Double Bubble: Lacobrigenses v. Silvenses

 

Two contributors to this week´s Silves composition; first of all, the leader Rod´s report, and then a little story from Yves.

Here is Rod.

WAGS WALK 9/12/2020

“A modest report partly because it was a fairly modest walk and partly because it is the time of year when I am hijacked into doing Christmas Cards, the whole process of which seems to have been delayed this year.

We gathered and set off from the Bensafrim Market Square Cafe in the hope that the Silves Bubble might be augmented by some representation from the Lagos or other Bubble. A forlorn hope it was however since the Lagos Bubble had elected to hold their Christmas Lunch on that same day and felt unable to walk, so a mere 4: John & Hazel, Yves and self, having accepted their kind invitation to join them for the lunch, set off at more or less the appropriate hour.

The day was a bit damp but Hazel had forgotten to bring any rainwear and so it was that, after she had made a fruitless dash into the Bensafrim shops in search of an umbrella, Yves lent her a colourful one which inspired a thankfully brief rendition of the theme from Les Parapluies de Cherbourg

A Promising Sign

As we were invited for one o'clock sharp we had to ensure the walk finished in good time. So off down the Barao S.J. road we went before cutting across to the main track heading from Bensafrim to P.de Floresta and Carapateira. 

Then, in view of the time constraints we headed back to Bensafrim. Not much to relate until we happened upon parked cars and people in an area not normally populated near Candierinha. A glance towards the hillside to the right of the track revealed, mostly hidden amongst sobreiros and azinheiros, a number of substantial tents and geodomes.

One of the Classrooms

The Geodome

Not another eccentric community village surely! Indeed not. An affable fellow clad in hoodie jacket and flipflops, with two tiny tots in tow greeted us and announced this was a recently established pastoral school. It was apparently linked to a system already established in Brazil with units already existing in UK and Holland.....so he said. In any event it seemed physically well set up, if that sort of schooling is your thing, with electricity, water and fossas etc., but, however, as yet no licence. That would seem like quite an omission! Anyway that conversation took quite a chunk out of our walking time so we continued towards Bensafrim. 

Out of curiosity we took the road up to the Lagos Camara dumping ground in the hope it might have an exit to the higher ground. It didn't, so we came back down again. 

No way through there

Then there was another unplanned diversion with us going through the green woods and round in a circle ending again in the direction of Bensafrim.

At this point we thought we would head straight back to arrive in good time for the onward car journey to O Cangalhos Restaurant for lunch. 

Having dressed down for the occasion, although leaving sufficient evidence (i.e muddy trousers) that we had actually taken some exercise, we were indeed the first to arrive. Having been so graciously invited to the Lagos Bubble party it would be most remiss of me, on behalf of the Silves Bubble, not to express our appreciation not only of being invited but also for the splendid lunch. At which point I believe I should hand over reporting responsibilities to the capable literary hands of the Lagos Bubble.

Roderick Frew”

But first here is Yves´contribution, perhaps an excerpt from his forthcoming publication The Misadventures of a Camera Man.

 Miss Piggy On Fire

As we were settling at our table in O Cangalho, I went back to the entrance and asked that nice waiter if he would be kind enough to light the candles for a picture.

The request was granted with great enthusiasm but little forethought: the young chap lit the nearest candle (the lower one) first, the he turned his attention to the middle candle (a higher one) but as the wick was bent, this took a wee while… His perseverance elicited a yelp of pain and a faint whiff of grilled chorizo (I think) as his arm caught fire… The last candle (the furthest one) was lit with gritted teeth and the determination that we regard as the mark of a man, albeit not with the reflex of moving round to other side of the candle-holder – Miss Piggy in this instance!

As soon as the picture was taken, he snuffed out the nearest two candles but could not quite blow ‘round the corner for the last one: as he bent one way to blow better, I moved the other way to blow, too: caught between two silly pharts, the candle surrendered and died. Let us hope that our imitation of the Great Hadron Accelerator-Collider caused our respective viruses and particules to smash into each other…

Arse gratia Artis?

Cheers,

Yves

PS. Thanks to Myriam for providing this editor with the correct designations for inhabitants of Lagos and Silves. Her source is the Lista de gentílicos de Portugal. Interestingly enough, Algoz inhabitants are not recognised as such in this list. What did they do wrong?

And now over to Lagos for some culinary thoughts.

