Looking back at Lisbon

As I pack away my summer clothes for another year and as I wait patiently (OK, not so patiently - I'm practically lying in wait for the postman each day) for the photo book of our trip to arrive I thought I'd share a few photo collages to give you a taste of the city of Lisbon.

The city is hilly - those roads are STEEP!  There are steps up from one level to another as you can see in the top right picture, thank goodness that the steepest ones have the old funicular railways to get you from top to bottom.  The other old form of transport is the tram as you can see in the centre photo on the left.  I thought maybe having my photo taken next to a statue of a lottery vendor might bring me luck in the National Lottery that night; it didn't work.  Being a total Brit, after all that walking it was time for a reviving, refreshing cuppa in a pretty sun lit square! 

The views from the tower in the top left column were amazing and well worth the trip up there.  The rest of the photos in this collage were taken in the Belem district, which is where the famous Pastel de Nata originated.  Of course we had to try one while we were there.  Actually, we tried them in all manner of places during that weekend, but the ones we had here in a café overlooking the river were the best of the bunch!  The main monument there is to commemorate the explorers that left Portugal to find foreign lands.  Next to it is a memorial to all the soldiers that have died in wars.  The triangular brickwork in the centre has a flame burning all the time.  It was a very touching, and beautiful memorial. 

 

I just love a good sunset picture when we go on holiday, and this top left one is one of my favourite pictures of the trip.  As you can see there is much street art, fountains and fiesta decorations - every street has something to look at.

 

So I guess that is the last time I shall be seeing blue skies or feeling the sun on my skin until next year!  It was a brilliant end to the summer and I can't wait for that book to arrive so I can browse through the pages whenever I want.  Although it's good to have all your photos stored on your computer, you don't browse through them like you do a photo album and I always have this terrible 'what would we do if the computer lost them all?' thoughts - hence the need to make a photo book on our return from holidays!  Does anyone else out there make photo books?  If so, which company do you use?  We've always used Photobox which I'm pleased with but I'm always open to suggestions of better places to try!

Me on Monday

It was a weekend of 'this time last week' conversations and looking at photos, uploading them onto a photo book website, filing away the maps and tourist guide books and telling anyone who cares to listen how lovely Lisbon is to visit.

The central heating has quietly clicked on in the mornings, Autumn has arrived.  We keep the boiler going all year round but with the thermostat on low so the heating doesn't switch on until the temperature drops.  So the fact that it is now turning on in the mornings is justification for me to mention that it is 'freezing' outside.  Exaggerate?  Me? Never!

A weekend of proper roast pork Sunday lunch and a new Mary Berry recipe for spiced Apple Cake for dessert.  Football on the TV, the opportunity to curl up with a book while the husband frets about Spurs' form this season.

At the moment I can hear the rain outside and I'm just contemplating whether or not it is dark enough to put on the lights beating in mind that it's only 4.30. P's just taken Coco for a walk and both of them have their winter raincoats on.  So as I wave to Sian and her merry bunch of Me on Mondayers, I'll share this photo with you.  Me on Monday

 

What a nice bunch of mail I came home to today. Money off vouchers and the new quilting magazine. Time to put the kettle on and have a bit of a browse.

A Wednesday look at Me on Monday

I'm giving a very belated wave to Sian with apologies for being so late to the Me on Monday party.

 

I do have a very good excuse though,I was in Lisbon!  We were actually flying back to the UK on Monday and while we were having a last stroll through the town, I saw this shop window display which was full of convex golden domes so quickly snapped our reflections for my Me on Monday photo.

As you can probably guess it was a rather busy weekend!  We flew out early on Saturday morning and returned home Monday evening.  What a lovely city and a fantastic opportunity to grab some late summer sunshine.  We travelled on all manner of transport: metro, open topped bus and tram, not to mention walking for miles, and loved every minute.

When you know that you are only in a place for a short while you obviously need to plan what you want to do and where you want to go before you get there and my husband had spent many a happy hour checking guide books and maps before we left so that when we arrived at the hotel we could drop our bags and start exploring.  I think it's fair to say that if a sight was worth seeing, we saw it!  We used the hop-on-hop-off bus one day and it was such a brilliant way of seeing everything.  I won't go into too many details now, but will save that for another post when I try to convince you all that you need to visit Lisbon one day!

So here I am, Me on Wednesday - trying to get back in the normal routine and wishing it had been a week in Lisbon rather than just a weekend! 

