Quelfes, Portugal 14-03-2023 to 12-04-2023

Here’s the thing: it was the best of trips and it was the worst of trips.  Hence the delay in getting this postcard out.

The Good:

The weather was perfect by our standards.  22-25 every day.  Thermometer left in the sun would get to 35-40.  Almost always clear blue skies. No rain for the four weeks.  Wonderful, helpful hosts (e-mail for their contact info), roomie upper floor of a house in the middle of an orange orchard with lemons (and later in the year, pomegranates).  Wander out before breakfast and pick a few oranges to juice for breakfast, go our later for lemons for cocktails as the sun goes down over the swimming pool.

 Fast internet connection, pool, fish tank with the food needed to feed them supplied, friendly dog, short walk to where the village's monthly flea market  and soups and tapas festival take place.  Lots of balconies, roof terrace, two bathrooms...perfect for us at this point in our lives.  Not the near-random itinerant wandering-by-train trips we have done mostly in the past but perfect for now.

In 2018 (see the entry for that trip HERE) we had a few weeks in the same spot, really enjoyed ourselves. The only down side is that in October-November each day the weather gets a little cooler and a little cloudier.  Not that it was ever unpleasant but the trend was a bit...almost depressing.  Not really but kinda.  We thought, rightly as it turned out, that it would work a bit better for us if we went in the spring, when the weather gets better every day but before it gets really hot.

Add Geri's son David for a week and the usual attractions of Olhao, the very nearby fishing town, the beaches on the barrier islands, great little restaurants and bars in an only recently ‘discovered’ bit of the Algarve (so recent that many don’t consider it a part thereof), meetings with some local union folks, the planned overnight trips to Sevilla and elsewhere in western Spain, other bits of Portugal…shoulda been great, right?

Wrong.

The Bad:

Geri’s back is always a problem after a long (the definition of which has been shrinking over time) flight.  But until this trip it has bounced back after a day or two.  Especially when, as we did this trip, we book her a business class seat.

This time it didn’t bounce back.  I will spare you most of the details.  A very painful time for her.  We got to explore the Portuguese medical system a bit.  We bought a wheelchair (our one souvenir of the trip) and Geri, though she made an extraordinary effort while David was with us, spent virtually the whole time after his departure at the house, leaving only for medical appointments and one lunch at a place only a few minutes drive away on our last full day there, just on principle but also in pain.

The wheelchair was even needed for short distances in the house is how bad it was.  Host Martin built a quick and dirty wheelchair ramp so that Geri could more easily get onto her favourite of the five balconies, the one off the kitchen.

We regularly talked about coming home early but in the end Geri decided each time that being in a wheelchair and in pain in sunny, warm weather was better than doing the same at home in the cold.  So we stayed.  The back problem had an impact on some others of her medical conditions as well, just to add the misery.

Since we returned home Geri has been undergoing pretty intensive, almost daily, physiotherapy, been seeing her MD regularly and getting 2 massages a week so getting back to normal or close to it we hope.  Not in the wheelchair as much.  So bad days but the good days are more frequent and getting better.

On Balance:

I feel particularly bad for David, Stepson #1, as his week with us might have included more excitement than the day trip to Sevilla that we were able to fit in and much more of the local seafood.  He travelled all the way from Radium Hot Springs to Olhao just to sit, read, and drink beer, get a bit of sun.

We wanted to do this trip as we REALLY enjoyed it all in the fall of 2018, had cancelled it in March of 2020 for the obvious reason and had been waiting for things to open up enough that we could relive a previous visit to the same house of a few years ago…so hard to say that we shouldn’t have gone.

But for the first time ever I think we can say that we didn’t really enjoy one of our long trips.

But of course nothing can stop me from taking hundreds of photos in and around Quelfes, which you will find HERE and of Sevilla with David HERE.

London and Tolpuddle July 2022 - Scratch One Bucket List Item

This was a solo trip as, for some odd reason, the prospect of joining my in re-living my egghead (academic) time in London and then heading to the countryside for three days of a British union and labour history circus/festival didn’t appeal much to Geri.

 Pearson was a nightmare.  My travel date was right in the middle of the giant mess that the airlines created by trying to fly a normal schedule whilst leaving as many employees on layoff as possible, just cause the pandemic losses needed to made up somehow.  So flights were being continually delayed or cancelled.  On the up side, my Air Canada return fare with one piece of checked luggage (reading the news made me go carry-on only), was less than $700.

 There were lines to get into all restaurants and bars and people were sleeping on the carpeted floors in the duty-free shopping area in Terminal 1.  I eventually got a seat at a table of elderly folks on their way to Israel.  They had been at Pearson the whole day (my flight out was around 19:00) after their connecting flight arrived from Winnipeg.

 My flight was delayed repeatedly so when we were told to go to our gate and line up it seemed as though it might happen and so I popped a couple of cannabis gummies.  Inevitably there was a further delay and so the weed had well and truly kicked-in by the time I boarded.

 Which was a good thing as a couple that had somehow gotten past the Air Canada staff checking luggage for size with two large suitcases masquerading, successfully (!!!), as carry-on, managed to cram their luggage into an overhead bin.  Which promptly collapsed at one end under the weight.

 Thanks to the gummies I found that funny, unlike the fellow who had been sitting under it.

 That generated another flight delay of about a half hour while a tech came and fixed it.  All in all I think the flight was delayed about 5 hours.

