Yesterday I had problems charging my appendages or should I say mobile phone. I have this weighty contraption that covers virtually every country in the world and may well work on the moon and mars. But it's very bulky and cumbersome and when you attach a UK plug to it, there's usually a problem keeping it in the socket. Often you have to prop it up with books. Yesterday I had it in for two hours and only got four per cent of charge. Then I made a wonderful discovery - a USB charging point.... Yippee.
We may travel thousands of miles but we do like to take home comforts and recognised items with us which nowadays seems to mainly surround mobile phones and e readers.
My mobile phone has so much data on it that I feel I'm still at home. That's data as in notes and not space to surf the internet. Today so much information travels with us. We are instantly contactable, can speak to people, receive messages, and find out things that previously would have been hidden from us. So I'm forever checking emails simply because I can. And of course I write this blog.
So how did you spend your Sunday I hear you ask? Please get on with the travelogue and stop waffling.
Well we got a shuttle bus to a seaside place by the name of Riviera Brava - a small but delightfully formed town where there were more coffee bars than you could poke a stick at.
And we followed our own rule of wandering around areas away from the main part. On this occasion we went under a large rock and found a small harbour with lots of fishing boats. One was preparing a fish barbecue and it was a fine opportunity for photographs. I will feature some I took in coming blogs once I'm home again.
Tips - never been happy with tips unless they are of the what's going to win the 2.15 at Cheltenham kind. I'm not against tipping and I don't have a problem with showing appreciation for good service. My problem is who do you tip and how much? Always has me confused. We tipped the guy from the restaurant who picked us up on Saturday night but didn't tip the shuttle bus driver although we did pay for the shuttle service. To me tipping is rather confusing.
But back to our visit. We had a good look round and the stopped for coffee and Portuguese tarts at an outside cafe where the sun was very warm. Portuguese tarts. Those perfect little rounded things that look small but are very sweet and the tarts aren't bad either!
We had time for some food shopping at a very cramped and small supermarket and also a pint of Coral in one of the main bars just off the sea front. Coral is of course beer. It's bog standard European lager. On mainland Portugal all they seem to sell in bars is Super Bock. I had plenty of that in last year's visit to Lisbon and Porto. Super Bock is bog standard European lager, much the same as Coral. Along with our beer we had some unshelled monkey nuts that we made a real mess of. I dropped one and a rampaging pigeon swallowed it whole before I could pick it up. In the supermarket they had loads of wine at under £2 a bottle.
Our shuttle bus return was slightly delayed by airport runs but eventually did make it back to the apartment, stopping at the clubhouse where Bonnie Tyler was lost in France and Eric Clapton was telling us that we were wonderful tonight despite it being the middle of the afternoon.
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I'm not a great rugby fan. I will watch six nations matches if they are on TV and I'm around but I won't go out of my way to view. I did play rugby at school but had rather a love-hate relationship with it.
So I did watch some of the Scotland v England match where England were torn apart by a player who scored three tries. His name is Duhan Van De Merwe. Not much of a Scottish name, sounds suspiciously South African to me. Regular readers know how much I hate people playing international sport for countries that they have very slim connections with. If somebody is born in England irrespective of what nationality their parents are, in my book that qualifies them to represent England. If somebody has at least one parent who is English that makes a person one half English and qualifies them. Not so sure about the grandparents rule but I can live with it.
But back to Mr Van De Merwe. He plays club rugby for Edinburgh and has lived in Scotland for more than three years. That to me does not make him Scottish. He is a South African living in Scotland and shouldn't be playing for Scotland. He is no more Scottish than I am. Actually two of our grandchildren had a Scottish great grandfather and so are technically one-eighth Scottish and more qualified to represent that country than Mr Van De Merwe. All this residential mullarkey rather skews sporting sides. Lecture over.