APAPS 18.3. 11 07 18: Ilha do Rosario, or P.Y.O.C.

For the third week running, it was nine who gathered to walk and to breakfast. This time we were at Restaurante Mira Rio and we are grateful to Terry and Jill´s daughter Claire, over from Dubai, for making the numbers up to nine.

Starters: Ingrid, Chris, JohnH, Antje, Terry, Jill, Claire, Hazel and Janet.

Plus Sascha and Java

The Track which was pretty familiar to most of us, so no surprises here.

The Statistics.

Distance: 7.76 kms. Moving Time: 1 hr 51 mins. Moving average speed 4.2 kph.

Total Ascent: 308 metres.

The starter photo and the initial start were well-disciplined, but very soon a near riot broke out when Janet casually tossed a banana skin into a lixo bin, provoking violent protests from Hazel and Ingrid about why had Hazel been deprived of her supply of her favourite garden fertilizer. When calm was restored, and somehow it was, we moved down to the canal where Sascha treated us to a virtuoso display of over-the-water-and-back-again jumping which Java didn´t dare emulate. 

Summer time, and the walking is gentle.

Gentle, that is, until the rejuvenated Chris decided to set the pace and raced up the hill into the nearby Vale da Lama village, and he remained pretty well to the fore throughout the walk.

Time was spent in photographing the flora and fauna

and in reminiscing.

We strolled through the central dip of Ilho do Rosario and then made our way up to the highest spot to get the views over the paddyfields towards Portimão.

Here, some public-spirited individual had installed a sturdy wooden bench at a handy vantage point.

Then we had views into the morning sun towards Silves.

Then over the brow of the hill and down to the Clube Nautico…. bar shut as per usual. When we moved on, back up to the canal, it was noticeable that there was a significant leakage of water out of the canal down to the rear of the Clube premises. Is it in danger of being inundated?

Then there were more opportunities for wild-life photography when a snake was spotted swimming along the canal. A huge beast, at least a foot and a half long.

Fed up with the attentions of the paparazzi , it attempted a vertical exit up the concrete canal wall. What could it get a grip on, and how?

With a bit of a struggle…..it hung on… and…….

and finally made it.

This stretch of the canal brought back memories to some of the older hands of the time when two lambs had fallen into the then dry channel, perhaps alarmed by the AWWs´ dogs, and here is an archive shot of Terry just before he risked life and limb jumping in to rescue them.

By now, Chris had reached the spot looking out over the confluence of the Arade and Odelouca Rivers

JohnH assembled his remote controlled photo thingy

and we were all duly shot.

We got back at Mira Rio in good time for our 10 a.m.breakfast, table well prepared and food promptly served

Janet pronounced herself well-satisfied with her austere, eggless, serving of toast and tomato, while, as well as enthralling us with her encomiums in favour of Ikea Algarve´s Customer Service Department, she stoutly defended her use of an antediluvian cell phone against all criticism.

In the absence of the APAPS´ Honorary Breakfastician and Epicurean Arbiter, the atmosphere was a little less tense than previously and I think we were better able to enjoy our  food, without having to provide critical satisfaction ratings. We can rely on his unique critical perspective on the English breakfast per se to guide us through the rest of the saeson´s meals without having to be members of a reality show jury.

But for my part that morning, I was happy with what was in front of me; the bacon was crispy and well drained of any excess oil; the eggs were just to my liking with that exact degree of firmness to the yolks that enables them to be detached in one piece from their surrounding whites and to be conveyed to the mouth on a corner of buttered toast without loss of protein; and, what is more, my shandy was nicely chilled.

The coffees, and the sophisticated presentation thereof, earned favourable comment from those who prefer coffee to beer, as well as several  repeat orders.

All-in price? Euros 5 per head.

We had, of course, welcomed Ingrid back among us after her annual trip to northern parts. Regular readers of these pages over the last two or three years will know that she makes a point on these yearly pilgrimages to the fashion capitals of the world of bringing herself up to date on the latest trends in haute couture, especially on what is going on in the millinery boutiques à la mode, where she always invests with great savvy in la dernière and le plus chic. You get my drift?

But hang on a bit! Just take look at what that new model she is sporting this season really is. Can it be?

Is she is a convert to the cause, at long last? Time will tell, but meanwhile the smile says it all.

And now to the week´s challenge, the translation puzzle. If you remember, this was how it was announced:-

“Only for those who are walking on Wednesday, here is a small puzzle.

Can you translate these French words into an English colloquial expression?

“Pas de lieu Rhône que nous”.

Not a competition, just a topic to take our minds off the result of the Belgium v. France football game.

Not open to Paul (who will know where I got this from) nor to Yves (who is a linguistic professional).”

Paul of course is not one to be put off by any embargo on absentee participation and he had put in an entry along with an internet link “Liberal colloquial translation: 'These shorts are too tight!´“ which had me totally baffled until Ingrid explained to me that the link was to some cheapo clothing company called Rhone which flogs mens´ shorts of the most lurid designs. Even so,very wide off the mark, I am afraid: the Rhône in my phrase has the all-important circumflex.

Nobody at the breakfast table had a clue, so it seemed, so I had to explain. It begins to take shape if one re-arranges the spaces between the words and splits some of the letters so:-

Pasdel ieuRh ône quenous

And so, with the retention of a soupçon of French intonation, the following colloquial English expression emerges.

“Paddle your own canoe”.

There are a lot of different types of word play between English and foreign languages, Franglais, cod-Latin, that sort of thing, and I´m sure Paul and Yves and others will contribute more in the course of this season´s blog. But here are a couple to be going on with.

“Entente cordiale”    and its English equivalent  “In the refreshment tent.”

and that well-known phoney Latin regimental motto

“Illegitimi non carborundum.”  (“Don´t let the b……s grind you down.”)

As for the outcome of the Belgium v. France game, Ingid was stoic, very stiff upper lip in fact. Prepared for whatever le coq gaulois may come up with on his return. Meanwhile, as a neutral, I will refrain from comment on the result of the Croatia v. England game, other that to say that, judging by the pictures in this morning-after papers, Mr Gareth Southgate has learned at least one thing during the course of his campaign – and that is, how to wear a waistcoat properly – not with all the buttons done up, which was how he started, but with the bottom one left undone.

And so to our Concluding Quotation.

Well, that is a bit of a problem but I think that it has to be cod-Latin this time. The first line appeared, genuinely I think, in Kennedy´s Latin Primer, amended by many of its reluctant students with the skilful use of black ink into Kennedy´s Eating Primer, and that line was:-

“Caesar adsum iam forte”  and this, naturally, was rendered into English as

“Caesar had some jam for tea.”

And the whole thing, as elaborated in Geoffrey Willans´  Nigel Molesworth classic “Down With Skool” illustrated by Ronald Searle, went as follows:-

“Caesar adsum iam forte,

Brutus aderat

Caesar sic in omnibus

Brutus sic inat.”

(Photo credits: Antje, Hazel, JohnH)