WAGS 2024 01 24: 6 + 3 or Mind Your Language

 

Not much to report this week. There were 6 on the walk and 3 more joined in for the lunch, so that explains the first part of the title of this week´s Blog. For the explanation of the second bit, read on to the end, if you have sufficient stamina so to do.

Self explanatory: Rod, Antje, Geraldine, Myriam, Maria, and JohnH

For much of the first part of the walk, what interested us was that there was a lot of building work going on. A small  house in old Poço Frito is being restored (it is for sale if you want it)

Then the new builds in new Poço Frito. What will they be like?

Will the new owners of these new posh buildings be classic car enthusiasts, like one of the more recent villa owners is?

Then later on during the walk, we saw an extension being built, with a proper tiled roof, to a rural casa which has the name Pemberley. 

Pemberley...cue Jane Austen and Pride and Prejudice and there was a lot of chat anent Colin Firth and others. And then we wandered on, past a decrepit car and then up to the abandoned Chinese container upon which we have expatiated at length in the past. And it was then that we came across this lady, with her dog, carrying a bucket or two of unknown substances. She was quite chatty. 

 she explained that she lived nearby, that the car was hers and that, if and when it did manage to start, it could not stop. So she could not use it and was now waiting for somebody to take it away. The Chinese container had in fact come from Dubai, the expat owners of which lived up on the far away ridge, had removed their belongings but had left the container near her house. And there it will rot.

It´s a bit uncertain as to what it was exactly that she had in her buckets. Frog or toad spawn, tadpoles, something to feed her rabbits with.. who knows...

We moved on... Rod stayed briefly for a bit more chat; he will know more.

We drifted through Tinhosas village and tried to take a short cut past the strawberry fields place, the one where Ingrid had purchased a kilo or three of strawberries last year. No way through. A taciturn gentleman sitting in a semi-ruin waved a forbidding finger at us and we turned back, Maria then found out from the strawberry lady that it was not a forbidding finger but instead a warning finger that had been waved at us. Some foreigner had put up a fence so there simply was no way through.

Foiled in that attempt, the Leader then had no option but to go down round the strawberry fields which now of course contained not berries but butternut squashes drying in the sunshine. Much informed comment then ensued about drying such produce on roofs, more of  which can be found on the internet, should you be so interested. 

Then the Leader´s plans were foiled again. The simple route home had become a no go area because of some heavy crop spraying up ahead which even he was not prepared to lead the group through. Rethink required. But the long way round might mean that we would be late for lunch. And he knew that there would be a couple of Hangry Young Men from Lagos waiting for us and demanding their food. Oh dear!

  But what to do but head east and go the long way.?. Luckily, not too far along the track , we found an open gate, went through it...

and, more by chance than good judgement, that found us the way home.

There was more building development  to consider... watch this space.

Finally, a brief detour round a newly laid path at new Poço Frito where they had put the brita but had forgotten about dealing with the undergrowth so getting through was a problem,.

And so Home.

The Track and the Statistics

4 kph, not bad.

The Lunch

Well, when, at precisely 13.00 hrs, we WAGS walkers came in and sat down for our starters and preliminary drinks, we found that the two Hangry Young Men from Lagos had actually  already started to eat their meal without us !!! Old fashioned as I am, this was to me a bit disconcerting. Etiquette and all that ? Oh Yes I know that they have had to wait patiently in some places in the  but couldn´t they have waited a few minutes....?  Ah well, that´s the younger generation for you..

Café Martins continues to serve magical amounts of food from a very small kitchen

A large menu from a very small kitchen. What are "Pipis a Casa" ? Does anybody know?

We had...

Chicken Giblets (Moelas de Frango). P.S. Apparently this is the Pipis a Casa.

Jardineira de Polvo....

Arroz de Pato with olives....

Paul looked suspiciously at his arroz, but mine was rather good with plenty of duck for once.

The tostas too were attractive...

and Hilke contented herself with a modest helping of Bifes Vaca....

All was harmonious until coffees were ordered, when an almighty row broke out. JohnH was being his usual insufferable pedantic show-off asking for uma meia de leite escura, when Myriam corrected him saying it should be escuro. JohnH disagreed; the argument raged for all of, say, 20 seconds and they nearly came to blows until calmer heads intervened and said "pronounce it escur..." And peace was restored.

As a footnote to this, Myriam subsequently and very graciously messaged JohnH to say that she had consulted a Professor of Portuguese Language at the University of Lagos who confirmed that the correct wording is "uma meia de leite escurA" and added that the Algarvios swallow the last vowels so that they don´t bother how the word ends, which seems eminently sensible. Myriam can of course console herself with "um galão escuro," galão is cognate with the English word "gallon" although 4.54609 litres of milky coffee will ot be to everyone´s taste.

For us Estrangeiros, there is an interesting link - "Vamos Falar Algarvio !" 

at www.practice portuguese.com which goes into this habit of eliding end vowels along with aural examples of how Portuguese is spoken in the Algarve.

And that´s it this week. Both Myriam and JohnH are agreed that the standard of photography this time has not been great. We need the return of those ´with skills such as Samantha, Hazel Tanja and Algoz´s very own answer to Henri Cartier Bresson to bring their fresh viewpoint to the game. Meanwhile Tanja did send in this clip, a foretaste I think of Rod´s walk next week at Salgados ...

 

We close with the results of two recent competitions which you may not have known about in the first place.

The first is our old favourite, the World Championship Scotch Pie Awards. The winners for 2023 are again James Pirie and Son of Blairgowrie, winning it for the fifth time. Maybe when the Whittles next visit Edinburgh they can take a trip over to Blairgowrie to see if all the fuss is justified. Meanwhile, the rest of us will have to rely on worldchampionshipscotchpieawards.org for information.

And the second is the WAGS Best Photograph of the Year 2023, the prize going to Myriam for this picture, which has nothing whatsoever to do with the WAGS walks but which is nonetheless a very striking portrait of a pilgrim, taken by her in a Lagos café.

The art of the photograph is not dead. 

And our closing music, still on the theme of walking...

For the jazz fan, "Walkin` With Sweets" with Harry "Sweets" Edison (trumpet), Ben Webster (tenor sax), Barney Kessel (guitar), Jimmy Rowles (piano), Alvin Stoller (drums), and Joe Mondragon (bass).