APAPS 20.5: Drama in the High Serra

 

 This week´s Blog starts with a P.S., a Post Scriptum to last week´s blog because Yves´ would-be comment included a photo, which the Blogger Comments box does not cater for. And if any of the current readership are offended by the appearance of yet another cricketing picture, when I had promised no more on that topic, I can only apologise by saying that Algoz takes precedence, alphabetically at least, over Belgium and by echoing Shakespeare´s words:-

“If we cricket fans have offended,

Think but this, and all is mended, -

That you have but slumber´d here,

While these visions did appear.

And this weak and idle theme,

No more yielding but a dream.”

And now to Yves´comment:- if  you remember, I had queried his particular interest in the Belgian Ladies cricket eleven.

Quote 

Prof Ferrer, aka Aris-total on occasions, here!

 May I point out that my interest in ladies’ cricket is purely due to strict compliance with my duties of ‘Custodian of Sporting Traditions Here and Elsewhere’?

 It falls to me, therefore, to ask whether said ladies did or still do observe the time-honoured friendly gesture of exchanging jerseys at the end of the match: photographic evidence is always a help in such circumstances as one cannot be in more than three separate locations at any one time… Can anyone in possession of such pictorial record help out? Please?

 For the sake of cricket reporting world-wide, I enclose a photograph of Algoz First XI batting away at wicked deliveries from Tunes Cobbled XI.

Connoisseurs will enjoy the finer details of pitch condition, improvised stumps and the relative positions of the (tennis) ball and the bat… Moi, I was just the snapper, your ’onor!  

 Yves

.PS: I would have included the above as a comment to your wonderful essay but Phat Phingers and Thick Thskull prevented it…  Perhaps you might fit it in? Thanks!

unquote 

  And now, having got that out of the way, we can move onto the Walk. The day before, it looked like numbers walking, as opposed to just eating, were going to be on the up, with as many as seven signing on . However,that evening Terry and Jill had to call off because the former had caught a bit too much sun – better not to risk it. So there were five Starters, including Myriam who, having lost her bearings the previous time at Pescadores, made sure that she was there first this time, her dead-reckoning functioning perfectly.

The Starters

The early morning stroll along the canal in the early morning sunlight was delightful, apart from a great chorus of barking dogs. 

But that din soon ceased and as we moved into the woods there was only the chatter of the ladies to be heard as they went along ahead at a considerable pace, oblivious of whether they were on the correct track or not.

Some strange ornithological observations were made.

Soon, however, a new noise became more and more persistent – the sound of chain saws and of falling trees. Some large scale logging was taking place as the eucalyptus crop was being harvested. 

Whole hillside were being stripped, with the likelihood that, for the next two or three years there will be little shade on these familiar tracks. Another side effect is that the heavy equipment being used to transport the logs has churned the tracks up so much that, as we had noticed at Aguas Belas the previous week, there is thick powdery earth everywhere, several inches deep.

Now, this stuff may be soft to walk on but don´t be deceived. The dust is treacherous because one cannot see what stones and rocks are hidden underneath. And this may be what caused Jim to stumble and fall like a ninepin face first into the dust.

This was the chance for Dr Ferrer to put the skills he acquired during his service with Médecins Sans Frontières into practice. Ably assisted by Maria, he quickly staunched the blood flow and applied ointment to Jim´s grazes. Then Colonel Ferrer´s mountain rescue experience, gained from his training with 15 Peloton de Gendarmerie de Haute Montaigne, kicked in as he guided a somewhat shaken Jim down the rocky tracks in the direction of home base. Suffice to say, they all got back in good time for breakfast.

Non-walkers, Chris, Antje, Paul and Hazel were there for the meal and Rod put in his usual avuncular appearance in time for for coffee. Breakfast was the usual high Pescadores standard, with Hazel and Maria providing much appreciated assistance.

Contact was made by phone with Terry who sounded cheerful enough and Myriam entertained us with anecdotes about Chinese singing birds and crickets (insects, not the game). Paul updated us with the latest news from his aviary of finches.

Pescadores provided us with figs fresh from their horta and Sensei Yves demonstrated his familiarity with the art of fruit and vegetable carving (Mukimono in Japanese or Thaeng yuak in Thai).