As far as culinary thoughts go I have little to add. Before we knew that Silves Bubble was playing away at Bensafrim, we had elected to have a Christmas lunch this Wednesday at Cangalho Restaurant near Lagos Zoo, as Myriam and I had a very good Christmas feast there last year and as Antje and Chris were possibly heading for Scotland at Christmas. When we heard that the SB were walking at Bensafrim we told them of our plans and invited them to join, under the usual caveats,

    The usual suspects from the Lagos Bubble had the intention of joining the Silves Away Bubble for coffee at Bensafrim Market, and hence to a shorter walk in the Mata Nacional, but Chris was not on top form and decided to sit that out, and Myriam and myself vacillated until it was too late to head for Bensafrim before 10 am. I called Rod to tell him at about our failure to make it, and discovered he wasn't quite there himself. Nevertheless, the weather in Lago was looking moody, and we decided to concentrate our energies on the lunch rather than getting muddy , as we rightly guessed the Silves Bubble would be.

A Masquerade! L-R Mike, Rod, Yves, Hazel, Myriam, Jyll and Paul

Happily John took a lot of pictures at Cangalho, and, saving me a lot of trouble, inserted them for me to embroider. I have only replaced his if my own reflected me in a better light, or demonstrated that my photographic skills were approaching those of H.C-B.

   We didn't bother firing up John's remote camera when those that are always on time grouped for a photo. So I took an additional one.

As above with John on the right instead of Paul

Chris and Antje were last to arrive by which time we were all seated, and some had even ordered the largest beer on the menu!

John's photo above and mine below! 

 We decided to have an Aussie-style Lunch. All the 'Sheilas's' on one table..............

.......and all the 'Bruce's' on the other!

This turned out to be a bad move as the Sheila's had the same amount of food divided by only 4! Fortunately they were all on diets and we had plenty of scraps to sweep up later!!

Starter plate

The service by Daniel was swift and efficient.

 Mains to share - 

Bacalhau à Brás and  and Borrego no Forno

At this juncture on the Bruce's table, Yves demonstrated that he had another hitherto hidden talent apart from Aristotle-ing and  H CB-ing. He could also cut a shoulder of lamb like Yves-Marie le Bourdonnec, the celebrated French Butcher who was expelled by the French Butcher's Federation for declaring that British beef was better than French. He said that 

"the only way to save French cows is to sleep with the enemy and let them breed with British cows.!"  Mind you if they are both cows it won't help! I wonder if he told Macron before Brexit!! 

Yves- Marie makes an incision

I have no knowledge of what went on at the Sheila's table - in fact I was quite enjoying the restrained manly conversation at ours. Suffice to say without a skilled French boucher, there was quite a lot of meat left on the bone to be enjoyed at our table later.

      The lamb was very good and tasty, but there was some muttering that the bacalhau was not as good as it could have been. There appeared to be a potato rich mash in the middle, with little flavour of bacalhau, Still it was edible and after all is the Traditional Portuguese Christmas Dish, so who are we Portuguese residents to disagree The Turkeys thanked us! Plus there was enough to take away for Myriam's lunch and supper the next day, which saved me from 2 sessions in the kitchen!

At some stage towards the end of the meal, Yves (randomly) presented Antje with a cardboard folder, which she opened with circumspection in case it turned out to be one of his amusing pranks! All smiles when it turned out to be a photo of Chris and herself on a walk along the cliffs between Porto de Mos and Luz Obelisk. I have no idea of the what's and why's of the presentation - perhaps H. C-B will enlighten us by way of comment. Nevertheless if it is certified as an original H. C-B, it will be worth as much as the paper it is printed on!!

Thanks were made to the smiling artiste!

A couple of general views of the gathering:-

Before this,  desserts had arrived. I was caught trying to inhale a white vanilla gelo

Don´t tell the HK Police about this

An arty shot of Rod through a glass darkly. (1 Corinthians 13:12. KJV)

Pears soused in red wine were a favourite.

This sweet little chap in front of the restaurant..........

..................had a bigger, harder brother lurking in the trees in the carpark over the road..

General consensus was that it had been a successful lunch, when we left at around 3:30 pm having spent a convivial 2 and a1/2 hours gorging. The official WAGS lunch will be next week organised by Hazel. The Lagos Bubble are in strict training for the event.

On the way out.

And to finish, a Traditional Portuguese Christmas song:-

Happy Christmas One and All