Life as a chess widow. Things I see in Silves. Hot weather stuff. And Palestinian suffering.

 The games at the chess tournament begin at 7.30 in the evening, possibly hoping it will be cooler for playing. 

They have organised a shuttle bus to take players from the hotel to the venue. So we travel in style to the game and I stroll back, looking out for interesting things. 

On Monday I spotted a group of people doing some kind of yoga class on the grass near the river.  It was definitely not tai chi, which I have seen in parks and on beaches all over the place. They were in a circle, all of them on their back with their legs on the air. A good time of day to exercise gently, I suppose, but I prefer my run in the relative cool of the early morning.  

Yesterday evening it was a stork’s nest on top of an old palm. Their nests are very straggly and untidy but they seem to maintain them. I read that they like to return to the same nest year on year. Sensible birds!

  

Waiting in the hotel lounge for Phil to return from his chess game, so that we could have a beer together, I got into conversation with a Belgian couple. Possibly a mistake as the wife was very negative about so many things: the hotel room is clean enough but there are cobwebs behind the curtain; their room is on the lower ground floor (as is ours) and as she likes to sleep late in the morning, she is worried that there might be noise as people go to the pool: there is no fridge in the room; and so on. Fortunately the coffee machine was working properly in the breakfast room today, which it wasn’t yesterday morning! This could have been another soirce of complaint!

The river here is tidal. When the tide goes out the water level in the river falls. This morning when I ran I saw storks fishing in the mudflats.

The hot weather continues here and in the UK, where they seem to have been having sticky nights. We are fortunate her that the nights are cool enough for sleeping not to be a problem. Down at the pool lots of people still work on their suntan while I sit in the shade. Here is a cartoon about the British heatwave.

On a more serious note, this is a post from social media yesterday from someone called Mosab Agu Toha:

“A Palestinian hostage has died today in Israeli concentration camp. His name is Mohammed Ahmad al-Halabi.

Israel,had held him hostage since 1991.

(Note: in December 2022, Israel murdered his som Ahmad.A month before that, Israel,killed his sister, her husband, and their entire family.)

35 years abducted by Israel. 1991 - 2026”

But of course, there are those who say this stuff has only been going on since October 7th 2023!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!