 

Me on the last Monday of the summer holidays

Ah, August Bank Holiday.  The last Monday of August.  Still officially summer.  You're visualising lunch in the garden.  A variety of salads and maybe a quiche, followed by fresh fruit salad, maybe a pavlova with strawberries.  What we're actually seeing is me preparing vegetables for a nice hearty chicken and leek pie, good old comfort food to satisfy us on a cold wet miserable day.  That fresh fruit dessert?  Apple and blackberry sponge pudding and custard!

 

Not much of a smile going on here is there?  Well the relentless rain pouring down outside isn't helping but clearly I am dwelling on the fact that it is back to work for me tomorrow after almost six weeks at home.  I had so many plans for these holidays but found myself in the last week with very few of them being ticked off the 'to do' list. Which is why I found myself in a speed decorating project on Friday.  Despite the fact that our daughter moved out six months ago she's left so much behind in her bedroom that you'd think she is still living here! I figured a good way to get it looking better was to blitz it and freshen up all the paintwork. Boy did I ache the next day. My husband went out at 9am and by the time he came home at 5pm I'd painted all the gloss work and the three walls that aren't wallpapered.  

So when your muscles are feeling tight and sore, what's the best thing to do? Gardening.  Serious, heavy duty gardening. Our daughter's garden needed a good pruning session and neither her nor her boyfriend have any idea about what needs to be done. So we popped round and helped with a good clear up.  Amazing what turned up behind overgrown shrubs, even a good luck horseshoe hidden behind the stem of a passion fruit plant!

We had earned a relaxing evening and went out with friends for a meal in the evening to a new Thai restaurant that's opened in town.  Amazing how much better you feel after a glass of wine and a chicken massaman curry. 

Sunday dawned, another day, another garden. Our own one this time, boy I have burnt off some calories in he last three days, but it's good when you can see a real difference at the end of the day.  Thank goodness we did it yesterday because it sure isn't gardening weather out there today!

So, let's give a big wave to Sian as we share our Me on Monday stories.

Scavenger hunt - from tents to toilets

Last time I shared my scavenger hunt photos from the list that Rinda has set us I finished on a trio of turtles so it's time to pick up the list at
8 - Someone plugged into social media

Daughter watching catch-up TV on her iPad and her partner sending a message on Whatsapp.  I bet there is no one taking part in the hunt who had trouble with this category - you can always find someone engrossed in their phone or a tablet!

9 - A tent

You never get anyone camping in the local park.  Never.  Well, unless you count the little canvas shelters that the fishermen over the lake use for night time fishing.  But quite randomly, one day on a dog walk we noticed that someone was practising putting up a tent.  It was literally only in this state for about half an hour - as if they knew I needed a photo!
10 - A college or university

One of the easiest ones to get - as I work there! It felt like a bit of a cheat but I'm claiming it anyway.
11 - A cellular tower or television satellite dish

This was a really ramshackle house by the marina in Viareggio, it was a little unloved and one side of one of the walls had quite an elaborate graffiti painted on it.  It was definitely in need of a little TLC but I can definitely see a satellite dish up there on the rooftop aerial!
12 - A public restroom, bathroom or toilet

Oh Rinda - this was an odd one!  Ladies loos in England are notorious for their long queues to wait to use them so the chance of being able to photograph one in private was looking unlikely!  There are many things on a scavenger list that may cause raised eyebrows of those watching you take a photo of something obscure but a toilet?!  Plus the Ladies in our local shops and restaurants aren't really that photogenic - but look what I found at Pisa airport - pretty doors.  I tried to make it look like I was sending a text message while waiting in the queue but I'm pretty sure the lady next to me saw that I was actually using my camera. 
13 - A merry go round or carousel

We had got the bus to go to Lucca for the day and our cameras were seeing a lot of action (Panoramic view from the top of a tower for example, not to mention some rather lovely door knockers).  The town is built within the confines of the ancient city wall and we were heading out of the town to photograph the actual wall.  I was more than a little bit tired after climbing the tower and Paul was walking ahead of me, suddenly he turned a corner and stopped.  'You won't believe what's round here' he said and as I walked to join him I saw this beautiful traditional carousel.  (You can tell he was well versed in what was left to get on the list can't you?) It really was strange to see it as it wasn't part of any other children's attractions, just this one random carousel going round in a street.  It was like the tent situation again - it's as if the Scavenger Hunt fairies knew I needed one!
14 - A traffic signal

You can tell from the red Vespa parked along the road that this too was taken in Italy. I tried to find a sign that was very different to anything we have at home but it turns out that probably as we are part of Europe they have all been standardised. 

