Christmas Eve was scorchio!
33° outside and a lot warmer than the
18° inside the boat! This nice weather was,
of course, because we now have our new ‘boom bimini’ to keep out the rain. We
tidied up the boat for Christmas and took the children to the
beach.
18° inside, 33° outside!
Bethany, Bryn and Aline playing on Nikki Beach.
Christmas dinner number 1 happened on Christmas
Eve. We had invited Nicholas and Aline (RAPA NUI) for Christmas dinner – which
in France (and
Portugal) is traditionally a late
family meal with pressies distributed just after midnight on Christmas Eve…So
they duly turned up on Christmas Eve. There was a short period of intense
embarrassment and discomfort on both sides, before we had a good laugh about the
mistake and Nicholas and Aline joined us for Christmas pizza and Christmas cake
(thank you MYMAX!).
Christmas Day
Christmas morning dawned bright and sunny and –
thankfully – Father Christmas had found us! The children were delighted with
their presents, including new rucksacks, fountain pens, GameBoy games and
accessories, DVDs (Spiderman 3 and Shrek 3), surf Bratz (Beth), a fishing jacket
(Bryn), sweets and surf dude/chick key rings.
At 10 am we hosted Bucks Fizz and nibbles for
people we knew on the pontoons. This was also breakfast (olives, nuts and
chocolate).
Christmas dinner number
2
Christmas dinner number 2 happened at about 3 pm
on Christmas Day, and we were joined by Nicholas and Aline (again) and Mike
(DYNAMITE). We had sticky ribs (see recipe below), lashings of creamy mashed
potato and sweetcorn (‘cos that was what the children voted that we should
have), followed by chocolate pudding. We had musical crackers (thanks again
MYMAX!) and (the adults) had far too much to drink.
The sticky numbers came with an octave of whistles
in the musical crackers – maybe by next Christmas we will have got the hang of
matching the numbers to the whistles for something resembling Jingle Bells!
Mike: “What number did you say I was
again?”
On the first mouthful of Christmas dinner, my
crown (a really obvious front tooth) fell out leaving a hole that must have been
at least as big as the Albert Hall (well, that’s what it felt like anyway!). I
lisped my way through the rest of the day, trying not to smile too widely…
Late afternoon was siesta time, and a quiet
evening with a DVD. We contemplated sticking my crown back in with
Superglue…
The Christmas week that
was
The rest of the Christmas week has gone flying by.
Boxing Day was a normal day here in Portugal (not even a Bank Holiday).
We have walked on the beach, David went to watch some rugby at Taffy’s Bar, the
children played with their Christmas presents, and we have been belly boarding
and surfing (David can now stand up for 1.5 seconds). We found a dentist to
cement my crown back in place, so at least I can smile at people again without
scaring them…
How did you spend Boxing Day?
ECOVER 3
We are rubbing fenders with the famous, here in
Portimão – ECOVER 3 is spending her Christmas holidays here too! Mike Golding
had to retire from the Transat ECOVER B to B race (Salvador de Bahia in
Brazil to Port La Foret in
Brittany) due
to various engine and electrical problems, so his website says (http://www.mikegolding.com). Mike brought ECOVER 3 in here a week ago and she has since been moved
onto the hammerhead of our pontoon.
ECOVER 3 – 20.1 metres of pre-preg
carbon/honeycomb sandwich (whatever that is), with a high-tensile steel fin and
lead bulb with hydraulic canting system.
Unfortunately the marina staff forgot to take a
few things into account when they moved her – the Great Storm and ongoing
dredging in the Rio Arade will have silted up the marina basin, it was low tide
on a spring (big) tide, plus the fact that she has a 4.5 metre draft…They got
her well and truly wedged in the middle of the channel for 1.5 hours until the
tide came in and floated her off.
The Portuguese ‘push-me-pull-you’
manoeuvre.
Look at her stern – big bottoms are obviously
essential for speed!
Sticky ribs CAPE style
1 tablespoon clear
honey
2 tablespoons tomato puree (or
tomato ketchup)
2 tablespoons lemon
juice
3 tablespoons soy
sauce
1 tablespoon oyster or fish sauce
(optional, but does improve flavour)
1 teaspoon Chinese five-spice
powder
1 clove of garlic, crushed or
finely chopped
4 tablespoons hot
water
Mix all ingredients until
dissolved and use to marinade meat (in a non-metallic bowl) for as long as
possible, preferably overnight in the fridge. Works well for spare ribs, chicken
joints, and cubed pork (threaded onto skewers to cook).
Arrange meat in a roasting tin,
pour over any remaining marinade.
Cover and roast in a moderate
oven for about 1 hour until the meat is cooked and the marinade has reduced to a
sticky sauce.
Sufficient to marinade 750–1000 g
meat; quantities can be doubled, trebled, etc.
