Last day. Favourite restaurants. Sad stories and self-publicising politicians.

 This is our last full day in Silves, a last chance to go up the hill to the castle, which I suspect we won’t bother doing, even though it’s less hot than earlIer in our stay here. Tomorrow we should just about manage a last lunch at one of our favourite restaurants before a taxi arrives to take us to the airport.

In one of those favourite restaurants we have established a nodding acquaintance with an elderly lady who lunches there every day, sitting at “her” table in the corner.

The restaurant is decorated with a mix of traditional agricultural equipment, 

ancient carpentry tools (the sort my father and his father used to use), 

mariachi-style hats and curious musical instruments.

I have just discovered “disappearing messages”, which seems to be something that you can add to your WhatsApp so that your messages conveniently self-destruct after a set time. I came across this as I was reading about the Mandelson vetting business; it seems that it’s hard to establish exactly what communication went on between Starmer and Mandelson because of “disappearing messages”. I suppose it was inevitable that such a facility would eventually be available in this modern age where your posts on all kinds of social media can be scrutinised and used against you. I wouldn’t be surprised however to discover that those disappeared messages are still floating about somewhere in the ether, in a version of the cloud, just waiting for a clover bod to publish the scandal they contain.

Here’s something else I have just learnt. Marina Hyde began an article (about the Starmer - Mandelson stuff if I remember correctly) with the statement: “We are in the TL;DR days of Keir Starmer’s government

 

So I had to look up TL;DR. This is what I found:

“TL;DR stands for "too long; didn't read," and it is commonly used to introduce a brief summary of a longer piece of content or to indicate that a text was too lengthy to read in full.”

Which just goes to show that there is always something ew to learn.

Here’s some more serious stuff. Following the murder of a young man, Henry Nowak, by a Sikh man (a sad, mixed-up story involving racism, police mishandling of the whole business, the right to carry ceremonial knives - all in all a nasty mess), Nigel Farage has been finding another way of publicising himself, organising a broadcast to “address the nation”. Here’s a link to an article about that.

The estimable John Crace comments on that beginning like this:

“The email invitation arrived shortly after 7am. Nigel Farage would be making an “address to the nation” an hour later. The grandiosity. The self-importance. An address to the nation is something usually delivered by the monarch or the prime minister during an emergency. Not from a leader of a political party with just eight MPs.”

Thank you John Crace. We need more reminders that Refirm UK has ONLY EIGHT MPs. Instead of going on about Farage possible being a future prime minister, someone should organise huge posters all over the country declaring in large, brightly coloured letters that

HE ONLY HAS EIGHT MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT!!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Weather here and there, now and in the future. Tour de France. Beggars. Keeping towns clean and tidy.

There’s a cool breeze this morning, or at least there was when I ran first thing. There’s a little cloud on the horizon too. The sky is not quite so relentlessly blue. We are promised a high temperature of 29° today as opposed to the 34°+ of recent days. A Belgian lady in our hotel was complaining that it was cold on the terrace where she likes to have breakfast. Cool and breezy, yes, but hardly cold! But then, everything is relative.

However, it seems that the weathermen are predicting not only continued hot weather over much of Europe, including the UK, but also even hotter conditions to contend with. As ever, predictive maps show much higher temperatures for the South of England than for the Northwest. No doubt we’ll have reports of England sweltering and running out of water. Though quite how a generally rainy country like ours can run out of water still defeats me. El Niño is supposed to be making a comeback too, bringing extremes of weather later in the year. We must be prepared.

And here we are in June already. It’s now officially summer in the northern hemisphere. In another few weeks the Tour de France will be starting. Another bit of excitement to look forward to. The usual names arevalready being talked about and Jonas Vigegaard has already won the Giro d’Italia. He is now the eighth man to win the Giro, Tour de France and Vuelta a España, joining Bernard Hinault, Eddy Merckx and Vincenzo Nibali in reaching one of the sport’s hardest goals.

A few weeks ago I read that the Tour was coming to Oldham, and not just to Oldham but to our village, Delph, with riders battling up the steep hill to Grains Bar. Checking for information about the 2026 Tour date, I could find no mention of England, let alone Delph. This year’s tour will start on Barcelona, weave its way around la belle France and finish in Paris. I was puzzled. Had I dreamt it? No, no dreams at all, just the Tour de France Femmes. I don’t envy those ladies struggling up that hill. Much gentler slopes have me pushing my bike.  

