APAPS 19.12: The Last Fling of Summer

There was real excitement in the air at Retiro dos Pescadores in the early-ish hours of Wednesday 25th September. Ingrid was going through her warm-up exercises before cracking open the first banana of the day.

and Dina was announcing the arrival of her new kitten called Divi.

and Janet was struggling with some recalcitrant bootlaces. Meanwhile, the men who were ready on time had their now customary wait.

The APAPS starting allowance of 7 minutes was stretched to the limit on this occasion , but ultimately the Starter Photo was taken.

The Starters

Chris, Janet, Jill, Dina, TerryA, Antje, Yves (just), Paul, Myriam, Ingrid, JohnH.
In attendance, somewhere, Becky.

In contrast to the previous week´s scandalous kneecapping episode, this week JohnH´s knees were discreetly veiled behind some strategically placed shrubbery. On closer inspection, it looks as if this time it is Yves who is taking the strain.

We set off at 7.55 am but, what with a larger turn-out than usual and In all the excitement, the Leader forgot to switch on his track measuring gizmo, so as a result this week all the stats are Paul´s and unchallenged.
Let´s deal with the figures now and have done with it.

The Track

The Statistics

Total distance: 8.12 kms. Total time: 2 hrs 13 mins.
Moving time: 1 hr 59 mins. Moving average: 4.1 kph.
Total ascent: 224 metres.
(Eggs consumption: 22, of which unbroken 20.)

We set off along a short stretch of the canal and then into rather autumnal looking woods.

The unsightly dump of lixo seen a few weeks previously was still there despite Dina´s letter to the authorities.

Shorter track:
Very sensibly, a third of the way into the walk, three decided to take a partial short cut, as shown on this map, while the young and foolish went uphill to crossroads no 1 and the long way round.

The Long Way Round:

"Nice hat" (J Summerfield)

The Rendezvous:
Half an hour later. a successful rendezvous took place at crossroads no. 2 where Chris, Antje and Janet had been waiting patiently.

The Ladies Who Talk

From there it was a gentle stroll back down the hill to Retiro, 

but some were strolling noticeably slower than others, 
possibly because they were taking artistic photographs,

 possibly because some ladies find it difficult to walk and talk at the same time, and talking takes precedence every time.

TerryA and Jill went on ahead to tell the Café that the troops were soon to arrive.

Rod the Coffee Regular joined us at the breakfast table and operated the camera.

The breakfast was as good as ever, with oodles of toast coming early and late, eggs and tomatoes from the horta, and ample bacon. All rounded off with melon.

No idea what´s going on here.

We expressed our thanks to Dona Fernanda  with a shout of “Viva!”

Well, that´s it - the final walk of the summer. Here are a few statistics for the season, (previous years in brackets.).

Aggregate number of walkers: 110  (134). Aggregate number of eaters: 117 (139).
Total distance covered: 95.21 kms (89.98 kms). Total ascents: 3076 metres (2826 metres).
Number of Tilley Hats.  (Sorry, Janet, nearly forgot.)
Number of eggs consumed: 234 (278).

My thanks to all the photographic contributors to this series of blogs. And now, over to the WAGS.

This blog started with a reference to a cat, so let´s redress the balance with something about dogs.
Question.  “What do you get if you cross a dyslexic, an insomniac, and an agnostic?”
Answer: “Someone who wakes up at 4 a.m. and asks ”Is there a dog?”

And we will close with a bit of music. (Where do they get this stuff?)


"Is there Life after Breakfast?"

https://youtu.be/TSv6L8lCGCQ


"How do you like your eggs in the morning?"

https://youtu.be/l0YmmSxLeH8

click on the links

APAPS 19.11: A Mystery on the Mount or Mosquitos at Dawn

We will start this blog with a statistic or two. Last week´s blog attracted a comment 798 or so words long. Its author claims the world record for the Longest Blog Comment. I don´t know how many, if any, have read what he wrote. Ingrid´s response was one word!
From the ridiculous to the sublime, one might say.

The men were all ready and properly seated at 7.30 am but where were the ladies? So much to talk about, Janet´s return after weeks away, the absence again (for social reasons) of the Whittles, Myriam´s high seas adventure with Robin Knox-Johnston  (see infra), etc. etc. etc. It was really pushing against the clock if we were to make the required 7.37 am start (known as the APAPS Indulgence).

Why Are We Waiting?

Then two ladies threw themselves on top of the unsuspecting Leader and that took some time to sort out. Incriminating photos were taken which have since gone viral via WhatsApp; but JohnH´s excuse, that he was merely staging a tableau vivant to illustrate  a classic cryptic crossword clue, has not impressed our South-East Asian correspondent.
What clue is that, you may ask. “Two girls. One on each knee. (7 letters)”
Answer: patella i.e kneecap.

That´s Pat on his right knee and Ella on his left one. Becky looks aghast at what´s going on.

JohnH looks as if he´s calling for help rather than enjoying himself, a bit like the poor guy in the poem “Not Waving but Drowning.”

click here 

https://youtu.be/UZNvQXNJAcU

Eventually, however, good order was restored and we took a proper Starter pic with everybody waving to those travellers in the East, Hazel and Maria.
The Starters

        Paul, Jill, TerryA with Becky, Dina,  Yves, Janet, Ella, JohnH, Pat.

