Twinkle Twinkle, or perhaps Scintillate, Scintillate.....and some more photos

andromeda of plymouth
Susan and Andrew Wilson
Sun 14 Dec 2014 11:47

Twinkle, Twinkle, or perhaps Scintillate, Scintillate...........

 

It’s that time of year where all sorts of twinkling lights appear all over the marina and part of the town – times are hard, so there are only so many trees and roundabouts that will be lit up this year! The town is not quite so bright given austerity in Portugal, but there are a few displays adorning tress along the Avenida, in the town centre plaza itself, and on a couple of roundabouts – of which there are many!

 

A number of boats have gone to town this year with all sorts of twinkling lights, from red stars, to a significant amount of greenery adorned across spreaders and guardrails, with lights adding to the artistic nature of the display, to lengths of LED’s, to sophisticated displays of stars and “things”. Solar powered lights are much in evidence (it has been cloudy of late!), but there are also quite a few mains powered light displays, courtesy of the electricity included in the berth prices! There are certainly more lights here than we’ve seen elsewhere which probably means something to the philosophers and social scientists out there. (I know, bah humbug!).

 

Activities continue apace from the Line Dancing and Portuguese lessons to Bridge, the Music Group and a burst of physical activity involving walking, the gym and swimming – where do we get the time! Part of the latter is Susan and her friend Bev going to the municipal swimming pool three or so times a week – the walking, well Andrew’s 3-4 miles, occasionally more, each day and a cup of tea suits the lazy one! He and Alan only have to sit down in the Oasis cafe and tea and coffee appears!

 

The fridge – well a bit of a disaster really. Salt water got into the compressor and evaporation plate somehow so we have had to wait for a several new, and unfortunately pricey, parts to arrive. The last “fridge” guy missed this entirely so we had the system re-gassed, only for it to fail once again 5 days later, though, of course, we had to pay for the visit and the gas. Unfortunately, he then left on a delivery trip to the Caribbean! All being well the fridge may be running by Xmas, but until then we are back to the regular ice run – we’ve been doing this ever since we got to Barbados, so are quite used to it, though it is a challenge to keep stuff chilled and means more regular trips to the supermarkets than would otherwise be the case. Ho hum......the joys of this transitory lifestyle!

 

At the last fortnightly quiz we improved our position – not quite last, but to mid-table! Our team name, “The Four Candles” caused some amusement – there were indeed four as we were joined by Loraine and Alan, who’s partners were back in the UK for a variety of reasons. We had a laugh and missed a few points due to handwriting – oh, well, it got the brain cells remaining working a bit. We are thinking of renaming the team “The Winners” to see if that makes a difference for the next quiz. If not we will go for “The Overall Winners”.

 

We are now in the grip of a cold northerly breeze, so we have had to break out the heater, socks and fleeces – we never had this issue in Trini!! Though to be fair, the sun has shone more hours than rain has fallen, still it is a harbinger of the next few months!

 

Andrew continues his new interest of winding folks up through the forums – he’s not been banned yet, but it’s probably only a matter of time, but he is having fun 

 

Photos are from the trip Bermuda to Azores and a few from around Horta.....more to come

 

More in due course........

 

Andrew and Susan

Andromeda of Plymouth

Lagos Marina,

Portugal

 

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