So that's the second third of the list.  Numbers one to fourteen safely chosen and shared.  And you know what that means don't you?  The next one will be number fifteen - the elusive and much sought after flag pole.  I can hardly wait!

 

 

 

Me on a Birthday Monday

29 years ago I met this young lady for the first time

Two weeks earlier than expected and weighing in at 5lb 10oz, a tiny bundle of loveliness. She arrived dramatically, wrong way up, back to front, emergency surgery - a drama queen from Day One!  Where did those twenty nine years go? 

 

We started the celebrations early and had a pre-birthday dinner on Friday night. Our son and his girlfriend are looking after someone's dog at the moment so he came with them on the train. We wondered how Coco would react to another dog in her house, especially as he was staying overnight but it worked out very well.

Saturday was scorchio! Riverside walks, lawn mowing and talking my husband into cooking crab linguine for dinner.  

It was a good job we made the most of Saturday's sunshine as the good old British weather was as predictable as ever by being totally unpredictable on Sunday.  Mid morning we were sitting outside in the sunshine reading the Sunday papers, drinking coffee (the humans) and sunbathing on the cushions of the patio sofa (the dog).  Lunchtime I had to leave my dinner half way through to run out to the garden to bring in the cushions and quilt because it was torrential rain.  Then two hours later and I was dog-walking in the sunshine.  Crazy weather. 

So - What am I doing today? Celebrating my daughter's birthday of course!  She has a day off work.  It was the first time ever she was going to have to work on her birthday.  When she was young, it was always in the school Summer Holidays, same thing when she was at uni, then it fell on either a weekend or a Bank Holiday Monday but this year ... no such luck.  And she couldn't possibly go into work on her special day could she? 

So here I am, Me on Monday having lunch with my girl

Cheers!

How long is not long enough?

Whenever I tell people that I am a secretary in a school, I guarantee that at some point they will say 'oh how lovely to have all those holidays'.  I'd be lying if I didn't agree!  I saw a colleague in the car park at Aldi yesterday and we both commented on how we couldn't believe we were more than half way through the long summer break.  Have you ever wondered what five and a bit weeks off feels like?

Week 1 - I haven't got to go to work!  I can do what I want, when I want and I don't have to dress up and look smart for almost six weeks.  I'm going to be super organised and get all my holiday shopping done early and pack well in advance.

Week 2 - I'm on holiday!  The sun is shining, I don't have to cook any meals for a whole week and I can't remember when I was this relaxed.

Week 3 - I'm home.  There's a pile of washing needing to be done.  Those swimsuits won't see the light of day for another 12 months - there's no hurry. 

Week 4 - Stop ringing me! I didn't realise just how many times my home phone rings when I'm not here to answer it.  And most of the calls are either silent 'unknown' numbers from call centres or someone offering to mend my broken Windows system/double glaze my house/sell me solar panels or the best one this week 'We've looked at an aerial view of your house on Google earth and we can see you have a problem with moss on your roof.' 'Moss?' 'Yes madam, it's green fluffy stuff that ruins your guttering'.  Sigh.

Week 5 - Oh no, I've only got a few days left and then I've got to go back to work.  I was planning to meet up with so many people, go to so many places and I've hardly done any of that.  How can I cram that all into the last week?  It's never going to happen. Lots of baking going on this week.  Inspired by Great British Bake Off and with our daughter's birthday happening this week, there's lots of excuses to experiment.

September 1 - It's here.  The day we have to go back.  The day we have to sit in the hall and listen while the Head goes on (an on) about exam results, mission statements for the next year, introducing new staff, blah blah blah.  How did my desk get so untidy when I haven't been sitting at it?  I'm sure I left that in tray empty.  What was my log in password?  More importantly - How many weeks until half term?

But wait - I have news to share.  News of a woolly variety.  Warm toes and too good to hide under trousers style.  Today I came home from Tesco's to find a parcel on the door mat.  A soft squidgy parcel.  One with Sian's name in the 'sender's details' box. Inside that was a brown paper bag with a pretty tag on it.  Inside that bag was the most brilliant pair of homemade socks that fit to perfection!

Aren't I lucky!  And how fortunate that the temperatures have dropped and I am justified in keeping them on for the day!  On that 'footnote' I shall finish this post.  There's Portuguese Custard tarts cooling on the rack (we have a weekend in Lisbon coming up which is the home of the Pastel de Nata so I need to get myself in the mood), water boiling in the kettle - time to put my feet up with a cuppa and a cake and admire my lovely socks.