APAPS 2017 no.5: Trespass or No Trespass - Mira Rio

This week´s Blog brings you all the excitement of a walk which hadn´t been recce´ed, the dire consequences thereof, a bollocking from our in-house choreographer, an addition to our list of satisfactory breakfast venues, an insight into the Tiller Girls leg-waving techniques, AND a prize competion set by the aforesaid choreographer. Now read on.

The still air and early morning sunlight enabled Yves and Antje to take some fine atmospheric pictures. Less than fine, however, was the Starting Formation Dance-cum-Leg Show which, quite frankly, was a shambles ( en Français, une pagaille).

Present: JohnH, Yves, Ros, Sascha, Hazel, Rose, Antje, then "mind the gap", then Ember, Myriam and Rod.

This is how our Choreographer rated us:

"En effet, c’est la pagaille !

This troupe is a disgrace and I shall have to put my foot down with a firm hand !

On the plus side, the instruction to execute a gentle ‘plié’ was more or less observed by some of our undisciplined disciples…

It is noted that the right-wing have gone for UDI and almost cracked a smile; as their feet are obscured by a hound, no marks will be awarded this time.

The happy others:

Antje: she talks like Marlene Dietrich and the hips are facing in the right direction: 2 points

Rose: she dances like Zizi Jeanmaire and we will ignore the ‘pointé’ added for effect to the ‘plié’: 1 point

Hazel: her clothes are all made by Balmain AND she raised her knee level with her waist: 2 points

Ros: there´s diamonds and pearls in her hair, yes there are: 2 points (one for the smile!)

Aristotle: what can a Master learn?

John: he knows the Aga Khan and tries hard, for a laugh, ha ha ha…: 1 point for effort, 1 point for enthusiasm, 1 point for the smile despite the impending heart attack (he must learn to run faster from the camera), -1 point for dangling too many bits, -1 point for the Trump fingers, -1 point for the limp wrist => Nul point! 

Now class: your homework.

 Identify the song, the singer, the year and name the lady it was dedicated to?

Arroz Total"

As one of the failures, I can but hold my hand up and admit that I couldn´t hold my foot up (laughing too much).

There will be a briefing at the end of this blog to remind us of the standards we are trying to achieve. And, once the blog is published, I am sure that we will learn what ´arris Turtle´s prize for the winner of his competition is. How exciting!

Anyway, we set off shortly after 7 am,  circling round the back of the Mira Rio establishment to remind Myriam of where she had gone astray last year. Then eastwards along the canal (pause to insert atmospheric shot)

until then we reached the bottom of the steep hill which Ingrid has  in the past advised us not to attempt to climb. As she was not with us this time , we felt justified in ignoring her counsel and, after a bit of a scramble through fencework, began the ascent. Initially the track was not at all clear and I began to have doubts until, about a third of the way up, we spotted an old blue mark which Myriam confirmed was a Maurice original. 

                                               A genuine Maurice blob

Thus reassured that we were following safely in historic footsteps, we continued to the top, enjoying good views back over the Odelouca River valley as we went.

Perhaps I had become a bit over-confident by now, but here I decided to depart from the planned, well-known route and to follow a Road Less Travelled, in other words to go into unrecce´ed territory. Not even our trusty local guide (Rod ) knew the area we were venturing into.

At first, everything seemed OK if a bit grotty. Some deserted outhouses, collections of unkempt equipment, some tracks here and there, the only sign of life being a very young, untethered and unafraid foal which seemed to want to join us.

It certainly kept following me and I had to escape from its attentions by climbing over a wall.

                                                    "Exit pursued by a bear" (Shakespeare)

But in scrambling over that wall and then over several more, I lost my sense of direction and somehow or other we found ourselves deep in someone´s horta. A lot of rustic grumbling was heard nearby and then that someone emerged from among his rows of beans to accuse us of trespassing. Rod calmed him down with suitable apologies and a request to be shown a way through the property, to which the gruff answer came that there wasn´t one.
Luckily for us, Myriam then switched on the charm, saying that, if he wanted, he could have the free labour of 8 hard-working volunteers for the morning.
At this offer/threat, he relented and led us some distance to the front of his property and, unlocking a steel gate worthy of Fort Knox, ushered us out onto the Road More Travelled. We now knew where we were.

                                 All´s Well That Ends Well

However, we soon took another chance, going speculatively off cross-country again but this time we managed to reach the large old farmhouse and some real tracks without further alarm, and then made our way, past a solitary English squatter and his dog, down to the Clube Nautico, deserted as always but well-furnished with chairs and tables, where it is always a pleasure to read the blackboards with the latest quotations from Aristotle (the real one), Einstein or the Dalai Lama. 

Then it was simply a matter of a brisk walk back along the canal to get to Mira Rio in time for breakfast which had been arranged for 9.30 am, where Paul and Chris joined us. The meal was served very promptly and efficiently and, I think, met with general approval;  certainly, the price was most competitive.

                               Mini-somethings, courtesy of Myriam

In an exchange of emails leading up to the walk, Paul had sort of indicated that he intended to lead a discussion over  breakfast on the subject of latter-day Erastianism (Google it), which Aristotle and I were quite looking forward to. To our despair, this didn´t happen because there was all the usual trivial business of people fiddling about with their smart phones and stuff about Tilley and other Silly Hats, even Ros put one on:-

                                     a despairing philosopher

Hazel and Rod were wearing His n´Hers T-shirts, which provided a photo opportunity exhilarating enough to cause Rod to fall off his chair mid-shoot.

The Track and Statistics:

Distance : 6.72 kms
Moving Time: about 1 hour 35 mins
Ascent: 182 metres

My thanks to Antje, Myriam and Yves for the photos. And now for a few words about what we should be aiming at in our leg-waving Starter photos. Recently there have been remarks about the Tilley Girls, but that´s a pipe dream of Paul´s, and other references to various dance troupes, but we are not trying to emulate the Folies Bergère, nor Le Moulin Rouge where they do the Can-Can, nor the Bluebell Girls who are probably all over 6 feet tall in their high heels and do it bare-breasted, nor the Windmill Girls who were allowed by the Lord Chancellor to do it in the nude provided they stood perfectly still, nor even the Bolshoi Ballet who can no doubt understand all that continental jargon about pliés and pointés. Not that there´s anything wrong with having a foreign coach, mark you; the British and Irish Lions did quite well with one; Scotland did too recently, and Manchester United excelled with one (Ferguson). And our M.le Chorégraphe understands our psyche pretty well.
But it is the style of the Tiller Girls that we are trying to emulate in those fleeting seconds as the camera flashes, canine and other distractions or not.

Founded in1894, they were models of rectitude,timing and mutual support; that´s what we should be aiming at. Definitely, we have more work to do.
To see how the Tiller Girls could maintain their synchronised perfection, just watch this video to see how they kept it all together despite the attempted distractions of an interloper:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pox7tHWRsRg

Finally, don´t forget to send you answers to Arroz Total´s quiz to Yves at  
yvesferrer@sapo.pt


In olden days, a glimpse of stocking 
Was looked on as something shocking,
But now, Heaven knows,
Anything goes.         (Cole Porter)