WAGS 2 10 2024: Poço Frito Hard Core or Words Fail me.

After a few weeks of reasonable turn-outs, this week saw a relapse  whereby only the small WAGS hardcore came for the walk. Not even the famous Café Martins lunch menu could tempt some other erstwhile  regulars; and so it was that Maria, Myriam , Hazel and JohnH were the only walkers although they were joined at lunch by Chris and Antje.

Myriam was in remarkable form word-wise. Here she is, arriving bright and early.

The customary Starter photo was taken

but when Hazel went to retrieve the camera (an essential walk preliminary given the number of times in the past that JohnH has forgotten to pick it up), the camera was apparently still alive and caught her by surprise as she approached..

When I remarked just now that Myriam was in remarkable form word-wise, what I meant that she started the morning´s conversation by saying that she had just learnt a new word, that word being "chthonic."

 

"Learnt" is perhaps a bit of an exaggeration, since she said she didn´t know what the word meant and she didn´t know how to pronounce it, but she had a new word anyway.

Then shortly afterwards, we looked into somebody´s backyard and admired a vintage car. Myriam said the car was aBritish marque with a double name but she claimed not to remember what the name was. We tried Rolls Royce, Armstrong Siddley, Aston Martin, Austen Healy - all to no avail. Her memory remained blank Maybe a knowledgeable reader will tell us. 

 

We came upon a new build house deep in the boondocks -quite attractive being a wooden build and decidedly better that some of the converted camper-van or shipping container constructions that seem to proliferate these days.

We then reverted to car names when Myriam (her again) out of the blue asked if we knew the names of the four old car companies represented by the four rings on the Audi symbol -she said she  - didn´t know - nor did anyone else - and she wondered how they had picked the name Audi. Someone suggested that it might stand for something like Auto Deutsch Industrie, but again Myriam´s memory let her down.

(Facts: the four car firms which collaborated to form what is now Audi AG were Audiwerke, DKW, Horch and Wanderer. The founder of Audi was an engineer by the name of August Horch and the company´s name is based on his surname. Horch in German mean "Listen" and as Herr Horch was obviously a bit of a scholar he translated that into Latin coming up with Audi, which Kennedy´s Revised Latin Primer reliably tells me is the imperative active form of the verb audire: to listen or hear.)  

This was all becoming somewhat mentally tiring so, in the absence of Yves, the Leader  took refuge in a pause for some photographic portraiture:-

But that respite did not last long because Myriam soon returned to the fray and began testing JohnH´s knowledge of philosophers and scientists. Her technique was first to mention some fact or phenomenon and then pretend selective amnesia as to who originally had stumbled upon it. In the heat of the day, mark you, we ranged from Aristotle, Socrates, Archimedes, Isaac Newton, to David Hume, eventually ending up with a wild guess at Charles Darwin just because she mentioned that the one she was thinking of had gone to the Galapagos Islands and we didn´t think that Archimedes and the others had gone there. And that finally was it. She had been pretending to try to remember The Origin of the Species and the phrase "The Survival of the Fittest."

Well, with that examination was finally over, we were able to admire some finely carved and decorative orange tree stumps as we neared home base

arriving back at Café Martins on the stroke of midday and just as the Whittles had arrived.

The Track and the Statistics

We had intended this to have been a short walk but, as you can see, from the map, we veered off at one stage on what we hoped would be a short cut. However, we found that an access route which we had used quite happily in the past was now blocked off with a newly rebuilt wall-cum-wire fence, forcing us to retrace our steps. That added nearly 1.5 kms to the total distance. Another tract of land now inaccessible !

The Lunch-

Café Martins had its usual ample and economical menu on offer.

Before the food arrived, Maria and Chris were looking a bit sombre and thoughtful. 

but with food and drink on the table the mood soon brightened.

The majority went for the arroz de pato

and there was one taker for the peru com esparguete

plus puds

all good value for €10 a head..

JohnH had to cope with two cameras, but he managed.

There was one awkward moment for JohnH during the meal when, for some reason now forgotten, Antje came up with the phrase "Survival of the Fittest." She had had no idea that it had come up during the walk, but I thought "Oh no!  here we go again" but the moment passed and all was smiles.

Post Script

The description at the top of this blog reads:-

Autumn 2022 arrives and leaves a WAG or two in its wake. The core active group are strong, but have reined in their ambitions. The social dining society, strengthens as the walks ease.

I think Paul wrote this a year or two back. Perhaps as Founder Blogger Emeritus he could pen an update for 2025.