As I returned from my run earlier I reflected that we haven’t seen any homeless people here in Silves. Neither have we been stopped by anyone asking for a contribution so they can buy some lunch. As you leave the Aldi store there is a stall where volunteers are handing out bags for shoppers to fill and pay for and then return to the stall. So clearly there are people in need of help to get on with their daily lives but the homeless and the beggars, if such there are, must somehow be kept away from the centre of town. Maybe there are none.

What there are are people who clean the streets, empty the litter bins, cut the grass and clear weeds away. I reflect on the overflowing litter bin in the centre of Delph village, the bus shelter frequently full of rubbish because someone in their wisdom removed the litter bin from there, and the “healthy” crop of dandelions, buttercups, poppies, you name it, that grow at the edge of our pavements. If Portugal can employ people to keep their cities beautiful, why can’t England? Just wondering!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Potatoes. Salad. Salmon to excess. Food philosophy. In praise of pools. Poor politicians!

 When we were in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria recently we decided to try a local delicacy, papas arrugadas - wrinkled potatoes, basically small potatoes boiled with their skins on - that’s where the wrinkles comes from - and served with a spicy sauce. Well, I like potatoes in almost any form and these were quite tasty. Like so many “specialist” regional dishes, it struck me that it had probably started as poor man’s food, something to fill a space so that you don’t need as much meat. Think of Yorkshire pudding, a nicely filling batter affair, good with gravy, to fill up the children’s hungry tummies and so leave more roast beef for daddy. Anyway, here’s a link to an article about papas arrugadas. Who knew that there was so much to say about the humble spud?

Felicity Cloake, author of the article, maintains that the name “mojo” for the sauce probably comes from the Portuguese for sauce “molho”. I would add to that the fact that the Spanish verb “mojar” means ,”to moisten”, “to damp”, “to wet”. If you are caught in a rainstorm you can be “mojado hasta los huesos”, not just soaked to the skin but soaked to the bones. So to me it makes sense that you call a marinade or sauce “mojo”.

The papas arrugadas, by the way, were quite tasty but proabably not something to be eaten every day.

 Here in Silves i am eating a lot of salad. The price of a salada mista ranges from €4.50 to €6.50, sometimes little more than lettuce, tomato and sliced onion, at others adorned with grated carrot and red cabbage and other such stuff. 

Yesterday at the Marisqueira restaurant I considered a fish soup and mixed salad for lunch but was persuaded that a slightly more fancy, and slightly more expensive, salada de camarāo would be good. So I abandoned the fish soup (it was really too hot for any soup other than a very chilled gazpacho anyway) and enjoyed my salad with prawns, walnuts, orange and the other usual ingredients. I also helped Phil out with the enormous serving of grilled salmon which arrived for him. 

Here’s bit of food philosophy from one of our favourite restaurants: don’t put off til tomorrow what you can eat today! 

The temperature soared to around 36°C yesterday and more of the same is forecast for today. Thank heavens for a hotel with a pool and a shady area with loungers (shade loungers not sun loungers) for those who do not want to toast themselves!

Former SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon is protesting her innocence and ignorance of he husband’s misuse of the party’s funds. She says she is not responsible. She’s just a wife who doesn’t notice what her husband does. Here is a link to John Crace’s reflection on poor Nicola’s situation. Poor Nicola must have been wearing blinkers though not to notice expensive items appearing at their household. It must be a hard life being a politician.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Hot sun. Blue moon. Illustrating children’s books. The problems of Sunday eating!

 They are forecasting a high temperature of 36°C today. That’s rather hot! It was a relatively cool 20°at 8.00 this morning. In view of the possible overheating later, I dragged myself out of bed and went for a run. I may need to lie down and rest later.

We have had a splendid full moon this weekend. I am told this is a blue moon. 

This has nothing to do with its colour.  Blue moon is apparently the term used when you have two full moons in one month, one at the beginning of the month and one at the end. It’s also a micromoon, although it doesn’t seem especially small. The moon goes round the earth in an ellipse. So sometimes its closer to the earth and we get a supermoon and sometimes its further away and we get a micromoon. Blue micromoons are relatively rate. That’s a bit of lunar science for us!

With temperatures soaring, here is Madeline Horwath’s cartoon on overlooked challenges in a heatwave. 

Incidentally I saw a young goth down by the pool the other day, dressed in black, complete with heavy black eyeliner. I don’t think she went in the water.

Illustrating children’s books is an art form which according to this article is going to get recognition in the form a museum/art gallery in London. 

