Friday, April 8/2011

Another warm, sunny day, so we take the bus up north Finchley Road to where it becomes Regent's Park Road. This takes up through Golder's Green and up to Finchley Central tube station. It's a mixed area - Jewish, Iranian and Polish, amongst others. There's a Polish shop that J spotted in one of the Polish newspapers. It's not bad, but probably not as good as some of the more accessible ones.

Then back to Kilburn, rapidly becoming our favourite multi-ethnic corner of the city. It's hot in the sun so, vitamin D not withstanding, we take a break in the shade in a large park just behind the Black Lion Pub. There are young families and sunbathers and a few boys with a football. A couple of dogs getting in on the action and plenty of room for everyone. We're sitting near some friends who are sharing a chat and a drink. They're young Caribbeans and one of them, dressed in yellow team shorts and shirt, is putting on an impromptu performance, part rant and part song, the song bit fairly good and probably consisting of off the cuff variations on existing songs. He's a philosopher, an entertainer and a wit.

Back on the street and past pound shops and pubs. There's an Afghani restaurant (Ariana II) and Roses with the Polish food, not to be confused with the Najlepsy (Polish for best) Halal (Moslem equivalent of kosher) Food - that's the nearby butcher. Butchers have meat on tables outside the shop. Good prices on eggs. And there's a fishmonger's. Most shops have open doors so that the line between shop and street is blurred. Plenty of places to unlock phones and a few to place bets. Fruit and vegetable stalls on some of the corners with baskets of oranges, peppers, strawberries, tomatoes.

We wind up at the Old Bell pub. Menu full of specials. J goes for the steak and chips and veg with a pint of beer for £5.95 ($9.30 CAD, €6.70), but you can also eat two meals for £6 - beer not included - from a fairly wide range of dishes. And there`s an old couple there having pasta with wine - pay for two large glasses and they give you the rest of the bottle.

Back along the east side of the street - now no longer in the full sun. A large man walking ahead of us with a stick such as one might use for street cleaning scoops up an apple, tosses it about and then eats it. J, who has a better view than I of the performance, says that it was actually more core than apple. We see the man briefly a little later, sitting on a sofa ouside a furniture shop and drinking a bottle of water of unknown provenance.

Home in time for double Coronation Street.

Thursday, April 7/2011

The temperature yesterday must have been something like 23 - and sunny. Lots of vitamin D absorbed. Today is nearly as warm Nineteen or twenty but warmer in the sun. First down to Buckingham Palace in order to see the Canadian War Memorial in Green Park. It needs major repairs, which Canadian Veterans Affairs has agreed to as Conrad Black, who had been seeing to its upkeep, stopped paying as he hit other difficulties. However the workmen there now explain that the pumps for the water that runs over the surface are rusted out and need replacing - seems relatively poor engineering for something created in 1994. The replacement is on hold now, though, and it's being cleaned up so that it looks presentable during the Royal Wedding festivities.

Then we set out to sun ourselves walking along the south bank, perhaps as far as the Tate Modern or even the Globe. But we get just past the National Theatre and as far as a sign advertising south bank events where we see that the BFI Cinema is offering a showing of Anatomy of a Murder free to people over 60. So we go. Queue for returned tickets and are lucky. It's a large comfortable theatre and there's an intro by a Duke Ellington expert (re the soundtrack). Lovely afternoon. It`s really too nice to have been indoors, but tomorrow should be sunny as well.

On the way home J and I get separated - for the first time ever on the tube. Must have happened on the escalators at Waterloo - and we never do figure out how. The standard arrangement is that the one who gets on the train gets off at the next platform and waits - but this assumes that one person has got on a train and then the doors have closed before the second person boards. There was no clear plan for a situation in which both of us claim "but you were right behind me on the escalator and then you vanished!" Separately we check around the escalators, get on the train, alight at Westminster and check the platform, and then take the next train to Swiss Cottage - where J is waiting for me on the platform. Mystery unsolved but happy ending.

Wednesday, April 6/2011

This is our day for lectures. Over to the Wellcome on Euston Road in the morning. There's an exhibition here on dirt - everything from women sweeping in Dutch paintings to photographs of low caste people in India cleaning out human waste with their bare hands. The question of what dirt is receives the answer "matter out of place." We've picked today to visit because at lunchtime Dr. Adrian Martineau, a medical researcher is presenting information on his work on Vitamin D. Very interesting. Basically he describes the relationship between Vitamin D and higher immunity to quite a number of diseases, from TB to type 2 diabetes to some cancers, and suggests that current recommended daily requirements are quite a bit too low. There are other exhibits in the permanent collection here as well - some more interesting than the dirt one, including some stunning electron microscope photographs and displays of early medical instruments, including more bizarre items, such as an undoubtedly politically incorrect shrunken head.

