Chicken Run

19th Dec

Today we woke up to glorious sunshine, although the temperature dropped last night, I left the Truma heater on low, as we are on EHU so the van was quite snug in the morning. We met a few other British people on the site, and it was nice chatting in my native tongue for a change.  After a cooked breakfast "it's been two weeks" a welcome change from Cereal and Yoghurt, or Ham and Cheese baguette, we wandered into the town. It's a small village, a few bars and restaurants a couple of small supermarkets, a bank with a hole in the wall, so pretty much all we need. The walk took about 15mins, uphill for most part, so easier on the way back. We stopped at one small bar and had a quick bottle of beer.

 Parked up at the Chicken Run

 

Mexilhoeira Grande this way

 

Today I found out I am a Belarus drinker? I took this test on BBC News Health?  It appears the amount of wine we have consumed lately has pushed me over the national average? It said, after inputting my data.
"Your drinking habits are unlike the average from any country. But your closest match on overall consumption alone is Belarus, the heaviest-drinking country in the world"
Typical BBC scaremongering. I'm not buying into it!!

                             Max has his eyes on the chickens, he'll make em run

So it back to the van and chill. The sky is clear and the stars are resplendent, there is hardly any light pollution, but it's damn cold? Chicken Madras tonight, and a few games of cards! The grape diet is back on by the way..


20th Dec

I got up during the night "call of nature" and checked the thermometer while I was at it! minus 2 it read? Maybe it's because we are in the mountains?
Today when the sun rose it was another glorious sunny day. A stroll into the village to the butchers, our meals over the weekend, and to the small supermarket. We stopped at the bar we frequented yesterday and had a coffee and a brandy each, I was given a two large 6cl brandies with the two coffee's €3.40? = £2.79 so we had another. (Be rude not to)
We plan to stay here till the 27th then move on towards Spain, we will be going to Cabo de Sao Vincente, and up along the coast to Bordeira for a day whilst we are here to break things up, probably on Tues.
A gritty performance against a poor team IMO in Hull, and yet we played better last week and got jack, so 3pts in the bag onwards and upwards, the Xmas period is coming.
Tonight we got chatting to my sister on Skype "my brother set it up for her" I have not seen her since Dale & Helen's wedding in 2013, so it was great to chat and catch up, like my brother she can also chat for Wales! " Maybe it's a Chaves trait" Thankfully we have great wifi on site, and we are not using the data card.
I just finished Neil Young's biography (Waging Heavy Peace) "I started reading it in France" we have had the book for sometime and ended up replacing the original lent to us by Neil "Sam's Dad", due to Max chewing the back cover! It was an enjoyable book albeit quite strange, "he talked his way through it, a kind of monologue, and flitted back 'n' forth in time", even so I was captivated and read it with ease, knowing many of the characters! A legend. Long may you run.  

21st Dec

We took Max up to the next village Figueira for a walk and stopped for a coffee n brandy, "the sun was blazing down" then we followed the road up towards the motorway adjacent to the road we came from. But we got a few miles up and realised the road did not join with ours, so we cut across an old discarded vineyard, then came across the river, fortunately it was shallow and we were able to cross balancing on the outermost stones, and so a few hours later we were back to the van.
Andrew had picked me up a case of beer and also a sheet of clear Perspex which I plan to install at the bottom fly screen door (Max pawed the fly screen netting out of the original)

24 x 33cl bottles €7.44 = 24p a bottle or 44p a pint

 Enjoying a frosty before the sun drops behind the mountain

We are enjoying our time here at the Chicken Run. Andrew and Leslie are great hosts

"a smashing couple" they have a nice place, living the dream so to say,   and it's so relaxing for us, You make your own way in life, and we are envious.. 

Pork Bifano's for tea tonight

 

22nd Dec

 

This morning we took a stroll down to the coast, it was a fine day and on the outskirts of town is the main train station, not busy "it looked abandoned" and no commuters. 

Billy Bridgend was here!

We seemed to walk for miles along the road, there were two trails down to the estuary, the first one took us 45mins and the second, 35mins to walk back.

