Well ... where shall I begin ... it was my birthday weekend ... 49 all up ... And it became an entirely different weekend from what I had imagined it to be, but wonderful it was.Initially, my birthday being Sunday, all I knew was that Niki and I would go to Sintra, a town I like very much, where we have taken Tess, Yarrow and Anjes as well, and see a few things which we hadn´t yet seen there. On Saturday (which was, of course, not my birthday yet) we had nothing planned apart from a visit Niki had convinced me to accompany her to, to a huge mega shopping centre just outside Lisbon ´because the sales are on´. Hmm. Those who know me, also know that buying clothes is, I should say, my least favourite activity of the, erm, century, so ... ´Yes, but there is internet, so you can sit in a cafe and do some work, while I go and buy clothes.´ So I grudgingly acquiesced, thinking not much more of it. ´But we do have to go early, because they are sales and otherwise all the good stuff will have gone.´ No problema.
Imagine my surprise, on Saturday morning when, trundling down the highway, ostensibly towards the Mega shopping mall, at some stage I get the distinct impression we were no longer in Lisbon, and that Lisbon was in fact long behind us ... OK, in my defence, I was really tired ... Anyway, upon which Niki beams a big smile and entrusts me with The Secret She Has With Great Difficulty Been Keeping.... We were on our way to a little town called Melides, to a little guest house called Moinho Velho (The Old Mill) to spend two leisurely days Away From It All ... away from the busy and depressing city, away from noise and lack of space, away from computers and emails ... away.
The area that we went to, in the Alentejo, is beautiful. Wide open spaces, green, rice paddies (yes, rice paddies, in Portugal, I couldn´t believe my eyes either!) and the Old Mill was a wonderfully quiet and peaceful place, with lots of space around it, down a dirt road which reminded me so of Australian dirt roads, with horses, swallows (oh so many swallows), colourful flowers, and especially ... silence, Absence Of Noise ...
Again, for those who know me well, I immediately went into holiday mode and felt pressures and stress run off me like water. Lovely. What a Great Plan! We spent a large part of the Saturday in the area, on Melides beach, had lunch in Melides and ended up in a lagoon, the Lagoa de St Andre, not so much the rural part of it as the beachy part -just wait till the slide show under the link to the Lagoa gets there.... Back for a little rest to the Moinho, to later have a lovely dinner in Melides, followed by one of the most peaceful nights in a long time, as we were both exhausted - I believe it was nine the next morning before we sat down for a scrumptious breakfast of home made bread, fruit and tea to the incessant activity of the nesting swallows.
Niki had ensured me that There Was Internet (remember I had been abducted on the pretext of being able to do Some Work, so had my netbook with me, albeit without charger as we were going to be back in a few hours) - but, lo and behold, around 9.30 or so, we were able to have a Birthday Chat and speak with Tess, Yarrow and Mieke in Down Under, sitting on the grass under blue skies, which was absolutely lovely. Birthday messages had also come in from Ton and Ellen and Anjes.
Once we got going, we veered towards a beach near Gale (that last letter needs a thingy on top but don´t know how to get that in Blogger). The skies, by this time, had become somewhat overcast, but it was nevertheless very pleasant to lounge on the beach and read our books. Both yesterday and today the seas (with the exception of the Lagoon) unfortunately were not really swimmable - big, dunking waves and nowhere to go once one had been dunked than very coarse beach sand.
This signified the end of the weekend, unfortunately, and we made our way home to Lisboa. Thank you, my love, for this wonderful birthday weekend!
Again, for those who know me well, I immediately went into holiday mode and felt pressures and stress run off me like water. Lovely. What a Great Plan! We spent a large part of the Saturday in the area, on Melides beach, had lunch in Melides and ended up in a lagoon, the Lagoa de St Andre, not so much the rural part of it as the beachy part -just wait till the slide show under the link to the Lagoa gets there.... Back for a little rest to the Moinho, to later have a lovely dinner in Melides, followed by one of the most peaceful nights in a long time, as we were both exhausted - I believe it was nine the next morning before we sat down for a scrumptious breakfast of home made bread, fruit and tea to the incessant activity of the nesting swallows.
Niki had ensured me that There Was Internet (remember I had been abducted on the pretext of being able to do Some Work, so had my netbook with me, albeit without charger as we were going to be back in a few hours) - but, lo and behold, around 9.30 or so, we were able to have a Birthday Chat and speak with Tess, Yarrow and Mieke in Down Under, sitting on the grass under blue skies, which was absolutely lovely. Birthday messages had also come in from Ton and Ellen and Anjes.
Once we got going, we veered towards a beach near Gale (that last letter needs a thingy on top but don´t know how to get that in Blogger). The skies, by this time, had become somewhat overcast, but it was nevertheless very pleasant to lounge on the beach and read our books. Both yesterday and today the seas (with the exception of the Lagoon) unfortunately were not really swimmable - big, dunking waves and nowhere to go once one had been dunked than very coarse beach sand.
Around midday we made out way to Comporta where, surrounded by dozens of nesting storks, we had lunch at the Museu de Arroz, which wasn´t actually a museum of Rice but was on the edge of rice paddies wedged between dunes and, erm, more rice paddies - a very strange experience if rice paddies were the last thing you expected to see in Portugal. We had a delectable lunch (as you will guess, based on ... rice) and afterwards had Jasmine tea sitting in loungy chairs where the undersigned, erm, dropped off for a moment ... lush ...
This signified the end of the weekend, unfortunately, and we made our way home to Lisboa. Thank you, my love, for this wonderful birthday weekend!
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