 Heathrow was fine in comparison (something I never thought I would say) and I was on the tube and headed into central London right quick as I had only a carry-on.  Long lines at the luggage carousels as a result of staff shortages made me feel downright smart.

 I try and have almost always succeeded in staying at the St. Athan’s every time I am in London.  A comfortable but cheap hotel in Bloomsbury.  I first stayed there in 1984 I think and as I like (am obsessed with?) being a ‘regular’ and because the London portion of my trip was meant to be a nostalgia binge, I had one of the small singles I stayed in for a couple of months in 1989 as well as a couple of times whilst there for shorter periods.

 How small you ask?  Take a gander HERE.

 I wandered around (but not in, as security is now rather tighter than it was in 1989) SOAS and UCL.  I finally, on foot even, made it to the Cable Street Mural (photos HERE), visited the pedestrian underpass at Blackfriars where I was once mugged…all the big tourist spots.  😊

 I also got out to Clapham to see a young old friend now working for the ITF and for a few pints at The Bread and Roses, photos HERE, run by the Workers Beer Company, a worker-owned co-op, one of my fave pubs in London.

 Speaking of pubs, I was able to meet up with David (stepson #1) and his Kate at The Lamb.  Been a regular (as in I drop by for a pint once every 5 years like clockwork) there since 1989 I think.  One of the few pubs in which snob screens (see definition HERE) survive.  Which I love.

 Whilst David and Kate weren’t as enamoured of the snob screens as I am, we did have, I think and hope, a fine time.  I certainly did.  There’s something really lovely about meeting-up with people you know when all are far from home.  We parted, me to continue my goofy farewell tour and them to sleep before heading to Scotland, David having won a lottery that got them tickets to the British Open at St. Andrew’s.

 Photos of our visit at The Lamb HERE and of them in particular HERE.

 Another couple of days of that and I decamped for Muswell Hill in North London for time with Eric Lee and Cindy Berman.  But before zipping up north  I horned-in on Cindy’s birthday dinner for Eric at a very nice Argentinian restaurant not far from my hotel.  Some fine and unusual cocktails were consumed before dinner.  On an embarrassing note, I hadn’t realized that Cindy was picking up the tab for the whole shebang and so ordered us a very pricy bottle of wine.  Despite Cindy’s protests I tried to make up for it over the week that followed but suspect that I failed dismally.

 Eric gave me the tour of his neck of the London woods (literally: some very nice park walks in MH), which on one day included a giant full English of course.  And we spent a day down on the South Bank catching me up on the food carts and restaurants that have sprouted there since I last visited.  One of the restaurants we used for a lunch with another old union fart, Roger Darlington, someone I see regularly about once every 20 years.  Photo HERE.

 An artist of some renown who lives in Muswell Hill hates gum on the sidewalks there and so decorates them, turning them into tiny works of fine art.  Lovely things really.  See HERE.

 Cindy, Eric and I then packed-up and headed to the village of Tolpuddle for the Martyrs Festival.  Cindy drove (I was very glad of this), Eric navigated (we got there, despite Eric never having had a driver’s ticket), and I sights-saw.

 Cindy had booked a lovely Airbnb outside the village (pop. 400).  Photos HERE.

 I don’t know quite what top say about The Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival.  Even though it was the first since the 2020 lockdowns began there were still over 5,000 paid attendees (normally it is close to twice that) plus the folks who don’t pay but who can join in even so. 

 Going to the festival the same year that I attended the London (Ontario) ceremonies at the monument to the Martyrs was near the top of my Bucket List.  Deservedly so as it turned out.

 Labour history workshops, current struggle panels, surprisingly good food, union banner displays, and of course the LabourStart table and presentation.

 It was a union geek and nerd circus all lubricated by the tent set up by The Workers Beer Company (operators of The Bread and Rose – see above).

 Best of all, the LabourStart table in the gallery was right across from the table occupied by a bunch of comrades from TUFAC, the Trade Union Football and Alcohol Committee.  Lovely folks who work at weaning young workers away from yobbism and the far right types who recruit footie fans into racism etc.  This they do with high-quality football gear, a brewery and their own brand of gin and vodka.  They do their own organizing on the side of good but also give away all their profits to support others with more expertise in anti-fascist work.

 I had a really wonderful time and would happily go back, hopefully after the village pub and its rooms above re-opens.  Unless you camp (lots of spaces for it), booking a room there would be the only way to avoid having to drive back and forth each day.  And now that we know how things work LabourStart could have a much bigger presence there if we were to return.

 For more on the Martyrs see HERE.  For my many, many photos of the festival see HERE.

 The Great Heatwave was in the news when we headed back to London.  Put paid to my plans for more wandering.  Hung at Eric and Cindy’s.  The impact of over-40 temperatures (photo proof HERE) on a city where little is air conditioned was quite striking.  Trains cancelled or running slowly.  Most of the Tube trains sidelined.  Shops and other businesses closed. 

 Fab night at a play near their place that I REALLY enjoyed, a Turkish restaurant beforehand.  So, a fine time despite the heat on my last night before Tubing it to Heathrow for long lines on the way home.

 As Bucket List items go this was a great one, in large part because of the company (in order of appearance: David, Kate, Cindy, Eric and Roger)..  And the nostalgia bits fun as well.

 Next up at some point:  The Mother Jones Festival in Cork.