Getting away from it all.

Another excellent lunch has been consumed. We took a friend along to the Núcleo Sportinguista, hoping for a repeat of the grilled sea bass that we had the other day. Unfortunately they were all out of sea bass so we had to make do with a different grilled fish. Not quite so tasty as the sea bass but still very good. 
 

It makes up for the rather indifferent unidentified fish we ate yesterday at a different restaurant. That seriously needed a sauce of some kind to liven it up. But really we cannot complain about the eating here. It has been very good on the whole. Quite how it would have been if we did not like fish so much is a different matter. 

Nor can we complain about the weather. Today has been t-shirt weather. I even saw some people in shorts but I did feel that they were exaggerating a little. And it does get just a little chilly in the evening, especially when the smokers leave the door to the terrace open while I wait for the chess player to finish his game. 

This morning I walked along the shoreline. Anglers were out. I often wonder what they do while they wait for a fish to bite. Maybe it's a Zen thing and they all get into a little meditation. Who knows? Anyway, I walked along the shoreline and saw some people walking barefoot in the sand. Perhaps that would have been a better option than having to empty sand out of my boots when I got back up to the promenade. 

As I left the beach, I came across this rather fine example of graffiti. This definitely beats the usual tagging that you see in most places. 

Today is Black Friday, which I have commented on before: another American tradition brought across the Atlantic. Even here in little Figueira da Foz there are shops telling us that it is Black Friday! Why do shops need a further excuse to have an instant sale? Can they not do so without having to put a silly label on it? All so that we will go out and spend, spend, spend! 

I was reading something by a journalist who has decided to have her own protest against Black Friday by vowing not buy anything but essentials for the next year: no new clothes, no cinema tickets, no concert tickets, no holiday bookings. She even plans to cycle to work so that she will not have to buy bus/train/tube tickets! And she has given up buying take-out coffee for the duration. Some aspects of this I can go along with and no doubt she will save money but it does seem a bit extreme. 

I think we'll just carry on booking flights to places where we can eat nice food and escape from the nastier realities of life!