Thanks to the invention of my wife’s father, we now have a darts board. It is currently in the courtyard area of our house, but will eventually be a part of our ‘bar’ area for guests.
This bar area is the old chicken coop of the property and will feature the dart board and bar billiards table inside, along with seating. It will be partially open roofed but protected during winter months. Surrounded by orange trees, the name we have come up with is ‘The Orangery’. But this changes daily, so stay tuned.
Anyway, we’re hoping to have this open for this summer, but the work is extensive, and on top of what other stuff we have to do, it might be a project that gets finished for next year. Either way, it’s probably something that the A New Life In The Sun want to film, so it’ll have to fit in with the logistics of filming like everything else has had to!
I’ve found out this week that my eldest, Jonas, is rather good at darts. Today he beat me with a double eight finish. Finlay, his younger brother, also has good ability. He just needs to grow a little.
But Jonas seems to have this natural ability to be very good at any sport that he tries. I’ve already spoken about his football successes, where he played an important part in a successful team from the age of 5. My wife and I would also watch proudly as he often came first in his school sports day competitions. He seemed to be able to run faster, jump higher and throw further than most kids. I’ve just found out that he can throw a dart more accurately than his old man who has played darts for the past 30 years.
Most parents let their kids win, but Jonas is killing me. I’m hoping that one day, he’ll let me win at something.
It’s coming up to three years since I started blogging. December 13th 2001 was my actual first one. Perhaps my ability to write in a professional way or using my words in a more creative manner hasn’t improved much, that isn’t really up to me to judge. But it wasn’t ever really my intention to showcase my writing skills. There are many skilled bloggers and writers whose work I read that are expertly done.
I simply wanted to write something of a journal. Something that, occasionally, someone would read and identify with. Maybe give a piece of advice, either for the reader or my future self and make someone laugh or think.
My favourite place to write was in the gym. In-between sets I’d write another paragraph or two. The gym has always been my thinking space. But for the past year I haven’t had that space due to my move to Portugal. With the upheaval of buying a house and setting up a new business, my moments of sitting on a workbench and finding the headspace hasn’t been easy. And anyway, I don’t have a gym at the moment.
I always knew that this would be my biggest challenge. Despite my unhappiness of living in a place where I didn’t want to be, there was a part of my life that would be left with a heavy heart.
The sea at Cornelian bay was always a pleasure to look out to. Good for the soul. The gym of course, with my trainees and friends who I would see almost daily in there. It was like a community. I also helped out with coaching at schools and holiday clubs which gave me a great sense of achievement at making a kids day a bit better. And then there’s family of course.
I don’t have one bit of regret in regards to my move to Portugal, but it doesn’t mean that I can’t miss things from my previous life either.
This month was my birthday. My dad had planned a trip from England to visit for a couple of days. This would be the first time I saw him in just over a year. We talked, laughed and ate too much in the restaurants. The boys loved his visit. They were so excited. Unfortunately, despite November being a very sunny month so far, he seemed to bring the British weather with him! So it rained a lot.
I’m still working to get my gym space in order so that I can train and write my blogs in-between sets, but it hasn’t quite happened just yet. It’s all a process. I keep reminding myself of how far we’ve come to create what we have already. It’s all a process and I need to be patient. But in the meantime, I’ll leave you with a few pics from the past week during my dad’s visit.
I didn’t think I’d find a TV series about ‘Detectorists’ all that interesting. Billed as a comedy, I wasn’t sure where the laughs would come from watching two blokes in a field with metal detectors. But then these two blokes were Mackenzie Crook and Toby Jones. Also written and directed by Crook, the series was always going to be not just funny but poignant too. Lou and I enjoyed it very much.
Perhaps we had other motivation to watch the series. Just this summer we had bought Finlay a metal detector for his birthday. We thought it was a fun activity for us all to do together and with so much land to detect on it seemed a good idea. Although, during the height of summer, the land was so hard we could not dig it up! Now it has softened, we can begin to hunt for treasure.
Another motivation is that Lou and I miss one particular thing about the UK and that is a charity shop. They aren’t very common in Portugal. As we walked along Scarborough high street we could never resist popping into a charity shop. “Shall we see if we can find some treasure today?!” I would ask.
That treasure would be an old book that smells like, well, an old book. Or a board game that would bring back memories of family holidays. Or a lamp that would remind us of it sitting in our grandparents house in the 80’s. Or a tea set from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, a particular favourite of Lou’s. A couple of big boxes came over on pallets full of tea sets. They all survived the trip.
