We have continued to have an enjoyable stay in Sesimbra and have almost become ‘locals around the town and campsite!’ It is amusing to see the confused expressions of the regular campers (who arrive late on a Friday night to their permanent pitches-for every weekend) and do not understand why we are still here?! Word has spread about what we are doing and where we are going next......Everything is so very laid back here in Portugal – which is one of the things we love about the country but there is no rushing anybody –and when you have something a bit urgent to arrange it makes things quite difficult...................

We are still making final arrangements for the shipping of Nessie and our belongings (separately) to the USA and we have boxed everything apart from the bare minimum into 33 boxes of varying shapes and sizes! We have had to give the weight and dimensions of every box, including a detailed itemised list and wait on the booking clearance – something we were aware of before we left- but were unable to arrange in detail as we did not know how many boxes we would have at this stage. Phil still maintains that the girls have 10 boxes of clothes against the boys 2 boxes......but we beg to differ! Phil even had to set up a weighing station at the branch of a big tree, using a small set of scales and a chain to hang individual boxes from!

As the weather is still being very kind to us we have had many a day at the local beach and we had a great time at the Albufeira Lagoon-perfectly safe for the children to swim and just around the corner the mighty waves roared.........we watched experienced surfers who were actually running into the water from the shore and surfing out to sea as well as back in again!

The panoramic views from the lighthouse at the most easterly side of Portugal were simply breathtaking and the lighthouse is now centre to a small community of people who live in the cottages surrounding it, with a wall to enclose it. The children were interested in the Homing Pigeons that were living at the lighthouse and a nearby shepherd as he tended to his flock of sheep.

Phil and the children have enjoyed some fishing with homemade bamboo rods and we also took a trip on the Aquarama Glass bottom boat out of the harbour. This was very entertaining and the glass gave the impression that we were only centimetres from the sea bed – although we were reassured that we were at least three and a half metres from the base at all times! We saw many fish of all shapes and sizes.

We have met many more friendly people around the camp and have enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere. Our neighbours who arrive back each weekend – Salvador and Angelina have been very helpful to us and have even offered to come to the port and help with the arrangements and the speaking Portuguese part – which could be extremely useful!

We have also met a Canadian couple who are travelling Europe–Munir and Lisa and we will hopefully meet again when we reach Canada next year!

We were also grateful to fellow GB travellers – Geoff and Kath who also have a Mercedes Geist motor home and have showed us a trick or two to do with our satellite dish which helps us  to receive even more English channels !

On Tuesday 21^st October- we hit the first 100 days of our trip and we had a family party to celebrate! We had BBQ sardines, party games, music, dancing and a triple jump competition! When it was dark we lit the night sky with colourful sparklers too!

Phil managed to have an incident in the local public library – yes we did say library! As you may or may not know this is not the place you will often find Phil! We took a trip there as the internet connection back at camp was having a blip and we needed to check our emails. Phil was carrying the laptop bag (again not a Phil thing!) Shortly after entering the library reception Phil swung around and the computer bag knocked an exhibition piece of pottery clean off its low stand and everyone stood in silence, hands over mouths, as it smashed into lots of tiny pieces. Woops- wrong time, wrong place – an unfortunate accident and it was nothing to do with the children on this occasion! Phil asked if anyone spoke English and left his details while they contacted the artist. A few days later we have had a meeting with the artist and our travel insurance will hopefully come to our rescue as the value of the piece has been set at an amazing 1,500 – BIG WOOPS. This amount was dropped in the space of 10 minutes by 500 if paid today – NO – probably not ! You obviously have to have an appreciation of this sort of art and it is very difficult to put a value on such pieces. We did not see the creation prior to the ‘accident’ but Ben has since described it as a model of a dinosaur’s foot?  We have put the matter into the hands of our insurance and are waiting to hear the outcome.

WILDLIFE HIT:

·         Tawny Owl very close by each night.

·         White Lizard – about 8 inches long crawling across the toilet ceiling!

FACTOID:

·         The male shower block has just been kitted out with shower heads ( not just a pipe out of the wall) and the shower head has been fitted with Hemp....a method not often used in UK (Phil thinks).

Monday, 27 October 2008 19:49:56 (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)      Comments [0]  Portugal