APAPS 18.1. 27 6 2018: Encherim, or No Laughing Matter

This, the 5th season of our early morning breakfast walks, had been prefaced with a very necessary caution against unsuitable behaviour. 

“A health warning, however. Last week, the AWWs suffered from a severe case of infectious levity with, inevitably, disruptive effects. I don´t want this contagion to spread to APAPS .So this season, there will be no silly posing at photo calls ; attempts at japery, mockery, banter, badinage, jocosity, flippancy (especially flippancy), buffooonery, ribbing, persiflage, satire, sarcasm, facetiousness and so forth will be seriously frowned upon and may even get recorded in a black marks register i.e. blog. Dry wit, if of a sufficiently intellectual or philosophical tone, may be permitted... within reason and with due regard to the early morning hour.”

It is pleasing to report that the warning was taken seriously, and some rather childish but harmless antics at the breakfast table may be excused as being a not-to-be-unexpected reaction to this new puritanism.

But to the walk.

The 7 a.m.start had to be delayed because Paul and Myriam´s transport from Lagos let them down and they had to resort to their stand-by vehicle. While we waited for a few minutes, Yves took the opportunity of indulging in warm-up callisthenics

and the rest of us grabbed a preliminary coffee at Café Prata in Encherim, before we all assembled for the Starter photo, taken with fitting decorum.

The Starters

Present: Terry, Antje, Paul, Myriam, Maria, Hazel, Yves, Jill, and JohnH.  plus Java and Sascha.

Once under way, we followed fairly familiar tracks, with a modest degree of gentle climbing.

Jill´s shirt attracted a lot of admiration

The trendiest gear

and Decathalon can expect a rush of fashion-conscious ladies this week-end as a result.

Up on the ridge

Our descent from the ridge was a bit more precipitous than the ascent had been, but it resulted in some good photography by the front-runners.

Back on level ground, we then passed through Beco da Roupa Interior, aka Lingerie Lane. And here we would draw the ladies´ attention to an environmental appeal from the Instituto de Caridade pela Preservação dos Marcos Campestres (ICPMC) - an appeal, not for funds, but for the donation of a replacement for this once-colourful but now slowly-vanishing wisp of material. The passing years and the ravages of climate have not been kind to it and there is the very real danger that soon only the label will be left to be blown away in the wind. Someone must have a suitable replacement, somewhere.

Once we were past this heart-wrenching sight, the pace picked up, with Antje striding out.

although Terry followed at a more considered step.

Maria caught up with all the latest horticultural news

and Hazel was clearly delighted to have completed her first walk after a 5-week sabbatical.

The group then adjourned to Café Retiro dos Pescadores where Dona Fernanda was ready to serve a proper fry-up, with a little bit of back-room assistance from Antje, Hazel and Maria. Yves was delighted to be served first (how does he always manage that?)

until he realised that he had been given only one egg, not two like the.rest of us.

Paul, the newly-appointed Honorary Breakfast Satistician, was taking his duties very seriously, with names, numbers, pack drill, the lot, including allotting scores out of 10 for the appearance of every single egg.

I am not sure that I, as a simple egg-eating layman, can follow the intricacies of his scoring system.

Does this plate get a score of 18 or 20? Who knows?

I was told that the egg on the right in this picture merited only 5 points, even although I argued that its firmness was just what was needed to keep it anchored to my bit of toast and that it merited an 8.

Senhor Bento then produced delicious figs, melons and oranges “on the house”. Myriam and Yves demonstrated alternative methods of fig eating:

Myriam also took her traditional “outside the window looking in” group photograph.

And Maria fooled around with a bit of orange peel.

Yves´s camera captured the danger a young man faces when he drinks beer and eats melon simultaneously.

 Before imbibing

and after imbibing

and to conclude the fun and games at the table, Yves and Paul competed in a “peel the orange” competition.

It was a match between finesse  (Yves) versus vitesse (Paul). Finesse involved peeling delicate slivers of zest from the pith and of then taking the pith, 5 minutes or so carefull attention to detail. Vitesse consisted of wrenching the peel off in chunks, 15 seconds flat, if that. The winner?

Vitesse to the left – finesse to the right? You decide.

Anyway, a pleasant morning and an excellent value meal in a hospitable establishment.

The Track and the Statistics.

Distance: 8.73 kms. Moving time: 2 hours 3 minutes

Average moving speed:- 4.2 kph.Total ascent:- 283 metres.

And the obligatory concluding quotation:-

`Did you say pig, or fig?’ said the Cat.

`I said pig,’ replied Alice; `and I wish you wouldn’t keep appearing and vanishing so suddenly: you make one quite giddy.’

`All right,’ said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.

(Alice in Wonderland: Lewis Carroll)

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Pre-Season Warning: Some Viewers May Find What Follows Upsetting

Back at Mira Rio, we settled down for drinks and for the draw for the photocaption competition. Remarkably, this had attracted 12 entrants, one putting in 2 suggestions. There were references ranging from music and dancing, to TV and Reality shows, and to sport, and with remarkably little in the way of bad taste! Your blogger particularly liked the cricketing entry, finding it very well timed coming as it did from an Englishman on the weekend that England….. the world no.1 white ball side so we are told….. that England had been beaten by Scotland!

The judges had found it impossible to differentiate between all of the captions for wit and topicality, and therefore decided that a raffle-type draw was the best way to choose. Our thanks go to visitor Graça for making the draw and presenting the prizes.

The Blog´s legal advisors tell us that, under GDPR*, it cannot mention participants´names unless by winning a prize they are deemed to have given consent to disclosure. So, anonymously, these are the unlucky entries:-

“Fred and Ginger wasted no time for last minute practice before the Strictly audition”

“I tell thee laddie, that new-fangled Lusitanian hip-hop-Morris-freestyle dancing will ne’er catch on; not on yer Nellie!”

“Come on, come on, do the Locomotion with me!  You've got to bend your hips. Get ready......”

“Long Distance Walkers Association Annual Husband Thrashing Competition.. Pam Goes for Gold.”

“Portugal’s Got Talent. Dancing duo, husband and wife kick off the first show in the Algarve.”

“Most of the cricket team had given up at this point.”

“At least one gentleman bowing to the ladies.”

“In a remote part of the Algarve candidates Nick and Pam are still hopeful for positions in the Ministry of Silly Walks.”

“Pam and Nick demonstrate the volatile end to their dance interpretation of the Upstairs/Downstairs theme tune.”

“Fancy Foot work in Figueira - Pam and Nick show their latest breakdance moves.”

“Pam kicks Nick in to the gutter.” (and that´s the polite version.)

Your Blogger was not allowed to take part, having been the original photographer, but if he had been and with an oblique reference to a TV cookery programme, here is what his caption might have been. along with the photo in quesion.

                                                                                                 Merry Berry

So the draw was made and  the runner-up, with the caption

“The AWW encouraged Nick to try out Pam´s latest Zumba move” was…….

                                                                                                                    SANDRA

and finally the winner, of a magnificent bottle of The Joker (a.k.a. Niepoort Diálogo Douro 2016) with

“Pam, I said I needed the Banheiro …not do the Bolero” was ……..

                                                                                                     ROGER

                                                                               M.le Docteur The Beez-Neez looking totally innocent

So that´s it, the end of another AWW season. No doubt, when we start again, Pam and Nick will find a way of getting their own back for having been taken such advantage of in the caption competition. As Alfred Hitchcock once said “Revenge is sweet and not fattening.”

Have a good summer, everyone.

*GDPR = General Data Protection Regulation-

Photocredits: Yves, Terry M, JohnH.