Hi all ,

Haven’t been in touch for a while ,mainly because I don’t want to batter you with details of swimming in clear azure seas , exploring areas with amazing scenery , sitting in our sun drenched cockpit sipping (?) chilled Madeira wine etc , etc while you are all suffering in the cold , misery and humdrumness of UK life. I thought it better just to write a few words when something of interest , that doesn’t fall into one of the above categories , happens.

Turns out to be harder than I thought and only three things of note have occurred : one a real surprise , one a misunderstanding and one equipment failure.

Firstly the misunderstanding for which I don’t accept full responsibility , being the nature of misunderstandings . Everywhere we have been there are signs posted , some small discreet ones on shop doors and windows , some in bold type on restaurant doors and some big shouty ones on motorway gantry signs . They all say the same thing – USE MASCARA ! -.  As we are going to be living here for several weeks the last thing I wanted to do is upset the locals by ignoring their traditions and local customs so, being  totally comfortable with my inner femininity , I borrowed some of Janets Boots No7 and decked myself out like Boy George . I admit it took a few goes to get it right , initially I resembled a very sad  clown , but with Jan’s encouragement  we soon got an acceptable result.  I was expecting some immediate rapport with locals , but I must say the men appeared rather more aggressive than they had up to now and when we got turned away from our Snorkels for Beginners by Jorge our instructor something had to change. Luckily for us our next door neighbour in the marina speaks Portuguese   and explained the actual meaning of the sign was “ Wear Masks “. Who would have guessed .

Still , I rather like the look and combined with my Don Quixote beard it really is quite fetching. Might keep it if I can find a waterproof mascara in silver/grey.

Secondly the equipment failure – see above ,Don Quixote beard. Snorkel masks don’t work when you’ve got a pointy beard sticking out the bottom. Tried Vaseline and  gaffer tape  to no avail so will only be snorkeling for very short distances from now on and emptying the mask regularly.

Finally the pleasant surprise . As you’ve probably gathered , it is very , very mountainous in these parts and some of the roads are incredibly steep so when our hire car turned up and it was a 1000cc Fiat Panda my heart sank . I had visions of leaving our picnic at the bottom of the mountain taking Jan up , dropping her off at the top and going back down for the picnic . That’s how pathetic I expected it to be . But no , not at all . In fact I’ve renamed it THE FIAT TIGER ( trumpets and drum roll )!!This little beast just wants to rev and rev , let alone sticking to the hairpins like roll-on to an armpit. It is sooo much fun ( I know it’s not Jan’s cup of tea but sometimes us boys   just have to be boys and anyway at no time did the vertical drop on her side exceed 1100metres )

Well , that’s all I can think of . I have included below a few photos of scenery for those inclined , none of us though because you know what we looked like before we left and seeing us happier and browner won’t make you feel any better.