Getting to Figueira.

When I stuck my head out this morning, it was fine and sunny with a beautiful blue sky, but rather chilly. A perfectly good October day in fact!

We set off for Liverpool airport midmorning with the sun still shining and our daughter’s car registering a temperature of 6 degrees.

At around 2.30 this afternoon we landed at Porto where the temperature was 28 degrees. Talk about a shock to the system! It’s lovely, to be sure, but it’s not natural. Even the locals agree with us. I wasn’t surprised. A friend in Vigo had already broadcast a temperature of 27 degrees yesterday. She was wondering when the rain would arrive. Well, as we are heading there next week, it’s quite likely that we will make the rain turn up.

We arrived at the airport, expecting to be collected and driven to Figueira da Foz, where Phil is playing chess over the coming week. We hung around and hung around, trying to look conspicuous but nobody showed.

A terribly elegant lady in killer heels came over and asked if my name was Elena. She must have been getting desperate. I had already walked past her several times, noted her sign saying “ELENA” and ignored her. Surely she had noticed that. Besides, she was so elegant that she must have been expecting someone more suave and sophisticated looking that me in my travelling best with a little backpack!

Eventually we phoned got through to the chess organiser, who assure dus that we had not been forgotten. Our driver was about to arrive. And sure enough, he did. He had been stuck in traffic because of an accident.

And off we went, speaking a mix of my bad Portuguese and his better, but not perfect, English. I did try. I managed to say a fair few things but his replies were incomprehensible! Not to self: must try harder.

We drive through a few places that had had fires recently, at the time that Galicia and Northern Portugal had seemed to be burning up completely. Maybe this is just a little further south but the devastation did not seem as great as I had expected. Maybe we just did not get close enough. Our driver told us that Figueira itself had had problems over about four days with fires raging. As I go exploring, I shall see what I can discover.

We arrived at our hotel to find that they had no record of our booking. This was not a problem, the receptionist assured us, he could find us a room. But we did not want to book just in case it turned out that our driver had made a mistake and brought us to the wrong one of several hotels patronised by the chess organiser. So, back to the phone we went. All is well. Thank goodness for modern technology.

Meanwhile, in the wider world, Catalonia has had a go at declaring independence and Spain has taken over. Direct rule from Madrid. It never did look as though it was going to end well. Now we shall have to wait for further developments! Simon Jenkins in the Guardian says it”s a problem for all of Europe. 

And Alistair Campbell is writing fantasy speeches in which Jeremy Corbyn turns around and pulls the UK out of Brexit.

A world gone mad! Or perhaps not!