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.

Music Quiz

Test your music knowledge.
There are 6 songs in the playlist for you to answer.
Hit the play button at the bottom of the page and see if you can name the songs and the artist, be careful, there is a tricky one, don't fall into the trap.
You can put your answers in the comments section which will be hidden from other readers (therefore the comments count will always read 0, but rest assured that your answers will be posted), sorry no prizes, just for fun.
I'll post the answers at the end of the month, no cheating, good luck.

That's why Mums shop at Iceland

...........not in Portugal they don't.

The Portuguese beurocracy maze strikes again. This time forcing the recently opened Iceland store at the Guia Retail Park to keep its doors firmly closed.
This except has been taken from the Portugal Daily News;

Shoppers found the doors closed at the Iceland store in Guia this morning. Here follows a statement from a company spokesperson.

"I can confirm that yesterday the Iceland store in Guia was inspected by more than one authority.

No real fault could be detected with the store except for the labels which we have to by law place on to imported food stuffs. Until yesterday we believed we were complying with all regulations by translating English ingredients in to Portuguese and adding additional label with this information to each food item.

Yesterday we were told that this information was insufficient and we are required to translated all cooking and storage instructions also in to Portuguese and the same for household, health and beauty and pet items and this information has to also be added to each product.

We were not given a time frame to accomplish this within, instead we were instructed to close until we are able to achieve this.

All at Overseas (Iceland) are now working very hard to ensure we are back up and running as soon as possible with minimal disruption to our customers. We would like to say by the weekend but we simply can't put a time scale on it at the moment.

We recommend our customers contact the store directly or check our web site before making a journey.

We apologise to all of our customers and are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause to them."

One wonders whatever will the authorities do next, another good Portuguese idea, don't you just love 'em.

Seagulls & Egrets

You must have noticed that whenever there is a tractor about, ploughing a field, there are always thousands of seagulls following there tractor, looking for a tasty morsel no doubt.

I went into the bottom field the other day on the tractor in an effort to keep the weeds down and keep plants that the snails love to grow on under control so that we won't be bothered by Pedro Gypsy next year.
I had only been in there for less than 30 seconds when along came, not a flock of seagulls, but a flock of egrets. It never really struck me before but I reckon that they must have bionic hearing, or perhaps the egrets had been on their egretphones and logged onto twitternet and spread the word, much the same as if you want to set up a riot or go looting and pillaging in the UK these days. Anyway, within a couple of minutes a load more egrrets appeared, check out the tractor-cam.