As my wife just said to me as she frantically mopped up a potential stain after spilling a drink on the couch,

“I’m pleased that I did it and not you.”

Me too! 😉

🚿 Well I didn’t ask for that, but I got a proper drenching getting out of the car. It was like being in a car wash. Water from all sides and a river rushing down the road to clean my shoes!

🌧️ There has been a Severe Weather Warning hovering over us since this morning, and now it appears to have arrived. With that said, the severity of that warning is changing rapidly. The forecast thunderstorms have currently disappeared and it now looks as though we’ll have moderate rainfall into the night. Though even there it is now no longer lasting until the early hours.

I’ll take my weather app as a guide, and my gazing to the skies as the more accurate assessment of current conditions, and what might be coming.

Caught in conversation.

Two women, one middle aged, one older, facing each other and talking. They are in a big covered market.

Peppers for sale in Mercardo do Livramento, Setúbal.

Assorted peppers in a market, including green, orange, yellow, and red varieties.

Always worth a visit, though warmer days than today are better recommended. This was taken over the weekend.

Neon sign on a wall with the text “GULATO” and two cloud-shaped designs, one pink and one blue. There are small plants at the bottom.

👋 Olá Lisboa. Olá Príncipe Real.

In Lisbon for the day with Maui friends. Saying goodbye to them tonight as they head home.

View over the River Sado, Alcácer do Sal on a windy evening.

View from a bridge of a river with a boat moored to one side. A town of white houses rises up from the river. Above is a blue sky with scattered cloud. A reflection of the bridge with two people standing on it appears in the river.

Well we arrived in Alcácer do Sal late at night yesterday, and it turned out to be the last day of a weekend festival. Alcácer does festivals well.

Festive and Decorative street lighting above a statute of men digging for salt by the town name Alcácer do Sal.

Cars crawled to the venue, also on the route to our house.

Cars sit in a traffic jam underneath decorative festival lights.

The festival is the Feira Nova De Outubro 2024. I am not clear what it was celebrating, but there were markets, food stalls a plenty and music. Even well into the third and final night of the festival, it was busy.

People walking in front of a lighted sign saying Feira Nova De Outubro 2024.

Olá Portugal 🇵🇹

Watching a fly climbing up the inside of a window of the airplane that I am on, oblivious of the fact (I assume!), that it is about to depart England.

A quiet Sunday morning in an overcast Britain. I’m moving on today and I’m sad about that.

I look at countries vying for power in the world, vying to be the most powerful…and ask myself, “Why?”

I am from a country that use to have the largest empire the world has ever known, England, and where is that now? I am about to visit a country that had its own small empire, Portugal, and where is that? Portugal is next to a country that had its own small empire, Spain, and where is that? Europe is littered with the remains of another large empire, the Roman Empire. Look at that now.

They all go the same way. Why waste the energy and upset in trying to create them, to be, supposedly, number one? They all crumble to dust in the end.

Let’s do a much harder thing…get on with and support each other.

What a difference a few thousand feet make. These photos were taken six days ago as we approached London Heathrow. The first was taken up above the clouds as the first light of dawn made an appearance.

A view of an airplane wing from an airplane window, flying over a cloud cover sky below with the first light of dawn on the horizon.

As the plane descended into Heathrow we dropped into the cloud beneath us, and we stayed in it. The land did not come into view until a few hundred feet from touch down. It was pea soup fog until landing, and we arrived to a murky rainy day.

A view of an airplane wing from the window of the plane. The wing is surrounded by thick cloud less than a thousand feet over east London as an airplane comes into land.

Thankfully the weather had brightened up since….though next week does not look so hopeful.

Sunrise over Bristol a couple of days ago.

Red, orange and golden light on the horizon of a dark city (of Bristol) at dawn. Above the sky is blue with the trail of passing aircraft.

I spotted this character just down the road from my mother’s apartment.

A stuffed cuddly toy monkey, coloured shades of tan and brown, sitting on top of trash cans.

🐦 There’s barely any light in the sky, but I can hear the first birds of the morning singing the early notes of the dawn chorus.

😵‍💫 Well jet lag did its bit last night. I’m up before six having a cup oof coffee having managed probably less than two hours sleep.

At least I can enjoy the quiet early hours…it’s beautifully quiet.

🧟 Jet lag sucks. Last night, pill aided, I slept for 12 hours, after a day of feeling delirious as I tried to stay awake following my early morning arrival.

Today (or yesterday, Tuesday, as I write this) fresh air, a massage and a good meal helped me relax and feel more back in my body. I went to bed feeling tired, but a little fearful that I was not tired enough…

Sure enough tonight, although pill aided again, I am typing this wide awake after maybe one hour’s sleep. I slept better on the airplane. I can feel the call to sleep knocking on my eyes. I feel a little lightheaded. However, so far no luck. I fear morning will bring a discombobulated day.

I’ve managed to stick with learning Portuguese for 30 days. I’m surprised with myself and happy. I’m unclear as yet what that means for making myself understood or what I understand? Of course 30 days is little time on which to build such expectations, but I do congratulate myself on getting this far.

A drawing in gold and yellow depicting a thirty day learning streak on Duolingo.