WAGS 2025 04 30: Maybe Another Hill or The Proof Of The Pudding

We start with the track´s elevation profile as the opening picture this week because it illustrates how wrong I was as Leader when, after the third or fourth steep hill at about 65 metres, I had assured Christl that that was it and it would all be flat or downhill from then on. Round the next bend we went, only to be  immediately confronted by another huge hill, and then another, and then another - all of which I had forgotten about. She looked distinctly distrusting of me thereafter.

The Starters: Antje, Maria, JohnH, Myriam, Christl.

The morning had started drizzly but the rain clouds vanished as we set off from Pescadores and it was then an excellent day for a gentle walk. 

At the top of the first hill, we looked at the Family Neto´s azuleja. Myriam wanted to have a lecture on the techniques tiling but, as Leader I overruled the idea, because we had to get back for lunch in good time.

Onward and upward we went.

 Hill after hill.

A pink cistus.

Downhill at last.

Antje´s video camera then surveyed the possible routes back to base and finally identified the way, definitely downhill. Christl´s relief was palpable.

Part of the route was spoilt by fly-tipping. Why drive into the forest to dump building detritus?

 

Otherwise, the scenery  and the scents on the breeze were superb.

The Track

The Lunch

Walk over, we had refreshments at Pescadores and talked to our old friends there for a time. We then adjourned to Casinhas where Hazel and Lesley joined us for lunch.

The menu has several choices and is economical: the service is speedy.

Frango

Grão com arroz

Carapau

Alheira com ovo

and lots of puddings including chocolate mousse

Chocolate digestives or The Proof of the Pudding

I make no apology for reviving one of last week´s blog topics, which was that  the correct way to eat chocolate digestive biscuits is with the chocolate side downwards in the mouth.  Myriam insisted that I bring some to the lunch to test the theory. 

Here are the biscuits.

First, Myriam eats one with the chocolate side upwards.

And then one with the chocolate side underneath, on the tongue.

Ah ! Nirvana !

And finally Senhora Maria Conceição, Head Honcho at Casinhas, confirmed that chocolate side down is definitely the best for taste.

Coda or Endpiece

Readers may know that Paul, somewhat ironically since it was he who originally set the Blog up with Blogger, had been struggling recently with its technology and had been finding it difficult to post comments. 

Happy, therefore, to note that last week he cracked the problem and managed to post two comments on my blog, about 670 words of comment, no less. I am sure that all of you will have read it all by now. 

Less happy to note that much of his contribution was (how can I phrase this delicately?) misinterpretation, false assumption, erroneous attribution, solecism, argumentum ad hominem, etc., etc. I would not myself stoop so low as to use the word "drivel" to describe what he wrote, especially as, content aside, it was elegantly written: but he used the word himself to describe what he had written. Who am I to argue? So "drivel" it was.

 Anyway, he has sort of corrected himself since. Ironic, too, in that a few weeks ago, I was complaining that nobody commented on this blog stuff and now look at the come back, 670 words of "banter" !!! One reaps what one sows.

But here is one point arising from what Paul wrote that I think needs clarification. About two thirds of the way through his diatribe, he wrote, anent chocolate digestives, that he was surprised that I

"had not heard of the standard schoolboy approach to the consumption thereof."

Well, I have no idea what this schoolboy approach to eating chocolate biscuits is or was. Of course, in my generation, when I was at school, in the austere days of wartime food rationing, we did not have chocolate digestives: they did not exist. "As a whining schoolboy, with my satchel and shining morning face, creeping like snail unwillingly to school" (thank you Mr Shakespeare), maybe I had an oatcake in the bag. If we were lucky, on Tuesdays, the tuck shop sold the occasional scotch pie. But chocolate digestives ? No way!

Paul, on the other hand, free of rationing constraints in later years and living a life of sybaritic indulgence in an educational lotus land, no doubt had biscuits and chocolates to spare.

So what was the schoolboy approach then, Paul? Do let us know, please.