Wet and windy weather. Running in Portuguese rain. How to confuse a waiter. U-turns. Money matters.

I sort of watched the sun go down from our hotel window last night. I say ‘sort of’ because it was a matter of catching a moment when the sun was clearly going down but had not yet disappeared into a big bank of cloud. A very autumnal sunset this, no romantic colours.

 

This morning the big bank of cloud has covered the whole area. Visibility is strictly limited. I ran in the drizzle along the boardwalks that crisscross the beach. We’ve never been here in the summer but I have been told it’s a very popular holiday destination: miles of lovely beach, rolling waves for the surfers and good food. Today it’s just a sad seaside place in the rain. The food is still good though. 

 

My daughter tells me that the weather in the north of England seriously deteriorated after we left yesterday. They had gale force winds and hailstorms in the afternoon and evening. She suspects that had we been booked on a later flight it might well have been delayed or even cancelled, so bad were conditions. Our timing was spot on. 

We went to an old haunt in the middle evening yesterday, the restaurant Caçarola 2. We seriously confused the waiter by ordering no more than fish soup, some bread and a glass of white wine each. Other diners were ordering complicated fish and shellfish dishes or strange looking skewers of alternating meat and crayfish. We were given a tablet with a range of what the Spanish call “parillada” (probably “parilhada” in Portuguese), a very fancy presentation of lobster, crab, and assorted shellfish, to choose from but we were really tired and just wanted our fish soup. So despite his trying to press even a salad onto us, fish soup was what we had. And very good it was too. 

 And then we went back to the hotel to catch up on our sleep.

Today, refreshed, we’ll be more adventurous, although I suspect that long walks may not be the order of the day unless the chilly drizzle clears up a little.

In the wider world, it appears that Rishi Sunak has u-turned on Cop27. He will be attending after all - maybe he’s afraid of being upstaged by a certain former prime minister!

According to this article schools are warning that they will run out of money very soon as the cost of everything is just racing out of control. We live in difficult times.

And yet Matt Hancock, suspended MP, is reported to be receiving a fee of £400,000 for appearing on “I’m a celebrity, get me out of here”. Maybe he could donate some of it to repay the money wasted on unusable PPE.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!