It is rumoured that he intends to take part in the IKA/Culinary Olympics Fruit and Vegetable Carving Competition. Yes, there really is such a thing. Watch this space.

 Is there no end to the man´s many talents?

Well, yes actually; he has not yet mastered how to Blog. Now there´s a challenge.

The Track and Statistics

For those who missed Myriam´s reminiscences about Chinese singing birds and clickets, try cricking on this rink for a view of Hong Kong in 1965.

https://m.facebook.com/watch/?v=2051538468466060&_rdr 

As well as singing birds and clickets, this video has a fascinating demonstration of the collect way to eat noodles with chop sticks, while the Hing Wen Restaurant menu looks economical enough for the APAPS. Fried rice at $1.80 for the humans, and "Grass Hoppe and Lizards" for the birds -  veritable bargains.

Post Publish Note from Paul:

John caught me by surprise with his speed of publishing that I missed sending him a short vid. of the World Cricket Championships, which is displayed below:

Any suggestions for a sport that the APAPS/WAGS might support or supplement their meagre pensions by indulging?  Caracois racing perhaps!

APAPS 20.4: Aguas Belas Remodelled

You may be wondering if your Blogger is losing the plot by publishing, for the second week running, a cricketing photograph at the top of the blog, but there is an explanation. Mid-way through this Wednesday´s walk, Yves mentioned that he had been greatly impressed by the research I had gone into on the subject of Belgium´s international (men´s ) cricket team, all of whom just happened to have Bangladeshi names. He wondered if I could do similar research into Belgium´s international women´s cricket. Well, I was a bit doubtful if any such thing as Belgian women´s cricket even existed. After all, Ingrid, usually a fount of all knowledge, seems to know nothing about the sport or its possible Flemish origins; but I said that I would do as I was asked. And lo and behold! it does exist. These ladies are more ethnically assorted than the men were, there being 3 Scottish or at least Celtic names among them, only one Asian sub-continental name and the rest a clutch of suitable Germanic names. That, in the photograph, there are 13 in the team might suggest that they could in fact be a rugby league team. Perhaps they don´t know that a cricket team is a called a cricket eleven for a reason. There is at least the evidence of a cricket bat, so we will give them the benefit of the doubt. Umpire´s call probably. I don´t wish to probe further into Yves´ particular interest in these young ladies – you don´t need so many people to play French cricket, do you? - so I will now drop the subject and turn to the walk.

 But just before I do, let me remind you that Paul a Pé added a comment on last week´s blog about another type of cricket as follows:- 

“Myriam of course is more familiar with another game of 'cricket(s)'. Indeed it is rum0ured that her family fortune is based on some judicious and skilful wagering on the game during the Tang Dynasty.” https://youtu.be/ST954vgfvhQ 

 so if you want to spend ten minutes or so studying the Chinese connection between insectology and gambling, click on that link.

The Walk

 When we were almost ready to start from Café Pára e Fica, we learned that for some reason Maria had decided to self-isolate and so had parked herself about a kilometre away from the rest of us. An envoy was despatched to assure her that it was actually quite safe to come out of quarantine and join the rest of us, which she did in time for the Starter photo.

And then we set off along the Aguas Belas track. Attentive readers of the recent Quarantine Diaries will probably remember in Week 4 thereof (08.04.2020) Rod and Antony reported on the large amount of work going on on re-landscaping this valley. And now we could see the results. Scarcely 200 metres from the entrance to the track, there were massive hills of eucalyptus chippings. If you need mulch for your garden, it´s there just for the taking.

Further along, the track had been reshaped and broadened; several undulations, dips and hollows had been smoothed over, and the famous Hazel´s Swimming Pool, where she boldly took a plunge one rainy day in March 2018 with the AWWS, exists no longer.

                                                       Hazel Went Swimming

 Indeed, some of the remodelling of the track has so interfered with the course of the seasonal Aguas Belas river that it will be interesting to see how the river flows when (or if) next it rains. And there is dust, dust everywhere: a very fine dust that showed up very clearly that a deer had been out for its morning constitutional just before we came along. And that fine dust will become an extremely muddy mud when (or if) it next rains. Eventually we left this dusty track and made our way up and over the ridge to the south, pausing fairly frequently during the long ascent to admire the scenery, i.e. catch our breath or to toss the occasional caber.