There was a guy spear fishing out in the bay. Max had a run around for awhile and I took some vid clips, so it was worth the long hot walk, an hour and fifteen minutes in total, from the van to get there !!

 Portimao to the right, in the background

 

 

Stopping for a snout.

 

I hadn't noticed previously on a pic I had taken a few days ago, that the Xmas tree was made from empty sprite bottles..

 

Looks effective from the distance

 

We stopped at our usual bar and had a coffee n brandy on our way back to base, Then back home for supper and plan our excursion for tomorrow. 

 

23rd Dec

 

We set off quite early today, as we wanted to check out some places we may like to stay at on another visit to Portugal. The drive was easy, no satnav required straight down the N125 through Lagos and onto Sagres. Our first stop was Ponta de Sagres it has a huge level car park and overnighting is permitted N37° 0′ 18′′ W8° 56′ 42′′ there are quite a lot of Motorhomes parked up and we will return here.

 

There is a fort at the tip of the peninsula and it has beaches and coves all around. The views from the cliff top are stunning, and I take some vids and pics standing on the edge of the cliffs a short while later I come across this sign "bit late for me"

  

We then went around the corner to Cabo de Sao Vincente, you can see it from Ponta de Sagres. There is parking there and a lighthouse with a museum inside, it is possible to overnight there, but Sagres would be our preference.

I took this vid while I was there. Portugal is truly a fantastic country.

We then took the coast road up to another beautiful place called Praia do Amado

37°10'32.6"N 8°54'33.5"W the road took us back into the National Park we had travelled through last week (Parque Natural do Sudoeste Alenteyo) it goes from Porto Covo to Cabo do Sao Vincente and covers over 100km, it is the only place in the world where White Storks nest, and the only place in Portugal, and one of the few places in Europe where Otters live in a marine environment.

 Quite a few campervans were parked up

There are so many fantastic beaches here, I took this vid! There was a guy spear fishing in the bay and when he was done, I asked him could I take a photo of him with his catch. He had caught a few small fish a large ling cod an octopus and he had a bag of abalone and various other shell fish "nothing like catching your own supper"

It was getting on by now so we headed up to Alfambrus, and picked up the N120 back to the Chicken Run, we stopped in Portimao at the Continente super market for some food and bits for Xmas dinner, now for the size of the place it hasn't sufficient parking, and it has no large bays for bigger vehicles! so the tail end of the van was protruding when I managed to find a spot. Whilst I was inside shopping and Sam was walking Max some wally managed to clip the rear end of Dylan and crack the moulding leaving a red paint mark, "not  massive damage"  but how the hell can you not see a 21' motorhome? The shop was rammed, everyone was doing their last minute Xmas shopping, people had trollies laden with stuff and I was behind two of them. I came out stressed and was bouncing when I saw the damage to the van, and to top it off I was blocked in!! I had found a place in front of the exit that had no parking permitted and was marked by lines so I thought I could reverse out with no problem, but two cars were now parked on the lines and I was stuck.. Eventually the person next to me came out and I was able to swing it out and leave.

We had done 92 miles today it was a nice change, an enjoyable drive, and we had two more stops for future in the bag.

 

24th Dec

 

Xmas eve and you would not know it, It seems strange? We have not missed the commercials on TV or the build up to it. I walk into a bar today and I see Nemo showing on TV "he is speaking Portuguese" they re run the same old films here too, The weather is sunny and we sit outside the bar enjoying a coffee, it is forecast the same for tomorrow

Coffee and a Brandy

25th Dec

Well it's Xmas day and we wake to bright sunshine. Sam is busy preparing the dinner and we sit outside and enjoy the sunshine.

 

I put some drinks out in case we get visitors

 

I get a couple of Skype calls from my brother and sister and their families and Sam's brother and family, it's so nice to see our families everyone looks well.
Finally we sit down to have our Xmas dinner, Sam is the master of the roast dinner, and this one is no exception

We enjoyed our Xmas dinner, the first of many we hope to have away. We have had a great day. more so for chatting with our families. We hope everyone has had a good day. Merry Xmas