Yesterday we decided to revisit a place called the Nucleo Sportinguista for lunch. We had been there last time we were in Figueira and remembered it being worth the visit. Our route took us through a park where the art work appeared to be inspired by Miró and Picasso. I'm pretty sure it wasn't there last time we came this way. Certainly worth seeing anyway.
At the end of the park, Phil looked around, a little bewildered. "I was sure we should have come out at the restaurant", he declared. And so we had. He just couldn't see it because it looks rather like a glass box. We were simply looking through it.
The food was as good as we remembered, although what was listed as garlic soup was really just another variation on vegetable. No problem. Next came fish. We thought you had to choose between the fish listed on the menu but the waitress explained that it was "uma mixta". So, when I had served myself this ....
I still had this left to eat.
But I managed it! I just didn't eat many potatoes. Such restraint.
A friend of my daughter's lacks that restraint. She confessed on Facebook, where such public confessions take place, to having been unable to resist opening all the doors on her advent calendar and eating all the chocolates hidden away behind them. One of her friends commented, "For every door on an advent calendar you open before the date, an elf dies in a work-related health and safety accident." In this way new Christmas myths are invented!!!
Of course, the true way to avoid eating all the chocolate is not to buy any! In our house I hide it. As I do biscuits! Cake is another matter. It needs eating while still fresh. Advent calendars, though, should not involve chocolate. If you only have the ones with pretty pictures; it removes temptation. Unless you are clever enough to hide a gift behind each door. Mind you, you probably need to be quite wealthy as well as organised to do that.
If you are quite wealthy, and silly, you can buy bundles of sticks as Christmas gifts. Marketed by Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, twin sisters who were child stars but have reinvented themselves as fashion designers, these bundles of sticks are called "palos santos" - Spanish, and probably Californian, for "holy sticks". You burn them in your home to rid it of negative energy apparently. Negative energy?! It is known as "smudging" and is thought to stem from a Native American practice that involves burning bundles of herbs, usually sage. At twelve dollars a bundle, it seems rather silly. Surely you could give the money to a good cause instead.
I have been going on just a bit this autumn about how good the colours have been and how the trees seem to be keeping their leaves for rather longer than usual. Well, I seem to be right. It's official. And it's all down to global warming and carbon dioxide, as you might expect. Here's a link to an article explaining it all, more or less.
While we're on about global warming, here's another curiosity. During last summer and the one before that we stuck tinfoil on our windows in the flat in Vigo to reflect the sunlight back away from our flat in an attempt to keep the interior a little cooler. It seems that we did the right thing. Scientists have been working on a mirror that reflects heat out into the cold depths of space in an attempt to replace air-conditioning units that keep buildings cool on Earth. And we all know that air-conditioning units are counterproductive as they just add to global warming. Anyway, here's a link to tell you all about it. Of course, it's all rather more complicated than our primitive aluminium foil but I think the principle is much the same. Who'd have thought it?
Update on the chess player: last night's game was less lengthy than the previous one. Another draw. Three points out of five. He seems quite happy with it all so far. We shall see!
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