On the ridge, we had the usual good view of Silves castle, which never quite comes out in photographs as well as one thinks it should. Professor Ferrer explained it thus: the human brain can persuade the human eye to distinguish detail which the camera, which has no brain, cannot.

                                                Terry listens to the Professor

We turned west along the ridge and then decided to avoid the obvious route back to the start, in order to avoid some beehives and instead took a rather precipitous trail down a hillside. We have been up that way in the past but, as it´s very difficult to get the ground staff these days, so it was now very overgrown. Jill took a fall and Jim drew blood, but they both survived.

Maria performed the limbo and also survived.

The steepness of the descent can be judged from the elevation profile in the Track Section. Jim´s “Thank God, that´s over” was rather understated in the circumstances. The Track

The Breakfast

We got back to Pára e Fica with 10 minutes to spare before breakfast´was served. The food was OK, only one egg each this time which was perhaps a bit on the mean side, but there were lashings of bacon and buttered toast, and some truly delectable tomatoes. Terry and Jill did not stay to eat, but Chris, Antje and the newly walking-wounded Hazel did come to join us at the meal. Rod came for coffee, in a pair of chinos mercifully less flamboyant than the previous week. Before the meal, Chris and Antje had been for a short stroll along Aguas Belas and had been lucky enough to see a large red deer, maybe the same one whose tracks we had noted. Chris remarked that this was the event of the week as far as he was concerned - referring to seeing that deer, or having the breakfast, who knows?

APAPS 20.3: Return to Mira Rio

One of the aims of this blog, which exists ostensibly to report on the present series of breakfast walks, is to try to get those of its readers who don´t walk - and they are the majority at the moment – involved, and not to spend too much time waffling on about a walk in which only the minority took part. It was for this reason that last week´s blog poked gentle fun at the cricket-loving TerryA while his team England were going through a bit of a rough passage. Terry took it very well and came back to me with this message:-

On 8 Aug 2020, at 18:42, Terry Ames <terry.jill.ames@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi John There I am in the kitchen cooking evening meal listening to the Cricket. Listening to England getting over line for a win. When Butler was keeping wicket I was thinking bring back Bairstow, but cometh the hour cometh the man.
I will try to come for a coffee with you all on Wednesday.
As they say it’s not over till the fat lady sings.
Take care 

And in the end, Terry had the last laugh (cue for closing music)  because England managed to dig themselves out of that particular hole they were in and win the match. So I replied, at the same time trying to involve Ingrid, stranded as she is in her mountain fastness, by alleging that she had cricketing expertise.:-

On 8 Aug 2020, at 23:48, John Hope <hopejh@sapo.pt> wrote to Terry:

Woakes done well, didn’t he?
Good to hear from you. All I am waiting to hear from is Ingrid, because I know that she is a great cricket fan, as of course are all Belgians. What does she reckon on Jos Buttler’s skills as a wicketkeeper, for example?
Anything she can say about this will be a great contribution to the Blog.
JohnH

But that was a failure because all I got out of her was this laconic two word reply:-

From: Ingrid Bonte

??????me cricket ?

A bit of a disappointing response , I have to say, although quite understandable since she has been an expatriate for a considerable number of years and so may not be fully up to speed on the current popularity of cricket in Belgium. In fact, a bit of Google research reveals a fair amount of cricketing detail concerning that country. Did you know, for example, that Belgium has an officially recognised international cricket team? Yes indeed; the current team is

Shaheryar Butt (c)

• Saqlain Ali

• Waqas Ali

• Murid Ekrami

• Soheel Hussain

• Syed Jamil

• Mamoon Latif

• Aziz Mohammad

• Noor Momand (wk)

• Noman Kamawi

• Abdul Rashid

• Ashiqullah Said

• Zaki Ul Hassan

• Saber Zakhil

Their first international was against Germany, who won.

Historically, the first recorded cricket match in Belgium was played by British soldiers on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo. Whether that influenced the result of the battle is not made clear, but even more intriguing is some evidence that cricket was in fact invented in Flanders in the 16th century and brought to England by Flemish weavers. A poem thought to have been written in 1533 has been uncovered, which suggests the game originates from Flanders. In the work attributed to John Skelton, Flemish weavers are labelled “kings of crekettes”, according to Paul Campbell of the Australian National University. This discovery challenges the long established theory that the sport evolved from English children´s games.

