Oh What a Night!!!

Saturday evening, around 19h00, we noticed the sound of the wind, exaggerated by the rattling of our door and windows. We had not been aware that they had forecasted heavy winds for a two day period but boy, did we become aware of it overnight!! The winds of Africa had arrived and pounded us (actually it’s still pounding us) and very little sleep was had by these two boys.

On awaking this morning we discovered all the patio furniture piled on top of each other at the end of the property. A large plastic box, filled with pool toys etc. was in the pool, at the bottom, and all the contents floating in the pool. The patio furniture on the second level terrace was all upside down and a light fixture, on the floor of the terrace, broken!!! No wonder we didn’t get much sleep.

Before breakfast I had managed to get everything (except one item that is metal and sits at the bottoms still) out of the pool, without falling in myself!!! Marc moved the patio furniture around and things looked back to normal, although the box with all the pool toys is broken and is unrepairable. I never thought to take a photo of everything floating, it would have been interesting. The winds are supposed to settle down sometime this evening and we are grateful that they aren’t accompanied by the usual sands!

After breakfast we headed off for the Estoi market and were disappointed to find that less than half the normal number of vendors had set up, probably because of the winds. In any case, we enjoyed our wanderings as alwasy.

We always manage to bump into folks we know, which still brings both of us much joy. Today was no exception.

Cori, Ella, Debbie, and Fred……hearty fellow Canadians

Paolo, Ana, and Marc. Two hearty Portuguese and one Franco Ontarian!

Everyone was enjoying themselves and I do believe a few purchases were made. I bought two new baseball caps for my hikes and Marc splurged, he bought a head of garlic and later, lost it!!!! We have no idea what happened to it.

On the way back to our car we noticed a motely crew sitting and having a coffee together……..we stopped to say hello and determined they looked better, and more at home, behind bars!!!

As Marc and I are wont to do, we decided to turn off at a new roundabout near home and explore a section of the mountain that, up till this point, we’d never been. We can across a couple of amazing houses, huge and palatial, and a magnificant view down the opposite side of the mountain plus, I found a new hiking marker…..I see a new hike in my future.

We headed home, enjoyed lunch then off to Fuzeta for a relaxing sit on the terrace near the sea as we both felt the desire to be beside the water. The winds were quite wild but it made for a wonderful outing for the many wind surfers, playing in the sun and surf. We were both quite entertained and were struck with the different sorts of apparatus they were using, some strapped in, some holding on only, others literally flying, it really was fun to watch.

And now here we are, back at home, dinner marinating, lovely music to soothe the savage beasts, and still a lovely stretch of day in front of us to read and relax. We are heading into that home stretch, which we are playing like ostriches!! It will come when it does and that’s how we are playing it.