Goodness knows what time it was that we actually set off. The walk itself was pretty straight forward -  well at least it was in the beginning. We left the canal fairly quickly and took on Ingrid´s favourite hill climb. Here, men had been at work clearing the ground of scrub and stones so what had hitherto been  a narrow ill-defined and overgrown goat trail is now a very passable track track. Unfortunately, one  victim of this wholesale clearance is that Maurice´s blue blob, last seen on 7th September 2017, is now no more.

 25 years of history wiped away, says Myriam.

Several of the group were complaining at this stage about voracious mosquitos and kept flapping their arms. The Leader, having earlier taken his customary morning tincture of liquidised raw garlic in Bunnahabain Cruach-Mhòna single malt whisky, was not bothered.

Attempts at photography were made, some more successful than others.

     (Copywright Yves Ferrer Photography)

We paused a while at the deserted mansion house  on the hill top. 

Round here, wild boar, not man, had been churning up the soil. The work of man was to recur later.
We then  worked our way round the upper levels of  the Cerro da Rocha Branca.

 Going along very familiar paths, we headed down past the recently installed porta-cabin, now occupied, towards the Clube Nautico.

We were looking forward to our customary 10 minutes rest at the Clube but then…… and this is where the mysterious part of the expedition comes in……then four of our group simply disappeared. Those at the front had not been going especially fast; there was, to the Leader´s mind, only one track; and we had all been along it many times in the past. 

The Leader waited at least 5 minutes just below the porta-cabin. Where were they? No sounds of talking. Dead silence in fact. Then a phone call from, guess who, Yves “We are looking over the river but we are lost” “Can you see Silves castle?” “No. where is that?”  The missing four were deep in the proverbial. Nothing for it,but the Leader had to back-track.
By dint of a bit of shouting and telephoning, contact was established, the strays emerged from their predicament and, eventually, the whole group was re-united. What had happened appears to have been the result of more men having been at work in the bush with their infernal machinery. They had scraped a new track going off from our route which the Leader had paid no attention to but which Yves, deep in conversation with Janet (this has happened before with those two, one recalls), and/or Myriam, deep in conversation with Dina, followed this new path which, if they had gone much further, could have led them into really uncharted territory. Coincidentally, it was on APAS 19.2 also at Ilha Rosario that this same Leader had lost 4 of his group. Moral of the story for the Leader – "Don´t get complacent just because you are walking the same old paths."
But with all this ground clearing going on in the area, there may even be new tracks to find. Whether this work is all building up to the future golf course development of the Rocha Branco area remains to be seen.
Any way, no real harm done, other than we lost a considerable amount of time and the chance of resting up at the Clube. The remainder of the walk was more of a sprint in reality as we needed urgently to get back to Mira Rio for the 10 am breakfast sitting –with only the briefest of pauses for some at the viewpoint rock.

We made it just in time and were sitting down when Rod arrived for coffee announcing his arrival by breaking some wine glasses. Breakfast was, as usual, prompt and excellent.

Rod looks on enviously

Conversation was, also as usual, sparkling. And TerryA managed to retain his balance throughout.

The Track

The yellow line bit indicates where the Mysterious Four went astray.

The Statistics
Total distance: 7.90 kms (including Leader´s backtracking)(Was that all? asked Janet).
Total time: 2 hrs 31 mins. Moving time: 1 hr 50 mins.
Average moving speed: 4.3 kph (thanks to that last dash along the canal)
Ascent: 221 metres.
Unbroken eggs eaten: 20.

(In case the mathematically inclined should wonder how 9 people can eat 20 eggs for breakfast at 2 eggs a head, the explanation is that the gracious patroness of Mira Rio agreed to compensate the 2 non-bacon eaters by giving them 3 eggs.


We haven´t heard anything more from Antje on the subject of that 1000 page , one sentence book she came across in Edinburgh, but I wonder if anybody saw BBC 2´s Only Connect programme on 16th September? In it there was reference to two books, in complete antithesis to that 1000 page blockbuster. One was The Wit and Wisdom of Ronald Reagan and the other was Apart from Sex What do Men Think About. Both books have  nothing but totally blank pages in them. Both, of course, are absolute calumnies: of Ronald Reagan who was no fool and of the male part of Mankind who do think about lots of other things. This guy who produced the second book obviously thinks long and hard about to relieve suckers of their money:-

click here to learn more

https://youtu.be/PK0hu4KyBkk

and let´s take the WAGS/APAPS men. They think deeply about things such as mobile phone cameras and Tilley hats, to name just two things. As Janet will readily appreciate, it requires a lot of mental effort to decide between the respective merits of, for example,
 the T4MO-1 Hikers Hat with HyperKewl (3.8 oz in weight, front /back rims 3 1/2 ´´  side rims 2 1/2 ´´), 
the LTM 2 Airflo (3.5 oz, f & b 3 7/8´´ sides 3 1/2´´),
the LTM 6 Airflo (4.0 oz, f & b 3 1/2´´ sides  2 1/2´´, 
or maybe the LTRM 8 Airflo Mesh (only 3 oz, f & b 3 1/2´´, sides 2 1/2´´). 

A great pity to see that Robin Knox-Johnston was not wearing a Tilley when he posed with Myriam. Ah well.

In case Paul is still afflicted with the Miss Otis Regrets earworm, we will have to close with another ditty which might take its place.

click here

https://youtu.be/YKrkPyL1T7w