It could be sort of place to go to when you are old enough to become nostalgic about The Gruffalo, The Twits, Hairy McLary from Donaldson’s Dairy, and my favourite Where the Wild Things Are. It’s hard work illustrating children’s stories. I know this having put together a story about a talking cat for my grandchildren. 

We know from our experience last Sunday that two of our favourite restaurants here are closed on Sundays. So yesterday we tried to book a table at the Marisqueira for lunch today, only to find that they only accept bookings for evening meals! So we’ll take pot luck and head there at lunchtime, goping we don’t have to stand around in the midday sun waiting for a table.

Hey ho!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Chance encounters. Festivals. Cruises. Environmental stuff.

 Walking into town to the market yesterday I stopped on a bench to check how much loose change I had in my purse, an important consideration for later in the day when I would need to leave a tip in the restaurant at lunchtime. An elderly lady with a floppy straw hat and pulling a shopping trolley came and sat beside me. Having established that if she spoke slowly there was a good chance I could understand her, we had a bit of a chat in my halting Portuguese. She told me she was in her eighties and, thanks to God, she was still able to get around. Well! Good! We went our separate ways!

Later in the day, returning from lunch I met her agin, sitting on the wall near our hotel. She seemed delighted to see me again. Such is life!

There was some kind of festival going on yesterday evening in a square on the other side of the river. I had noticed a marquee and stage being erected earlier in the week. All afternoon we could hear them testing the sound system. As I returned from leaving Phil at the chess tournament venue in the evening I could tell that it was all systems go. I briefly considered donning mu roving reporter hat and going across to observe, maybe take a few photos. But I was rather hot and sticky and just wanted to get back to the hotel and cool down. Maybe my intrepid photo-journalist days are behind me. 

The music was still going at 1.00 in the morning but as festivals go it was really quite restrained. I remember a year when we stayed in a hotel on Santiago de Compostela, adjacent to the park where the local festivities were going on until 4.00 or 5.00 am. From what I have seen, which is probably quite limited, I get the impression that they clean up quite quickly after these local festivities, not leaving a Glastonbury mess behind. 

Incidentally, here’s a link to an article about an organisation called WasteBar in the Netherlands. They take their food van to festivals and accept payment in cigarette ends (“Cigarette butts are the most common form of plastic waste in the world, with more than 4.5tn butts produced every year.) and in plastic waste.

I’ve lomg been aware of the litter problem with cigarette ends but apparently it’s not just litter; they contain plastic, heavy metals and other toxic substances, and they can be incredibly difficult to remove from the environment. I used to have a German friend who had a little tin she carried around to  he cigarette ends in. An excellent environmental protection idea but there was a part if me that was repelled by the idea of having to empty it later - the foul ashtray smell!

As a consequence of the loud music - not to mention another late return from the chess tournament by Phil - I once again opted not to run this morning but stayed in bed a little longer. The tournament finishes today and so we can return to normal bedtimes! 

I have expressed on more than one occasion my dislike of the idea of going on a cruise holiday on one of those huge boats, the ones that recently had problems with hantavirus and the like. Here’s a link to an article about someone who sold up all his belongings and now lives on cruises, with the lady he met and married on … wait for it … a cruise. In bis fifties, he reckons he has found the ideal life style. I wonder if he’ll feel the same in twenty or thirsty years! 

I wonder about clothes. Do people who live this way not grow tired of their limited wardrobe? Do their clothes not wear out? Do they buy new clothes when their boat stops for a day in a city somewhere? And do they just throw away the old items? Not very environmentally sound! But then, maybe chugging around in a large ship, burning fossil fuels and possibly polluting the oceans is not too sound either!

So it goes!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Oversleeping. Late nights after chess. Storks nesting. Tony Blair. Fiesta time in Delph, Saddleworth.

 So this morning I switched my alarm off and went back to sleep. It’s probably only thanks to my bladder that I woke up again in time for us to have breakfast. The hotel stops serving breakfast at 10.00. They’re quite punctual about it too. Yesterday we fancied a second cup of coffee as we reached the end of breakfast. No chance! The coffee machine was switched off!

So today I have not had my usual morning constitutional. I’ll maybe stroll out to the market for some good oranges later. 

I think we’re both feeling a little sleep-deprived. The games at the tournament start at 7.30 in the evening. Now, chess games can be quite lengthy. Phil has been getting back to the hotel at 11.30 or later. On more than one occasion I have ordered beer from the bar before he gets back, as the bar closes, again with great punctuality, at midnight! Cinderella, eat your heart out!

