APAPS 19.7; Dry As Dust At Aguas Belas

Last week´s blog achieved the rare distinction of attracting absolute zero comment. One can only suppose that anyone who did read it is now too deeply immersed in that 1000 page, 426,100 word, single sentence book  “Ducks Newburyport” to have time for anything else.
Ah well! Keep it brief this week.
An addition to the list of absentees this week was Ingrid. She had damaged her foot by kicking a stone. It is not clear if said stone was asking for it because it had offended her in some way or if she did it just because, like Mount Everest, it was there. Anyway, the results were very painful, for Ingrid. Fique bom logo.

The majority of the day´s walkers started off with an early coffee at Encherim´s Café Prato, thus threatening the promptness of the 07.00 hrs starting time. Excuses for cutting it fine included “coffee too hot” “coffee too weak” “queue for the loo” “coffee too slow”.but in the end they made it.

We had a reasonable turn-out of nine, with Dona Dina returning to the fray, visitor Claire Ames fresh from a month´s intensive yoga training in India, and two guests of Paul and Myriam from Hong Kong, Charlie and Polly, boosting the head count.

The Starters

JohnH, Paul, Myriam, Charlie, Polly, Claire, Dina, Jill, TerryA with Becky.

The Track
First, brought to you by the magic of ViewRanger, is Paul´s track looking remarkably like a startled chicken

and secondly, the Leader´s official SatMap.

The Statistics
Total distance: 7 18 kms. Total time: 2 hrs 07 mins.
Moving time: 1 hr 46 mins.
Average moving speed: 4.00 kph
Ascent: 254 metres.
Eggs consumed: 18.

As is now habitual, we set off at precisely 07.07 hrs. The Leader decided that we had better get the hilly bit out off the way first thing, so almost immediately there we were, scrambling up a steep hillside up onto the ridge. That took a bit of doing but, even when we had made it up there, there wasn´t much let-off from climbing because that ridge consists of some considerable updulations. 

Pleased to meet you

It was almost 3 kms into the walk before things eased off when  we could have a long gentle downhill towards the valley floor. Interesting how the group spread out on this slope. Five went racing ahead, Charlie and Polly leading, and two really dawdled taking their time at the back, which meant that seven of the nine missed overhearing a fascinating conversation between the middle two about the origins and meaning of the word “sesquipedalian”, a word apparently much favoured by The Honourable Member for the Eighteenth Century, as Mr Jacob Rees Mogg is known. We will elucidate at the end of this blog. (For the benefit of those readerswho are not transfixed by current UK politics, Mr JRM is British Member of Parliament.)

Half way down this  downhill, Paul discovered a sort of hybrid horseshoe, part iron and part plastic, clearly designed for some hypochondriac horse. A collector´s item, so he collected it.

Down on the valley floor after only one hour of the walk, we had some liquorice

and then did a small extra loop to add a little bit of time and distance to the outing.

It was very dry. 

There was a search for some carob beans  in order to show Polly that what she had eaten the previous day had not been carrot.

It was very dry. 

We passed through the deep gully where Hazel had fallen in last year (in the rainy season). It too was very dry. We passed an old cisterna under excavation  and repair. 

12 feet down in the hole, there was some damp mud.

It continued very dry until we got to Pará e Fica, where the first mouthful of shandy went down extremely well. For some reason , the breakfast service was a bit slow, but the food when it did come was up to the usual standard and Ana did come out of the kitchen and favour us with a big smile. 

For the second week running, we were joined by those two coffee afficionados, Rod and Charlie Frew. Naturally enough, there was a lot of exchange of views about the Hong Kong situation.

Postprandially, some Horta Esperança grapes were consumed.

Rod told Paul what the hybrid horseshoe was all about but, as I couldn´t hear what was said, you dear reader, will like me have to remain unenlightened for the time being. Paul then tried to remember a rhyme about the loss of a horseshoe nail, often thought to be about  the Battle of Bosworth Field (1485) and  Richard the Third et al. However, it seems that Richard fell off his horse, not because it lost a nail and a shoe, but because it got stuck in the mud. Then poor old Richard got caught because he couldn´t run very fast in his armour, was killed and ended up stuck in a car park in Leicester for the next 530 years. When he eventually got out, it needed an Act of Parliament to get National Car Parks  to waive their car park fees. And the rhyme, more of a proverb actually, was around well before the battle.
Be all that as it may, this is one version of the proverb:-

For want of a nail the shoe was lost,
for want of a shoe the horse was lost,
for want of a horse the knight was lost,
for want of a knight the battle was lost,
for want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
So a kingdom was lost—all for want of a nail.

And that word “sesquipedalian”? 
It means a word "having many syllables” or, to be brief,  “long.”

Suitable therefore to close with a Shakespearian quotation:-

“My liege, and madam, to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is,
What day is day, night night, and time is time,
Were nothing but to waste night, day, and time;
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief. Your noble son is mad.”

Polonius, Hamlet Act 2 Scene 2 


Far be it from this blogger ever to indulge in such sesquipedalian loquaciousness.