Best Portuguese here “boa tarde”, you would think after the best part of 6 weeks here I would be full on with my ability to speak some local lingo. Well the answer is a resounding no, for a couple of reasons; one Google translate and second we are guinea pigs for the locals to try out their varying degrees of English. We are not lazy in fact we are educators of the Queens English or something. Not sure where “ey up me duck” and “all right darling” fall into the Queens English but holiday makers this summer will be entertained.

Apart from being educators we have settled into the routine of being on a rally quite nicely. We have chosen well on what activities to do and what not to do. Our favourite activity by far is the quiz which is held every Thursday evening at 9pm. The consensus of opinion was the start time was a little late ????? But it remains well attended by the ralliers and the “residents”. I don’t think I have mentioned the “residents” before, a group of ex pats who live on site in some very nice static units and some not so nice static units. Some are nice and some not so nice, the not so nice seem to frequent the bar when the quiz is on and by the time the quiz starts they are hammered and somehow manage to win the bloody quiz. That is until we entered with a team of 11! Oh the whispering about the size of the team and what are the rules was brilliant and in the words of a dear friend we “nearly caused an international incident”. So much emotion for a prize of 4 bottles of beer and 7 mini Mars bars. We have reduced the number in our team and now we seem to lose even when Theresa is here to help.

The Sunday dinner session we have knocked on the head as the cheap (free) wine really effects the older folk and honestly its not a pretty sight seeing senior people drunk. 70 year olds trying to cop off is not pleasant. I am sure in their younger days they were ”players” and maybe in the eyes of their peers they still are but to us young whipper snappers its a lesson in how I don’t want to be.

That leaves us with the dog walks and the impromptu afternoons in our garden with the neighbours. A bit of pop, a lot of chat and poor old Denise gets the blame for the state of Policing in the whole of the UK, she handles it well with “you do know I retired 10 years ago?” We have had some very nice afternoons with some very nice people. I love the fact that actually there is no snobbery, actually there is but I have deduced its the older “Caravaners” who for some reason don’t like Motorhomers, mostly everyone of all walks of like get on and help each other when the need arises.

Its not all sunshine there have been some long rainy, heavy rainy days which leaves mud, lots of mud and flooded awnings with a few stuck motor vehicles. At these times its really warming to see everyone out helping giving advice and supporting each other. The best advice was given by Denise to a man who was stuck in the mud in his camper van, his wheels were digging massive holes in the mud, his clutch was burning as were his breaks, he had two lots of tracks out front and rear of his wheels with six to eight people pushing with no Joy. Advice given “take your handbrake off”. Sorted.

The mud has caused us a little issue but with some trench building and gravel delivered by the campsite maintenance team its fixed. I was digging a trench at the rear of Hobby Hobster to stop the rain seeping under the van and the “annex” and creating a muddy squidgy underfoot nasty ness with my army surplus folding shovel when the very kind German gentleman behind us bought me the biggest hoe and instructed me on how to dig a proper trench. During my digging he came back to oversee my progress and gave me more tips then at the end of the dig he inspected my work and congratulated me.. He did this by slapping (ok tapping) my back which was wet as I had sweated like a pig, realising this he became stern and sent me to get some dry clothes on – immediately. Adopted by Ramon (his wife is Helga).

I did have to dig another trench the other side of Hobby Hobster, I borrowed the big hoe and additionally used my new tool purchased from the Chinese shop “that stocks everything but you wouldn’t want to buy any electrical stuff from” which is actually a baby hoe. I love my hoe. (Thank you Theresa for your help during the remedial work)

We have had visitors, Theresa has been twice and cousin Andrew has been out for a long weekend. Its been brilliant having our guests, not sure how the nights have been for them. Its still winter here, well not now we are in spring and the temperatures have risen significantly during the day and at night but previously its been quite cold at night. Obviously we have a nice warm motorhome, our guests have the “annex” as lovely as it is it is still a tent with an inner tent called “the bedroom” and at night its cold even with hot water bottles and extra blankets. Both Theresa and Andrew are made of stern stuff as neither of them took up the offer of coming in if it gets too cold. Hats off to them.