The local chess club puts photos of the tournament on their Facebook page. Yesterday it featured Phil at the tournament, just right of centre, leaning on his elbows, deep in thought, with another player contemplating his game - which he unfortunately lost! So it goes!

As I strolled home I took another look at the storks nest on the dead palm. Mrs Stork + babies were there for all to see. Rather impressive.

I’ve commented on Tony Blair and his criticism of the current version of the Labour Party. Even NewsThump has commented: “Tony Blair still a thing, apparently”.  Well, here’s a comment on Facebook from Nick Cohen of The London Economic:

“You cannot work for Donald Trump and call yourself a “radical centrist” or any type of centrist. tony Blair indulges a far right president who attacks democracy at home and abroad. It’s about time his admirers faced reality.”

Back home in Delph, today is Whit Friday Band Contest Day. Bands from all lver he region, from other parts of England and even other countries will go from Saddleworth village to Saddlweowrth village playing their brass instruments. It’s the closes we have to carnival. As a rule it rains but people turn out anyway. Today the forecast suggests some sunshine! Of course we’re not there to witness it. But hurrah all the same! May the best band win!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Castles and earthquakes. Politicians and climate change and the food crisis. Stuff about dogs.

 Another fine day out and about in Silves. 

I’ve still not yet found the energy to walk up to the castle this year. I don’t suppose it has changed much since last year. I got into conversation with someone yesterday evening who told me that the castle originally had several outer defence walls, at stages down the hill from the main fort, aimed at deterring attackers. In the great Portugal earthquake of 1755, the one that almost destroyed Lisbon, 

these wall collapsed, as did buildings around the castle. The castle survived but my informant told me that there were only 14 families left in Silves. It seems to have revived since then. 

However, a Welshman involved in that conversation declared that the town needs more organised tourist information and the restaurants need better notices in English about their menus. Mind you, he also said he didn’t particularly like fish, which is a disadvantage when you are looking for tasty food! 

On the subject of food, this article tells us that the UK is heading for a food crisis. After a dry spring and the current hot weather, farmers are not able to provide as large crops as usual. And their animals are suffering from the heat. I know that our milkman will be complaing that his ‘girls’ do not like the heat.

But apparently Tony Blair is denying the climate crisis, the food crisis and all sorts of modern problems. Caroline Lucas posted this about him:

“Whatever world Tony Blair inhabits appears to be one without climate change & where the UK temperature record for May has not just been smashed by over 2°C. How else explain his extraordinary dismissal of net zero and his erroneous claim that fossil fuels are cheaper than renewables?”

He has been criticising Andy Burnham and others in the Labour Party. In turn they have criticised him:

“Wes Streeting and Andy Burnham have criticised Tony Blair’s “striking weakness” in failing to engage with inequality, as senior party figures hit back at the former prime minister’s castigation of the Labour party.

Blair has published a lengthy critique of Labour’s time in office under Keir Starmer, arguing for the government to crack down on welfare spending, abandon restrictions on oil and gas production, and smooth relations with Donald Trump.”

However, judging by this photo of Mr Blair, I almost get the impression he would like to emulate Mr Trump.

I came across this post on social media about dogs:

“You'll never walk alone...

How times change. As a kid back in the 50's we had a family dog, a Heinz 57 type mongrel called Spot. We would open the front door in the morning and off he'd trot, returning around mid afternoon after having spent an enjoyable day around the area. We found out later he would visit all the local schools in turn and the dinner ladies would each give him a free lunch, it was no wonder he was always that bit rotund.

Of course to see a dog walking on its own these days is cause for it to be broadcast across Facebook... and 'who has lost their dog'!

This is 'You'll never walk alone', my tribute to all those freedom loving dogs from the 50's.”

Lots of comments supported this view. I too remember dogs roaming the streets, sometimes rather frightening fo children playing out. There did  ot seem to be so many dogs bred for ferocity back then though. Nor were there lots of fashionable doggy clothes or specialist foods such as Granddaughter Number One spends a lot of money on. What we did have was a lot of dog-dirt on streets. No need to go back to those dog-days.

Incidentally, as I walked back from the chess tournament venue yesterday evening I saw no fewer than three dog buggies with dog owners maybe replacing babies with dogs! Granted on was for an old dog who might not have managed a long walk. One was transporting three chihuahuas - presumably their little legs get tired. And we have to take into account that hot pavements are not good for dogs’ feet … or so Granddaughter Number one tells me. Someone is making money out of this aspect of canine care though!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!