Portrical

We've had quite a winter this year. Lots of snow and vastly more cold weather than the last two. It made for a nice cozy Christmas but, by the new year, we were a bit taken with cabin fever. Thank goodness we "surprised" ourselves with a trip to Portugal. The Algarve region, on the south coast, semi-arid, sunny, warm (er than here), beaches and a heated pool!

After new year's day, we were all up without an alarm at 0500 ready to go! Thank goodness Sam and the girls had been out with hammers breaking all the ice around our car...

We left lovely England from John Lennon Airport in Liverpool and struggled out into the bright, warm Faro Portugal sun a few hours later. We literally felt the serotonin being made. The funny thing was that up until we walked out of the airport, the girls kept telling us: "We don't want to leave England! I don't like Portrical!" How that would change...

Our abode for the week was a wee cottage nestled in the hills about a half hour from the airport. Wee is probably not the most adequate descriptor for this place. It was gorgeous! We only had to share the hill with geckos and birds.

We did have a bit of rain, a couple of days. But, when we saw the weather in England on the news, snow storms and airport closings, we decided that this was fantastic! And it was 20 deg warmer than home... There were fish markets in every town, fantastic white wine and a wonderful little bistro run by a former South African paramilitary body guard and his friend. Great food and great people! It was newly opened and deserves to do well! Although the interior decor of busts of American Indian Chiefs was a bit out of place... We had a couple great traditional dishes there: Cataplana and Arroz do Marisco. Both full of fresh shellfish, fish and gambetas!  He also introduced us to the Algarve's Aguardente.  It roughly translates to "regional water" and it was fig brandy.  To say it could sear your palate clean would be an understatement.  You could eat the most pungent food known, take a sip of this and not have a single molecule of the food left.  It was served as a cordial following your meal. Muito Quente!

One of the girls' favorites was the playground outside of the Olhao fish market. Add some sun, salt and a little warmth and you get an amazing morning!

Besides relaxing on "our" hill, drinking Vinho Verde and eating fish, we made a couple day trips: one to Sevilla, Spain and one to Benagil (the most perfect cove beach that could possibly have been found in Portugal that day).

Sevilla was a really beautiful city. There were orange trees everywhere you looked, which is quite exotic to us now. We toured the Cathedral, which is the largest gothic cathedral in the world and saw the monument to Cristobal Columbo (Christopher Columbus to those of us who are hopelessly Anglicized), ornate gold work and a VAST sanctuary.

It even had its own orange grove!

After the cathedral, we strolled around the narrow streets of the Barrio Santa Cruz and the Alcazar gardens.

Met some locals and had lunch at a cafe under the oranges.  Much to the enjoyment of a few bellies... 

Such a very nice day!  We even caught sight of these two wild bulls who escaped from the Plaza de Toros!

After our day in Sevilla, we stopped through the Roman ruins of Italica on our way back to Portugal. Italica is about a dozen miles out of Sevilla and was the birthplace of the Roman Emperor Trajan and the boyhood home of Emperor Hadrian (who built the wall between England and Scotland).

It was really amazing to see the extent of the ruins and the beautiful mosaics which have survived the years. These were three of our favorites:

House of the Birds

Neptune's mosaic

Planetarium mosaic

Italica was also home to the 3rd largest Amphitheatre in the empire. Such fierocity!

Watch out for the Shades of the Gladiators!

We let the girls storm the old gladiator pits and managed to get their picture next to a statue of Diana (Artemis).

And in a weird discovery, learned that Sam and Trajan's birthdays are a mere couple days apart... don't mention it though, he may put the olive branches back in his hair...

It was a busy day but, well worth it.  After getting back to the house, we noticed something.  Is that a swimming pool??? Oh yeah, it was still winter and the pool was just a tad cool...



At least that was what we thought Sandy and Molly said...

So we decided to head out and find a lovely cove beach. We drove through a little village called Benagil that was supposed to have just what we wanted.  It was so tucked away that at first you couldn't tell there was a beach there. It just looked like a boat ramp with a small stream flowing out next to it.

