a number of large plant pots which of course had holes in the bottom and when filled with water emptied before we could get to the fire. A hosepipe was quickly found, but I could have peed faster that the water emerged from the end of the pipe.
Carlos the roaster with mobile phone in hand was by now dialing 112 and summoning the Bombeiros.
In between time, the flames were getting higher and higher, from somewhere, proper buckets appeared (without holes)as people filled them from the swimming pool and emptied them onto the flames. By now the fire has really taken hold and the buckets of water were doing little as people were unable to get close enough to throw the water due to the extensive heat.
Suddenly a large fire extinguisher appeared, followed by another and then another, just as the sound of the bombeiros sirens could be heard in the distance.
Wielding one of the extinguishers, Alan, a brother of Bob tackled the flames which were now over 12 foot high. Amazingly after a quick burst, the extinguisher did its stuff and along with the other guys wielding their weaspons, the flames seemed to be out and under control, only for the odd ember to simmer and relight. By this time a proper hosepipe with more pressure was on hand to dowse the remaining flames and completely soak the surrounding areas.

On the left a Bombeiros fire fighter, or is it a taliban terrorist, checking out the damage,

At this point the bombeiros cavalry were on hand just as the flames had been put out.
As you can imagine, Portugal being a very dry country (mostly) and is always on high alert at this time of year for any fires that become a problem. The next thing we know is that we have really hit the jackpot as there is a bombeiros helicopter above scouring the area immediately close by for any sparks that have blown further afield. The helicopter does a number of passes as he relays the information to the bombeiros guys below.
By now we also have a compliment of police who have arrived and are looking for those responsible.
Fortunately, one of the guests is solicitor Maria Dias who is quickly summoned to the investigation to help Cathy explain. This seemed to have a calming effect on the proceedings as the police were seen to be occasionally smiling, always a good sign but probably as they had handed out the fine ticket.

Hapless Carlos on the right, tries to explain to the Bombeiros why he put a pig roast with open flames next to dry undergrowth and over hanging trees.

By now its just after 5pm and everything is under control.
At this point, the man who always likes to be in control, my friend Bob, suddenly arrives at the party, wondering what all the fuss was about. The only comment he could make was, "I thought this was a birthday party, not a house warming".

Happy Birthday Our Cathy.