Of course, we never expected to find a book or indeed a tea set intact on our land. Maybe an old farming tool. But Finlay had grand ideas of finding a pot of gold. What we found was three rusty nails all located in different areas. The buzz of the machine detecting metal is quite exhilarating, even if it was just a rusty old nail. What have they been used for and when? I like to imagine their journey to when we found them. But for Finlay, as happy as he was to have found something, it wasn’t the pot of gold that he was hoping for. It got me thinking.
We could try to seek our treasure for the rest of our lives and keep finding little more than a few rusty nails. But what did finding those nails do for us? Well, it brought us together to work as a team. A detectorist and a digger. We all took it in turns. We were in nature. During our adventure we found wild boar footprints, beautiful butterflies and dragonflies and new wild flowers appearing. We were tired. A few hours walking and digging is great exercise. And it got the boys off of computer games. Something the modern parent often has to battle against.
Finlay didn’t find gold, but he and the rest of us found a golden opportunity with much more wealth than any coins could ever give us. It gave us a moment together to witness all of this. And if a rusty nail is all that we ever find in the soil, I know that we’ll be discovering so much more about life together whilst we do it.
A few from our latest Festa at Cumeada. We’re finding one a week at the moment and each one is unique to their community. A few home brew wines, but I’ll be fine tomorrow!
One of my favourite memories as a kid is collecting the football Panini stickers. I never did fill an entire album up, but those in my collection were English football league, which always included the Scottish league as well (I was always disappointed when I got Willie Watters from Kilmarnock instead of Ian Rush) and then there were the World Cup and Euros editions.
The 1988 Euros was my first one but, for anybody my age, the Italia 90 World Cup sticker book was THE collection to have. Panini really stepped up for this particular collection but the event itself was also fantastic as there were so many great teams competing around that time. Brazil, West Germany, Italy, Argentina and the Netherlands all had incredible talent in their squad and, of course, England had Gazza.
Gazza stole the show, but David Platt’s sublime volley against Belgium was a highlight. It was the only match that I missed. For some reason, my school decided to have a parents evening that night. My parents wanted to watch the match too. I remember my mum quickly asking the music teacher if I ‘sang like a bird’ before making a swift exit to get home to see some of the game. We listened to the patrons shouts of anxiety come from the pubs as we walked past each one, so we knew it was a close game. I think, if memory serves, I got to see the goal in extra time.
As it is tradition, I got my two boys their very first sticker album for Russia 2018. Jonas especially has been hooked on football since and I sometimes still see him looking through the pages of his unfinished collection (does anyone ever complete the whole book?!) but as a parent I now realise that these little packets of stickers are an expensive do when your child wants a pack every time they pass a shop.
And the quality isn’t what they used to be. The books aren’t as good somehow, the stickers aren’t as sticky and they don’t include the same facts as the ones I had. I don’t know why I needed to know the height of Toto Schillaci but the information was appreciated.
Jonas and Finlay still ask for Panini sticker albums for major events but they also want to collect Pokémon cards, Brawl Passes, Fortnite Skins and any other tat the shop sells by the tills. Where do we draw the line as parents?!
Anyway, the stickers for the Euro 2024 are also very popular in the Portuguese supermarkets. What information would Panini put on Trent Alexander Arnold’s sticker? Do they put him as a defender, a right back, a midfielder, a DM or an inverted full back? Nobody knows and, more worryingly, neither does Gareth Southgate.
Southgate seems like a great guy. I met him once. Well, I say I met him, but I actually drove past him on the motorway to Middlesbrough. And it might not surprise you that, despite his expensive range rover and my 1.2 Swift, I still managed to overtake him as he hogged the middle lane at 50 mph. True story.
And so then, his conservative approach to his coaching tactics doesn’t surprise me. He is very safe. But to continue the similarities between his motorway driving and his coaching, he might play it a little too safe but he has a knack of getting to his destination. Three years ago he led England to their first major final since 1966. And this year he is trundling along the middle lane in a souped up muscle machine as he gets to his destination. He might be grinding the Bellingham brakes and grinding the Gallagher gears but, I can’t deny, he’s still en route.
Apart from Italia 90, I don’t ever remember really ‘supporting’ an international team in a tournament. Of course I’d like to see England win, but I just don’t get as excited as watching Liverpool in club football. But now I’m living in Portugal, I can just imagine the festas if they were to win it! So England or Portugal for me.
Watching the games with Portuguese commentary has really helped me in learning the language. I’m not sure where phrases like ‘goal kick’, ‘two minutes to go’ or ‘they’ll have to check if that was ball to hand or hand to ball’ will get me in life, but it’s a start.
It’s the quarter finals next. The event has been a nice distraction from the work we have to do here so I’m really enjoying it. But I hope to see two things happen…for Ronaldo to start scoring and for Southgate to risk leaving the middle lane. It’s the only way either of them will see the final.
