Holiday fun with Ollie, vineyards and time for the deep blue sea.

The Marina promoted a visit to a local vineyard (organic as it happens), MONTE DA CASTELEJA, and no more than 10 minutes away by car – a really nice place, quiet and calm, though it did have two squawking geese in residence along with three dogs of varying ages and breeds. Our host, Susanna, was charming, funny and a really informative guide with a great sense of humour, from whom we learnt quite a few nuggets about wine. We had an informative tour and then appreciated some samples of wine from the estate – and they were very good indeed. The folks with us were great company and the bottles of red are now lying on their sides! The chorizo bread and the “jam” and honey provided by Susanna were excellent. If you are in the area at the beginning of September, clean feet are always most welcome!! But do keep those bunions and in-growing toe-nails under control – yes, they still do “tread” the grapes here – three to a tub as it happens on this estate!

Had a great time with Phil, Ruth and Ollie earlier this month, and despite the best efforts of the weather managed to get out every day and see some sunshine and blue skies. Ollie thoroughly loved the whole journey – planes, buses, trains and settled into the apartment very well. He stayed on Andromeda a couple of nights and seemed to enjoy the whole experience so Phil and Ruth could enjoy some evenings out on the town. Trips on the land train and an eventful, if cold day, at the Water Park, including watching raptors and parakeets in action, kept him well entertained and the idea of getting a train to go back to his “normal home”, rather than the “holiday home”, was icing on the cake as far he was concerned. Indeed the adults enjoyed the cold water and slides as well as the intermittent patches of sunshine. A lovely time indeed, especially when we managed to get to the beach and Ollie thoroughly enjoyed some time at the Music Group. Susan was getting over a cold when they arrived, but thankfully didn’t seem to pass on any bugs.

We had our last Music Evening for a while last Saturday, a weekly event we have looked forward to. Very different to last year’s group in terms of singers and musicians and folks joining in, but good nonetheless. The “songbook” now has some 200 songs, each of which has been “tried” at least once. There are, naturally, a large number of favourites though we are always looking to try new songs – this year Galway Girl, Raggle Taggle Gypsy and Dirty Old Town seemed to be amongst those most often performed. Anyway we will be interested to see what happens this winter, assuming there are folks interested again. Sue from Southend kindly sent Andrew a “tin whistle” to learn – how popular his efforts at learning this instrument will be on any of the sailing trips will be interesting!

So now we are getting organised for the trip with Paul and Jackie on Jetstream and getting Andromeda ready for our absence for a couple of months. All being well, we will be off by the 19^th/20^th, initially heading for Porto Santo (about 3 days sailing) and then Madeira, followed by the trip to the Azores, which will be about 4-6 days or so at sea depending on which island we visit first. We are really looking forward to getting out on the deep blue sea for a while. We should be back in Lagos by early/mid July before heading north once more to meet Bill and Aly for the trip to the UK – another very interesting and exciting trip we are looking forward to.

More in due course when we get to where we are going and can get connected – we won’t have a satellite phone with us this time!

Susan and Andrew

Andromeda of Plymouth

Western End of F Pontoon

Marina de Lagos