Week 12 - And A Pleasant New Year

Monday 29th December 2014,

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Had a drive out today to the local seaside resort of Porto Covo. It is a very pleasant little town that with its large aire (free motorhome camping area) and carparks, where motorhome also seem welcome, pays homage to motorhome freeloaders. Oh dear! that sounds a bit erm? - yes, well it seems that every car park, every view in Portugal is blocked by motorhomers that prefer to save a few Euros by wild camping. Indeed some Lidl’s have specially marked parking areas where they can park overnight to try to garner the few Euros they do spend. Rant Over

Tuesday 30th December 2014.

Not much to report today, slopped around doing laundry and shopping getting ready for new years celebrations tomorrow.

It seems I forgot to mention the party on Boxing day. Pam & Alan, a couple we met four years ago on this very site, invited everyone to an afternoon party at their motorhome. It was great in that as well as all the Brits on site many of the Germans (some we had also met four years ago) and a few French attended as well - entente cordiale is alive and well. Sadly Ralf, one of the Germans we had met before had a collapse caused by low blood pressure, a recurrent problem for him, and one of the French chaps was that night “blue lighted” into the local hospital from where he was transported to Lisbon with a suspected heart attack. As he is travelling alone his dog was looked after by other campers and happily he returned after a week in Lisbon hospital saying he would definitely stick to the low fat, alcohol free diet he had been told to adopt.

Wednesday 31st December 2014.

For our dinner tonight we had bought half a suckling lamb, it was as you can imagine quite small but we thought plenty for four. It was quite frankly a disaster, the meat was tough (how on earth do you make suckling lamb tough?) and somehow when served, the entire dinner, meat and vegetables, were cold. Still the local wine, apple crumble, cheese and biscuits with port that followed almost made up for it.

We almost made midnight before going to bed - Oh alright, we almost made eleven o’clock before going to bed. You will be amused to learn that the fireworks started at the stroke of midnight and continued sporadically until 5.00am when the last noisy party finished.

Thursday 1st January 2015.

We had a Skype call from a couple we had met on our first trip to Portugal a couple of days ago asking how and where we were, when we said we were at Camping Milfontes they stated they were just a few kilometres away, well 100 kilometres is just a few when you are best part of 2500 kilometres (1553 miles) from home.

Lyn and Mark arrived today we cooked dinner for them in the van, Rosemary’s Sooper Dooper Ribs, followed by grilled prawns with salad, followed by cheese and biscuits - yummy

Friday 2nd January 2015

We went for a long walk along the cliffs this morning trying to walk off some of the food excesses of the past week or so. What it actually did was give us an appetite which was just as well as we went with Lyn and Mark to O’Pescador. When we arrived the owner told us he had lots of shellfish but with the fishermen not going out over the holiday no fish dishes except Caldeirada (fish stew) so all four of us opted for that. When we ordered the waiter said that the portions are so large he would get us fish stew for three. He was right even with four of us eating we did not manage to eat it all.

Saturday 3rd January 2015.

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Laundry and housekeeping - it has to be done and today was the day to do it 😳. Still afterwards there was time for a drive out to Odemira, a very pleasant town with a great river walk.

Sunday 4th January 2015

Not satisfied with spending all day yesterday doing washing Sue spent a large portion of today doing the same.

Dinner tonight was in the local Pizzeria. Those who know me know how much I enjoy pizza (about as much as a dose of flu) however they did lots of other delicious Italian dishes and the restaurant owner sang and played guitar beautifully. A great night we will one day to repeat. The evening was made even more special by being Lyn’s birthday

Last updated Sunday 21st June 2015                                                                                © S W Ghost 2015