In the evening we go to Westminster Cathedral Hall for a talk on faith and diplomacy by Francis Campbell, a young man just finishing five years as UK Ambassador to the Vatican and about to be reassigned to Pakistan. Very diplomaatic and discreet (for a former aide to Tony Blair) in his answers to questions, but a nice self-effacing style and view of the value of friendship and relationship in diplomacy in counteracting inevitable differences.

Tuesday, April 5/2011

Visit to the National Portrait Gallery. Spend time in the Tudor gallery and also looking at the portraits of 18th century arts figures. Now quite a few of the paintings have analyses posted next to them explaining how recent research and computerized studies have dated pigments or wood and shown earlier work that has been painted over. Quite interesting.

Then out to Asda in Greenwich. Top up card for the UK mobile as well as buying Chianti, yoghurt and sinful sticky toffee puddings.

Monday, April 4/2011

Exploration of Hammersmith, some deliberate and some accidental as we can't find the Polish Cultural Centre but find other things we didn't know existed, like the Spitfire Restaurant, serving Polish food and commemorating Spitfire fighter pilots. Eventually after some first class charity shops we do find the Polish Cultural Centre and stay for an enormous and very good cup of coffee. Go home with kapusta and grzyby (sauerkraut and mushroom) perogies from the little Polski sklep.

Sunday, April 3/2011

Mass at Westminster Cathedral. Lovely music though the boys' choir isn't singing this week. We've taken the tube, although that nearly didn't happen. When we got to Swiss Cottage the trains had stopped running - as a person had gone under the train at Finchley Road Station - the next one up the line. (London Underground gets about a hundred suicides a year). The trains start again but with delays. I love watching the variety of people on the tube. Would be best sketched. Opposite me on the way home are two men in football club shirts and trainers standing on the right, and a father in a football club shirt sitting with his son in a performance motor oil sweatshirt on the left. In the middle is a small man in black, wearing brown oxfords and reading Virginia Woolf's essays.

Then out to Jean's in the afternoon. Shanthi is delayed so we have time for quite a visit before she arrives. Jean has prepared a lovely meal - and has had us over the day after her choir has taken part in a performance of Handel's Messiah.

Saturday, April 2/2011

Kilburn High Road day. There are a couple of pubs we want to check out for future reference, as well as Tricycle Theatre and a collection of shops and market stalls. It's a rough and ready but vibrant place, reminding us a little of Queensway twenty years ago.

It's as multi-ethnic, certainly, with a minority of people speaking English on the street. There are quite a lot of cheerful young Islamic people handing out information, and hairdressers specialising in African styles. Many of the pubs are Irish and there are signs in the windows in Polish. My favourite is in a restaurant window and reads:

NAJLEPSZY KEBAB
[unknown word in Arabic writing] HALAL

Najlepszy is the Polish word for best. Wonderful!

There are charity shops, hardwares, supermarkets and pawn shops. European grocery stores and coffee shops. It's probably a mile from Kilburn tube station south to the railway tracks butit always feels like less because there's so much live street theatre as distraction.

Friday, April 1/2011

Set up day, with supermarket and street market stops. Lovely cherry tomatoes at Inverness Street Market. Jean calls while we're out and asks us to come to dinner on Sunday. The internet is handy for checking on what's going on around the city and we've noted a number of free lectures and looked up the theatre reviews.

Thursday, March 31/2011

Set the alarm on the mobile, though the transfer man is twenty minutes late. No great rush at the airport though and, fortunately, J's suitcase weighs in at 17 kilos something despite the weight of two bottles of wine - hard to estimate in advance. Plane lands at 2:15, on the train from Gatwick at 3:15, and on the tube at 4:15. This allows time at London Bridge tube station for buying seven day tube passes and putting them on the Oysters. There's only one wicket open and the people queuing are entirely those who can't, or don't want to, use the automated machines - those who don't know the city or don't speak English well or have questions - and the man behind the wicket is endlessly patient, helpful and good humoured.

At the Welby before 5. The good news is that we get the wifi for free instead of the standard £10 per week/£25 per month. The bad news that they've raised the weekly rates again - this time dramatically, so we may have to rethink future stays here. So meanwhile, we'll enjoy.

It's warm (although not as warm as Portugal) but mild breezes and flowers everywhere. The daffodils a little past their prime, but cherry blossoms and mimosa and magnolias are magnificent.

Wednesday, March 30/2011

Last day - and we're even more reluctant than usual, though cheered by the thought of the pleasures of London. Plenty of things we haven't done but it's pretty clear we'll be back.