The filming for A New Life In The Sun has ended for this week. It’s a relief. The intensity of managing the final stages of phase one of the project (the AL house) and the forest cleaning in 35° heat while being filmed becomes a little too much.
And there’s only so many ways I can say ‘Wow! This looks great!’ when the camera person asks me what I think of the taps as I turn them on and off or what I think of the lid for the septic tank.
Sometimes, I go for the ‘just walked into the room to see the work of the DIY SOS team’ look. This means waving at my eyes to dry the tears as I tell the camera how thrilled I am with the splashback tiles.
The occasional Nicolas Cage from Face/Off look comes out when I have to describe how pleased I am with the skylight while paying the 500euros to the man who delivered it.
And then there are days where I forget to ‘be myself’ in front of the camera as I go around the property like Del Boy, trying to raise a laugh or be the clown. “What do you think of the grouting, Shay?” The camera person asks. “Luvvly Jubbly!” I reply. “Mange Tout, mange tout!”
As I reflect on my day, sometimes I just think to myself ”What a bleedin’ plonker I am”.
The bread in Portugal is unbelievably good. Since arriving it has been something that, despite trying to stick within calorie goals, I have eaten almost every day.
Chorizo bread, salted bread, sweet bread, cheesy bread, crusty bread, soft bread, it is all delicious.
And I thought that I had mastered how to order it in cafés too! Pão com queijo (cheesy bread) is a particular favourite of mine. But here’s the problem.
The other day as I was in conversation with our Brazilian builders I happened to mention ‘pão’. The builders looked at each other and laughed. Puzzled, I asked them what they were all laughing at. Their answer made me consider all of those times I’d ordered ‘pão’ in the cafes, many of which have Brazilian servers, and made me blush.
Pão, when said without the squiggly accent which makes it a nasal sound, becomes pau (like pow). Pau is Brazilian slang for a penis, or more accurately, a c*ck.
This, I thought, made my orders of cheesy, long and crusty, sweet or spicy much more amusing to the staff serving me!
The last couple of days has meant that Lou is constantly hearing me working on my nasally Portuguese sounds so that I can safely order my bread in the cafés.
But at the moment my confidence in the language has been lost, so today I ordered ice cream instead. There are no squiggly lines to pronounce with gelado.
Seeing as I am writing a post all about a lemon, you could be forgiven for thinking that I would take this opportunity to bring up the ‘when life gives you lemons, make lemonade’ quote.
But you would be wrong.
You might think, seeing as I entitled this blog Lemon, that I will draw similarities with how squeezing a lemon is like squeezing the most out of each day, giving you that zest for life.
And again you would be wrong.
You could, however, be entitled to believe that I am going to give you a string of health benefits from eating this versatile fruit such as helping your body absorb more iron, it is rich in vitamin C and the citric acid can help to prevent the formation of kidney stones.
But, no, your incline would be wrong.
So it is totally feasible for you to think, then, that this article must be about how lemons are also very useful as a natural cleaner, as the citric acid can kill bacteria.
But, guess what? You’d be wrong again.
No. This post is simply dedicated to the biggest, kick ass beast of a lemon that I have ever seen! Thanks to the lemon tree in our garden, we are growing some mahoosive lemons to try to cram into our gin and tonic glasses.
Everyone gets a different feeling when they see and hear thunder and lightning. Some people, like my wife, have a warm fuzzy feeling that reminds her of childhood looking out of her bedroom window on a stormy night.
Some people are scared of the noise and the flashes of light like my eldest son.
Thunder and lightning can bring out all sorts of different kinds of emotions. The practical side of me gets disappointed that I can’t get the stuff done outdoors that I need to get done. The relaxed side of me just wants to find a box set and chill out until the storm passes.
I’ve even heard of people stripping off naked and dancing in it. I’ll stick to Netflix.
Today is a thunderstorm, bringing with it sheet lightning and hail stones. The rumbles of thunder are almost constant. It is majestic. I feel a bit like my wife as I gaze out of the window watching its wonder. But I can’t deny that there’s a little bit of my brain that agrees with my son. What if our house falls down?! The thunderstorm is beautiful, but so is my 100 year old Portuguese house that might not appreciate being shaken.
That’s how it feels as the thunder rumbles on. I can feel the vibration below me. But although the house is old, it comforts me to know that it has survived a 100 years of thunderstorms. It’s a solid structure and will survive another 100 years I’m sure.
‘Yesterday we were in the pool trying to cool down!’ I told our builder. ‘Welcome to Portugal!’ he laughed.
There’s rain, thunderstorms and sunshine in the UK, but here in Portugal the weather is on steroids.