We took a little peak around the rocks from the boat ramp and ....WOW!!!

We were it! First tracks on the beach and no wind! It was so fantastic. The girls played, Sam walked around on the rocks, we laid in the sun, Was this still January???

What a day. Absolutely perfect. An entire day of playing in the sand and chasing waves.  And we were warm!  Unbeatable.

It was soooo relaxing and peaceful.  It was probably one of the best beach trips we've had.

We had a few walks in the hills and the girls got to perfect the use of their new cameras...

From the top of a neighboring hill, you could nearly see Promontorium Sacrum (for the Romans, the end of the world, where the sun sank into the ocean every night) and had great views back over our house. As well as the local vineyards.

On one rainy day, he and the girls saw a rainbow and headed out to find the leprechauns' pot of gold. They ended up taking refuge from a deluge under some cork oak scrub.

Oh yeah, those are the trees that produce all the cork for wine bottles, thumb tack boards... the cork is the bark. It is stripped every 9 years. Take look at the picture. You can see where the bark was cut and pulled away. Amazing!

Another beautiful part of this area were the Azulejos. Painted tiles. They were in parks, on houses, inside churches, everywhere. And completely beautiful!

The vales around our place were full of waterfalls and citrus groves. It was a really nice place to wander around.

We strolled through Tavira one afternoon and had a lunch in a cafe where we met these cool locals.

Lucky us, we did manage to get their autographs.

But, we were only there for a week. And , after staring at that bright, burning star that is soooooo close to the planet Earth (who knew???), it was time to go home. We made it back to the airport and, oh my goodness, are all the UK flights cancelled due to horrible weather??? YES!!!  No, dang it, all but ours!!!! So, it was back to Liverpool. As we were boarding the plane, the girls both got very sad, dropped a couple tears and declared: "We love Portrical! We don't want to leave!"

We'll be thinking of the sun and beach for the a long time and now, when we talk about travelling, all the girls can say is: "Portrical!"  It's easy to see why.

Wrapping up and moving forward

I didn't get any Yuletide bits of poetry out this year so, I thought I would put one on the blog. We've had a great time here in the UK but, there are definite signs that it is time for us to leave (apart from the whole military orders thing).

First, David Tennant is out as the Doctor. No one will be able to save Great Britain on Christmas as well as he did!



Second, Kelly and I were getting our costumes ready for a fancy dress party based on television or film couples. We picked Kara Thrace and Sam Anders from Battlestar Galactica.



And no one knew who we were or what BSG was... a sad day amidst the mob.

So, to bring 2009 to a close and 2010 to a start, I've picked portions of my favorite poem from my favorite poet.

Ulysses by Alfred Lord Tennyson. (paraphrased and repositioned)

"I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!

'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the Western stars, until I die.

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

So, with that, we begin our last few months in Europe with an adventure, a trip to Portugal. And the gleaming fields of Spring on the horizon!

Enjoy the new year and your new adventures!

s

The weather outside is frightful...

Christmas in England 2009. Our last one. We were looking forward to some good English fun this Yule. The weather promised a white christmas and there were the markets, Father Christmas sightings and winter Ales to find!

Last year, we had a fantastic time at the Ingleborough Cave and Santa's Grotto. So, we thought we'd check out White Scar Cave this year. It is on the opposite side of the Ingleborough massif. We drove over an hour out to the cave and, the first sign of the impending 'underwhelmation' was in the parking lot. There were only a couple of cars there, though we were too excited to notice at the time. This particular cave had a set up where you told the guy on the entrance your children's names, what they want for Christmas and any message you wanted Father Christmas to deliver. This was then telephoned to the business end of the deal. So exciting... right?

