A walkabout
You can see a horse drawn cart in the sixth photo pulled up behind a van. Very obviously a rural Portuguese family come into town. When we next saw them or rather heard them, the horse and cart were running full tilt up the road.
We spoke with a British ex-pat while looking for the informacion building and he said Monday and Tuesday are very quiet and not a lot of businesses open. We did stop in the little village square and had coffee sitting in the sun. It has warmed up here substantially but a man in a shop said a cold front was expected to come into the area from Siberia in the next few days. We have firewood at the ready but thankfully can lay in the sun with the doors open today.
Yesterday the housekeeper Lourdes took pity on us and drove us to a big shopping centre in Portimao. We got lots of supplies to see us through the next week aside from fresh meat. We were grateful to have Lourdes with us to interpret Portuguese to English so we knew what some of the products are, and what was the most most economical prices. It was interesting in the produce section...each section has a scale and you put the product on it and press the picture of what it is and the machine pops out a label with the weight and price which you affix to the bag. Quite intelligent really when you consider our grocery stores in Canada and the grocery clerk has to either look up or remember all the codes! It would certainly speed up the process at the check-out. Lourdes is a very friendly and helpful lady and has offered to come fetch us again to go to a restaurant she also works in for lunch one day. While in the shopping mall, Val and I were on the lookout for something different and I have to say we were successful!!! No sense shopping if you can't walk out with something in a bag.
Last evening we walked up the hill beside the castle walls to go to one of the restaurants on the beach. We arrived at six but too late. Three more people arrived and then another group of four but I guess they were cleaning up for the night and didn't expect a bunch of touristas to arrive at that time, and....it was getting dark. We decided to walk back to the village to the Italian restaurant we'd checked into the night before only to find it was closed! Fortunately a restaurant beside it was open and we were greeted by another very friendly Brit and his wife. For 12€ we enjoyed a fantastic meal. As an appetizer I had garlic mushrooms (which could have served as a meal), Val had a bowl of fish soup and Betty and Sharon shared a little bundle of goat cheese and honey encased in puff pastry and the garlic mushrooms. The entrees were substantial in themselves only to be followed by a dessert......delicious, then a coffee. We sat there chatting....all very full and comfortable and thinking about leaving when the owner brought us all a tiny little glass of port to finish off the evening. We all agreed we would go back there again. There are a multitude of cafe's and restaurants and even a few take always....reminded me of being in Australia with the "take-aways"!
Back to our excursions today........We wanted to pick up something for dinner this evening and found a butcher shop open. The butcher said something and whisked out the door only to return with a jolly looking man who greeted us in Portuguese and went behind the counter. He pointed to each type of meat and made the sound of the animal it was. We had such a laugh! We ended up buying a pork tenderloin which we will roast tonight. There were a couple of bake shops open so we bought two little chocolate desserts to share tonight. The fish markets were not open until tomorrow so we might go looking for some kind of fish then for dinner.
I'm off to join the other ladies now who are trying to get some sun between clouds. It is definitely looking like a change in the weather and we are hoping the Siberians keep control of their air and not let it drift down to us!
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