Mr Campbell has uncovered an apparent reference to cricket in the 16^th Century work “The Image of Ipocrisie” , attributed to the English poet John Skelton, which refers to Flemish weavers who settled in southern and eastern England, They are described as “kings of crekettes”; “wickettes” are also mentioned in the poem. Campbell and his colleague, a German academic called Heiner Gillmeister, a linguist from the University of Bonn, say that the discovery proves that the quintessential English pastime is anything but English.

Gillmeister told the BBC “There is no way to relate the term cricket to any existing English word. I was brought up with Flemish children and I know the language well. I immediately thought of the Flemish phrase “met de krik ketsen” which means to “chase a ball with a curved stick.”

(Hm! Sounds a bit more like hockey to me, and Gillmeister is one of that crew who like to perpetuate the calumny that golf originated, not in Scotland, but in the Netherlands.)

I wonder what Ingrid has to say to all that. If she and others want to brush up on their cricket and its arcane terminolgy, it is recommended that they tune into BBC Radio 5 Extra which is currently broadcasting Test Match Special, a programme which starts at 10.30am and continues until 07.30 pm, where a few people spend a whole 9 hours non-stop, talking to each other about the cricket match which they are watching, uninterrupted by music or adverts, by nothing in fact other than the official Weather Forecast for seafarers three times a day on Long Wave. If rain stops play, as it frequently does, then they talk about the rain. They will learn more from that programme than from the following old chestnut which is designed to confuse.

CRICKET: As explained to an American:

You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that's in the side that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out. When they are all out, the side that's out comes in and the side that´s been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out.

When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in. There are two men called umpires who stay all out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out. When both sides have been in and all the men have been out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game!

The Walk

Perhaps it is now time to turn to the walk. Last week, our numbers of walkers had boomed. Not so this week, we were back to the Basic Four, who assembled bright and early at Mira Rio. 

The day was not so bright, however, and as we scrambled up the first steep hill after leaving the canal we even felt a few drops of rain. And it was there at the top of the hill that our tame zoologist successfully spotted the legendary Greater Silves Tree Python.

A little further on, we were greeted by some friendly equines.

After that, no other wild life came our way other than some pesky mosquitoes which seemed quite partial to said tame zoologist.

                                 Yves shows his mossie bite; his audience is unsympathetic.

Some old tracks were attempted relying on my somewhat faded memory, with only one false trail.

For once we avoided visiting the Clube Nautico because we wanted to be back in good time for breakfast. As we neared the look-out point over the Arade, a familiar-looking dog came bounding up to meet us in a most friendly fashion. It was Sascha, accompanied by Chris and Antje. So it was now six walkers plus dog.

Back at the restaurant in good time, we were joined by Paul and Myriam, so it was eight of us who sat down to what proved to be an excellent meal and, at 4 euros a plate, very good value. 

The photographers all attacked their food with such gusto that none of them discharged their prime responsibility of photographing the food for the record, so here is one I prepared earlier.

The grey day brightened up considerably when Rod arrived for coffee:-

and our numbers swelled again when Terry and Jill also dropped in for coffee and a chat.

Terry´s Merc, the only one of its kind in the Algarve we were told, was quite an attraction. (Technical specifications available by application to Terry.)

The Track (illustrated)

Since we were dealing earlier with things Flemish and things slightly poetical, I thought that I would end this blog with something in the same vein. Those of us who had the benefit of a old-style British education will no doubt have had to learn or to recite the poem by Robert Browning which sets off at a fair gallop in the first verse:-

I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;
I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;
'Good speed!' cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew;
'peed!' echoed the wall to us galloping through;
Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,
And into the midnight we galloped abreast.

The title of the poem is of course “How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix.”

(Ghent is in Belgium. Aix is the French spelling of the latter city which is in Germany, while the German is Aachen, the Luxembourgish is Oochen and the Walloon Axhe.)

But the notable thing about this poem, in the course of which two of the galloping horses drop dead from exhaustion, is that we are never actually told what the Good News was. But it now seems indubitable, following on from the research carried out by Herr Gillmeister and his associates, that what the Good News was, was the result of an international cricket match between Ghent and Aix, Aix winning by an innings and 10 runs.

                                                          They All Laughed