A quote from The Minds Journal says…
Why do you like thunderstorms? Because it shows that even nature needs to scream sometimes.
The science behind a thunderstorm is a little more complex, but I quite like to think that nature is just having a moment, like we all do sometimes.
I once wanted to go on Dragons Den with an invention that allowed busy people (I imagined the city centre of Leeds at the time) to enter a pod so that they could scream, shout and swear without being heard or causing a scene. They could then calmly walk out and continue with their day a bit less stressed. ‘The Screaming Pod’, I announced to Lou one day. ‘I would call it The Screaming Pod!’
I think somewhere in Japan beat me to that invention though. And anyway, Wetherspoons has had a similar concept for decades already.
As I look again out of the window my thoughts turn to the newly sowed grass seed. ‘They need a bit of rain’, I think to myself. And then I realise what just ran through my head and remember that I’m getting old. Between the lawn being a priority these days, groaning every time I stand up and Lou having to point out the food that’s missed my mouth and instead dribbles down my chin, I know that I am getting old.
I jest, of course. 45 isn’t old. But I do think that I have reached an age where I can ‘feel old’ once in a while. I’m entitled to dribble now and again, right?
Ah, there I go again, wittering on about my time in Wetherspoons.
Lou has just reminded me that we still don’t have any doors and windows to the AL rental house, so my next job is to find some plaster board to protect the flooring from the rain. So I’d best sign off for now and get piss wet through in the rain while nature has a scream.
A visit to a restaurant is an event for me. I save myself from over indulgence throughout the day in order to savour the dishes that I might order at the restaurant. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. From pub grub to michelen star, I want to eat my meal all to myself.
As I sit in the sunshine waiting for a menu at a modest pizza place with a couple of friends, the dreaded question was said by one of them…
“Shall we get a family size pizza to share?”
Dude. Do you even know me?! I thought. Are you my friend?
Those who know me would know that I can eat a family sized pizza to myself. And no fish toppings or pineapple, no half and half or thick crust. I want a sloppy Bolognese with lots of cheese and a side order of fries and I don’t want to share it. Do you want a straw my friend? You can slurp on my coke while you’re at it!
I might be in the minority here. It seems increasingly popular to share food at a restaurant. And if I were to try to add fairness to the debate, I could say that my friends were paying equally. It’s not like they were stealing what is mine. It’s just that I want my own and I will pay for my own. I’m happy for the waiter to be frustratingly hovering over our table at the end of a meal while we try to work out who ordered the extra dough balls.
But splitting the bill down the middle is never fair. I pay for my third but I’m still left hungry. Throughout the whole meal I am trying to nibble on my slice of pizza so that I don’t race off and eat what is meant for somebody else. The problem is they’re so bloody slow! I’m Hank Marvin guys! I’m not interested in your visit to Porto. Keep up and eat your fucking bit of the pizza!
But they don’t. By the end I look at the table and all that remains is one slice of pizza and a few fries. They’re not mine. It belongs to Porto guy but does he actually want it? He’s been talking about the architecture of some library for the past fifteen minutes and his slice remains untouched. Untouched by humans anyway, but the flies have had a good investigation of it and the ants crawling up the table leg seem interested.
When is it acceptable to ask if he wants it? Will I have to pay extra if I just slide in there and eat it? Would they even notice? Maybe they haven’t been counting their slices. I wouldn’t want to have to pay extra or be called out for eating more than anyone else. But there’s no way that slice of pizza is being taken away by the waiter. Even the five skinny fries have given up on being eaten by him. They look cold and hard. But if I could dip them into a bit of mayo I could spruce them up again. Fluff them up to their former, delicious glory. I’d save them.
You see, ordering my own food allows me to eat what I like. There are no social rules. I order it, it arrives, I eat it and I pay for it. No awkwardness. It makes me happier. My wife has figured out eventually that, on takeaway nights, I order three chapatis for my curry. Not three chapatis with a bite taken out, not two and a half. Three whole chapatis. This ensures that I can be generous with the chapati dipping of my curry. And any chapati that is left over can ‘mop’ the sides of the dish to avoid wastage. And if I run out of chapati then I can wipe my chips through the sauce to do the same job. Yes, chips. My chips. Not once have I asked my wife for a spoonful of her basmati rice and I never will.
However, some good news on the restaurant visit! The slice of pizza was eventually offered to me and our other friend. I held out my hand towards the slice to invite our friend to have it. He thought about it for a split second and then said no. Result! I’m not sure what reaction I would have given if the greedy bastard had reached over for it.
We all sat back in our chairs patting our full bellies. And then, as the waiter took our plates and asked if we wanted dessert, my friend stated, “I’m really full but I’d be happy to share one.”
Never Give Up PT 