Monday 4th July

 

Dear All

 

We continue to 'enjoy' life experiences to varying degrees.

 

Porto is incredibly picturesque - in fact it may well look as though we have jumped ship onto a Viking River Cruise.  This is indeed something we are considering at some point in the future as it seems that a trip 200 km further up the river is a clear 'must'.  We spent yesterday on a hop on/hop off bus, with a short boat trip through the town thrown in.  This weekend has been the Catholic Festival of St Peter; last night there was a parade of about 40 'floats' of flower surrounded statues paying homage to various saints - a sort of 'May Queen' parade with cute little girls in cream bridesmaid type dresses leading each of the floats.  I didn't mind the music and festivities on Saturday night but by the time the 'rave' music stopped at 01:45 last night/this morning, I was definitely having a 'grumpy old woman' moment.  As I write this I can hear the band warming up again - I wouldn't mind but there doesn't seem to be any tune to the music!  Does each generation say the same thing?  However, to make up for this, somebody drops four delicious fresh bread rolls (we haven’t ordered them) into our cockpit every morning.

 

This morning I pottered off to the shower block before breakfast.  I wandered into the ladies' section to find a chap standing at the basin shaving.  I backed off assuming that as I hadn't put my contact lenses in yet, I had wandered into the wrong area.  After checking the picture on the door I went back to tell the man that this was the Ladies.  The shower block is a huge communal changing room, rather like in a school, with pegs in the centre for clothes and showers along one wall.  Having pointed out to this man the error of his ways, I assumed he would just pack up and move on.  He didn't, so I stood politely and waited for him to finish.  He noticed he was holding me up and told me it was quite OK, I could go ahead and take my shower as he was married.  David is (thankfully) a full blooded male, and married or not, would no doubt have enjoyed watching some strange woman take a shower.  I gave this chap a withering look and asked him if he was German (as German sailors often enjoy freedom from clothing) but he was Dutch - wrong again, Vicki.  He eventually disappeared, muttering something under his breath no doubt about the British being too prudish.

 

Housekeeping this morning.  I went provisioning (what I would give for a Tesco Express); I eventually found a taverna who were preparing a lunchtime BBQ and persuaded them to let me have one of the pieces of steak they were presumably going to cook for a customer, to bring back here.  David spent the morning fitting fans in the aft cabins - that will make a big difference when the nights are hot (we are still in the sleeping bags).

 

This afternoon we went to visit Churchill'sPort House (we chose that one just because we had a free entrance ticket from the marina).  We ended up buying two cases of very reasonably priced wine (a red and a white) and just two bottles of Reserve port (we haven't the capability to store a vintage port horizontally) primarily because they offered free delivery back to the marina, which saves us from dragging it back from a supermarket.

 

We are on the move again tomorrow. 

Loads of love

Vicki