Well we managed the 150 yard walk (think 5 minutes) into the cave, where we were met by the attendant, who took us another 40 yards (2 minutes) to Santa's plywood house. We got there just in time to hear him tell the boys in front of us that "you lot are just barely on the line for being good" hm... We went in next and the girls told Santa they wanted a little reindeer and Pink Sparkly Hoola-Hoops. (Surprise, Mama and Da -hope you can find those in the next few weeks!) Santa then told the adults:

"I like Sherry, Wine, Ale or Whisky with my cookies. It doesn't matter. It will all be nice and I burn so many calories on Christmas night that it won't affect me at all."

A bit weird for Santa, right?
Time to go!

After all that effort, the presents ended up being to box of Cadbury Chocolates.

We went to a couple of Christmas markets in the area. York had a nice market with food stalls and some music. There was a festival of Ice Sculptures -which every child that passed by felt the need to touch. Cold hands!! We also revisited the Leeds Christkindlmarkt this year. But, it was a bit smaller and the world's fastest carousel was a little slower.

The girls' Christmas plays were well done again this year.
Molly gave a rousing choral performance in her show.

And Sandy was a very convincing Angel
in her school's adaptation of the Nativity.

But, the big star this Christmas was the weather! It started snowing in early December and kept on going through the month. This has been the longest, coldest winter yet.

And the snow was dry, kind of like in Colorado. The whole family had sledging contests -and Sandy even managed to convince her Head Teacher/Principal to race down the school hill with her one day. Sam quickly figured out that those old snowboard pants of his might have been useful!

I lost count of the number of snow ball fights we had (Sam wins the goon prize for making two kids cry with snowballs to the face- one of which was his daughter).

We even used some fancy flavors to make real 'snow cream'

(Molly's Lemon Snow Cream won the taste contest)

And we can't forget about building snowmen. After a visit to our neighbors who said they hadn't seen our snow men yet, Sam went home and built a 4 foot high ziggurat (I had to ask Sam myself -that's an ancient terraced pyramid ) and accompanying snow volcano.

Oh yes. It is complete with ritual sacrifice scenes.

The neighbors saw it, packed up and left for Cyprus early.

Christmas morning dawned white and cold. The reindeer left hoof-prints in the snow and Santa's magic left glittery sparkles all over the living room. The girls made out like bandits. They loved all the cards and gifts! (Dearest Megan, when your daughter is 3 or 4, remember that we will most definitely pay you back for the lovely 'gift of music' -don't worry, we're sure she'll love the ear-piercing whistles as much as our girls have!)

We bundled up and had drinks with friends, then headed back home to our jammies for the remainder of the cold day by the fire with some homemade egg nog and our new Christmas movies!!!

The snow has stuck around through the end of December with forecasts for more. Sam tried to get out in the hills for his Christmas hikes: there was so much snow that he had to go east on the Moors instead of in the Dales. I tried to get out and hit the post-Christmas sales... but my car just got stuck in the driveway. For two whole days. (ugh.)

And the snow keeps coming. We are under a severe snow warning for the next couple days. We just hope that it doesn't interfere with our Portugal trip!!!

One last lovely story of this Christmas holiday is attending the Aladdin Panto. Last year we saw Cinderella and our favorite character was Buttons: "Hello... Buttons!" Well, we were all thrilled to see that Buttons came back as Aladdin's brother: Wishee-Washee :) always delightful and full of giggles for everyone. We sat in the box seats, right above the stage... and with that posh set of seats came some good surprises. Abaneezer, (think Jafar) spotted us looking down at him during one of his scenes and the next thing we know, he's climbed up to our little room! There were looks of horror from Sandy as he continued to growl at her throughout the scene and Molly kept scowling and hollering at him for being too daft to see that "the lamp is right there!!!" It was fantastic. Then to top it off, Buttons later came running through to our area and shocked us all with a little jump and a dance -priceless. And of course, cameras are forbidden during the performances, so we just have to hope our memories don't fade too quickly.

Happy Christmas? absolutely.

Happy New Year? In London? Big Fireworks?

well... no. We were all at home sound asleep by 9:30.

We're nearly finished packing up for Portugal

and we leave first thing tomorrow morning!!

(no snow for a whole week -just 65 & sunny... so we hope)

~xoxo~