Tuesday, March 29/2011

Our second bus tour. This time with Paradise Tours, which, it turns out, offers the same tours as Follow Me for about 60% of the price. Tickets from The Ticket Shop, so no commissions. This time our tour is of the Eastern Algarve. The first pleasure is the tour of Albufeira's hotel areas, as we and a Dutch couple are picked up first. This takes us through the full horror of endless hotels, bars, restaurants, etc., many of them scarcely hiking distance from the seal, and leaves us very happy with our quiet little old world corner - we see nothing we would have traded it for.

Our first real stop is in Old Faro, where half our number promptly disappears on a half day shopping tour. Mostly Faro isn't old word at all, but there is a cobbled area, a cathedral (didn't pay the three euros to look inside) and quite a few storks' nests. The nests are protected so some, like a large one on a very modern lamp standard, are probably inconvenient. We sit by the harbour eating pastries from a little patisserie until the bus is off again.

Olhao, farther along the coast, has storks too, one nesting on a chimney by a large salt pile. Salt isn't all they harvest. There are large covered markets with organic fruit and vegetables and fresh fish and seafood. The most striking fish are the espada - long, flat fish of an artificially bright silver colour. Turns out they're called scabbard fish.

Tavira, a little inland, is a beautifully picturesque vilage on a river, though the arched bridge touted as Roman isn't Roman and is quite a bit later than 4th century. J and I have a nice lunch in a little pizza restaurant. Then on to Réal St Antonio. Another little harbour and tiled main square. Meet a Canadian (she)/Scottish (he) couple who live in Sterling but own a place in Tavira for winter getaways and golf. They seem quite happy with the arrangement.

Our final stop is Ayamonte in Spain,largely to cross the newish international bridge and say we've beento Spain in case we hadn't previously. And, for the first time in the guide's experience, police do board the bus at the border and ask to see passports. When one passenger unwisely tries to take a photograph of a policeman he is told no photographs as "I'm risking my life." Are all policemen drama majors? The Spanish side is, at this point, pretty uninspiring. Huge housing developments. No one house ugly until mass multiplied with no room for landscaping. The hotels are bigger too. Portugal has very benign legislation. Individuals can't own seafront land without providing public access and seafront buildings can't be more than three storeys high. Very civilised.

Home by about 7:30. Nothing wildly exciting but storks and bridges and pretty harbours. A good day.

Monday, March 28/2011

Stroll again through the square and surrounds, and stop to buy tickets for tomorrow's tour of the eastern Algarve, now that rain looks unlikely. J asks the woman at the ticket office how business is. Much worse than last year - fewer people for shorter periods and spending less whilst here. Stop on the way back for coffee and almond tart at Sir Harry's (good Portuguese name?) in the square. Would have defined the sweet as cake rather than tart, but it's very good - not overly sweet and surprisingly large, with whipped cream. Coffee very good as well.

Down in the afternoon to Ali's supermarket for more oranges, following Rua Sir Cliff Richards (cantor). A lovely view of the sea and we follow the sea road back. The architecture is lovely - even more recent buildings have the same square white lines, blue trim and Mediterranean red tile roofs. J points out the fascinating little chimneys - small, pointed white ones with little domes or shaped like miniature Greek parthenons. Walk down cobbled paths edged with limestone rocks pitted like skulls and look out over the Atlantic and the resting gulls spacing themselves over the fine sand beach.

Sunday, March 27/2011

Time change to daylight savings across Europe, so back to 6 hours ahead of Central time. The sports bars aren't open at seven for the Australian Grand Prix, opening race of the season since Bahrain had to be cancelled. They are open for the afternoon replay though so one o'clock sees us at Eddie's Sports Bar, a five minute walk away, for a pint and the race, which is interesting despite knowing in advance who won. It's a fairly big bar by local standards, all dark brick and wood, with football jerseys decorating the ceiling. Only half a dozen of us there, but a nice atmosphere - and nice smells of the Sunday roast and Yorkshire pudding as well. Good thing we have spareribs to look forward to at home.

The dinner wine is, happily, the best of the buy-two-get-one free at the wine shop. Gran Toc Hill reserva 2000. It's a Tempranillo, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon blend. It's a Tempranillo, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon blend from Spain, and very nice.

Lilly emails to assure us that they are fine in Lattakia (Syria), and to say that the chaos is being created by outside, non-Syrian elements and that there is a great deal of support for Assad and hopes for reforms in the near future.

Saturday, March 26/2011

Stroll through the old town spotting the ticket office and the bus shop for future reference. We've been told that they're near the former site of the bus station = "anyone can tell you where the old bus station was." Sounds probable, but it's always a little unsettling to steer by a landmark that's no longer there. Just as Rachel used to complain that people in Sioux Lookout always gave directions using the former names of local establishments rather than the ones posted on the buildings. But we do find the offices. And we also pass a small stall with the heavy Portuguese cardigans that we admired on the day trip. Here we're in luck, as the charcoal coloured sweater that I favour is clearly not one of the more interesting ones to the woman who owns the stall and she's happy to make a deal. In fact we're both happy. Stop for coffee at O Alentejano on the way back.