As far as sight seeing goes we have been to nice beaches, seen a chapel built with bones, seen some spectacular coastline and best of all for me watched the a fish market auction in Sagres. A fellow rallier who came from my part of the world (Kent) told us about a restaurant in the fishing harbour at Sagres that was situated on top of the fish market. It turns out that the market is held daily at around 3 and from the restaurant you can watch the fish being bought in, weighed and bid for. What makes it is the restaurant owners who are a Portuguese / English family are so passionate about the fishing heritage of their family and the town they have turned 3pm into a free tutorial. One of the 4 sons – Phil, will tell you about the market, the fish, the fisherman and tell stories of his great grandad who was one of the first fisherman in Sagres. This was a great afternoon and I hope we get to go back.

 

We have had a real treat, a couple of ex colleagues of Denise live here in Portugal and we have spent some time with them in their beautiful home and indeed on their beautiful sailing yacht. Denise is not a sailor so we had to wait for a very calm day which fell on a day Andrew was with us and he was able to come out on the yacht too. It was superb experience with Jann and Phill looking after us impeccably. We had a little sail trouble but that didn’t detract from a fantastic afternoon with more good company.

Peter’s new spare wheel arrived, we left it some weeks before we decided to put it on, when we did we discovered some way into the job that the wrong size wheel had been sent. Added to which the bracket that holds the wheel in place was impossible for us to remove. We decided to get another wheel sent and just carry it in the car until we got home and then we would visit Woodford trailers and get them to sort the nuts and bolts out.

Jolanta at Woodford trailers was excellent again sending a new wheel out (still no cost to us). Our neighbour was chatting to me about the trailer and the saga of the spare wheel was discussed and our solution shared. Next thing there were three men all with socket sets and ratchets getting stuck into Peter. Poor Peter, now with not too much experience of blokes I do know that if a girly tells them it cant be done (easily) there is a need for them to show you it can be done, easily or not. Its fair to say I was right, it was a nightmare job that took ages but not to be beaten my new German Dad, his pal and Alan from Poole fixed it. Peter has all his wheels in place and we are grateful for the effort the boys made for us, a few beers and some hugs made it worth their while.

Things are pretty normal, we shop, we do washing at the on site laundry, we cook, Denise reads and I talk to folk and generally do things, I don’t really know what I do but the days go by and every night we seem to say what a lovely day we have had. Jarjar is still the star of the show, enjoying his walks on the beach, demanding his dinner at 4 and now choosing to sit in the car if its too warm, because when the roof and windows are down with it parked under the tree its the best place to be. I struggle to understand how he gets us to do these things for him but we do, he just seems to signal somehow and we somehow know what he wants. He is in a naughty phase at the moment stealing things that don’t belong to him, food mainly well food only but the food maybe hidden in something that isn’t food but it could be there so he nicks it anyway. Sometimes his naughtiness can be very nasty can’t it Andrew?

This week I discovered that there is an annual FIFA Ladies international football Tournament held in the Algarve, we missed the first two rounds of matches but managed to get to see Australia v China (Australia won 2 -1) yesterday and tomorrow we will go and watch the final between Spain and Canada. Entry is free and if we had realised it was on sooner we would have been to many more games. Shame they didn’t advertise it, anyway next year we will be ready for it.

During Theresa’s second visit there was a one off special event put on by volunteers of the rally. A variety performance……… It would be easy for me to just take the piss (and I will) but everyone who took part did so with the goal of providing entertainment, fun and laughter, they were great sports and whether they knew it or not they were great fun. Its fair to say there was little talent on show, lots of guts and plenty of ambition. The range of acts reflected the special people on the rally, my favourite was the fairy song sung by a lady who is 4 foot nothing broad Yorkshire, very broad dressed in full fairy outfit, wings, wand, frilly skirt, tiara and ballet shoes all in pink. She danced and sang about not being loved as a fairy when you are 50 and then 60 and the 70 and then 80 and finally 90 which can’t be far short of her real age. We had sketches about people in hospital and sketches around the old favourites like “there’s a hole in my bucket dear Liza”. We had a group of Ukulele players they were on a for some time, it was either a long song or all the songs sounded the same to me. We had Elvis, he was really crap didn’t know the words so had assistance from a stage hand who held the words up and used a torch so they could be seen, now you might think that was part of the act you know comedic effect and all, it was not. We all joined in and helped and Elvis got the best round of applause all night. Honestly it was a good night if not a little different.

So, you can see we have done a fair amount, met some great people and some not so great but that is life, we have done and seen lots of different things as they say variety is the spice of life.

Sharing some photos