Friday, March 25/2011

Early in the morning (sixish?) feel an earthquake. J still asleep.

Meet a couple from Thunder Bay, of all places, when we're up near Modelo. She's on antibiotics with some kind of respiratory infection, rather spoiling her holiday, but they've booked a two night trip to Gibraltar and Tangiers. Meet them a few minutes later in the pastry cum ice cream shop.

Out to dinner at O Alentejano on the little Rue de Liberdade. It's a tiny place but has excellent online reviews - and well deserved. J has sole meunière, beautifully succulent with garlic and lemon. I have Bacalhau a Bras, Portuguese cod, a lovely peasant dish of salt cod sautéed with onion, grated potatoes and egg. As usual we share so that we each experience both. The coffee is a pleasure in its own right. And such a pleasure after Cyprus where the normal alternative to Cypriot (Greek) coffee is Nescafé. And the price for a beautiful cup of Carmelo coffee is the same as that for instant in Cyprus! The owner asks if we felt the earthquake this morning.

Thursday, March 24/2011

The (Follow Me) bus picks us up at the green statue, the statue of the patron saint Vicente de Albufeira, along with a young couple from St Vicente Hotel. Surprised to find the bus, which probably seats 80, is almost full. The young couple are stuck in the back width-of-the-bus row. The tour is in English, French and German, with the guide switching fluently. So out past what I take for tall, sweeping mimosas but turn out to be luxuriantly golden acacias. Also olives, grape vines and orange groves. The oranges aren't native to Portugal, nor are the acacias or the ubiquitous eucalyptus (both from Australia) but the figs and almonds are.

Then up into the hills to Silves, the old Moorish capital. There's a cathedral and a castle (dark red like the iron rich local soil). Would have liked to go in the castle, but apart from the admittedly modest entry fee (€2.50, or €1.25 for the retired) there's a queue and we're not really here long enough to waste it all standing in line. The castle is at the top of a roughly cobbled road leading past buildings with nice 18th century iron work balconies. The settlement is much older than that. Both Romans and Phoenicians mined the iron and copper rich area, but very few buildings date from before 1755, the year of Portugal's massively destructive earthquake. There is a second century bridge though, a small Roman arch across the river still used by pedestrians. And halfway up the hill there are storks' nests, at least one clearly occupied by a nesting bird with young to feed. The nests are huge and look quite capable of holding human infants.

And further up into the mountains to Monchique. It's too cloudy, almost foggy, for good views here. There's an over-organised stop for wine tasting though - choice of port, a fairly uncomplex almond liqueur, wine or the local "fire water" (read schnapps?) all in glasses not much bigger than a toothpaste cap - moving right along, there are 80 people filing through in ten minutes. The shop is actually quite interesting, with heavy handmade cardigans and ponchos (€25 to €30 - can't be a great deal more than the price of the wool) as well as colourful tiles and various things like trivets made from the local cork. We've passed quite a few cork oak trees, many of them "naked" to the branching point as the outer bark, the cork, has already been harvested, hacked off in sheets an inch and a half thick or more. This is quite sustainable, and in fact the forests are ecologically valuable. The cork is harvested every nine years and the tree thrives, with the protection of its substantial second inner bark. In the air is the scent of smoke from the cork processing plant. Our lunch stop is in the mountains. J and I pass on the arranged meal and picnic near a stone wall, watching a man nearby working on his garden and listening to a rooster's call by the side of a quiet road.

After lunch is Lagos, with its protected harbour full of yachts. It's nice but somehow seems a little more cosmetised than "our" old town. Funny how any place we've stayed in and done our own cooking we feel like we've lived in - e.g. Rhodes, Krakow, Albufeira - whereas places we may have stayed in for as long or longer, such as Sousse or Bangkok, we feel we've only visited. Lagos has lots of little restaurants and shops, including more with the heavy Portuguese sweaters. This is an historic city - explorers sailed from here to the new world in Portugal's golden age. In the centre of the town there's a spot that once was a slave market. Indeed a dark skinned woman walks slowly past with a large basked balanced perfectly on her head. Not by chance, though, as she stops for coins from the first of our number to step forward with his camera.

We go past Sagres, now a surfing centre but historically home to a navigation school. At the photo op stop one man loses his camera, so the coach turns back - fortunately only a couple of minutes on. One of the other passengers finds the camera in the long grass, amid cheers by the rest of us. Last stop is Cape St Vincent, the southwest corner of Europe. On one side of the lighthouse - second strongest lighthouse light in the world - the Atlantic leads to Africa, on the other side to the Americas. The cliffs are formidable. A few men can be seen fishing from craggy ledges. Not a spot where one would wish to do battle with a fish with any fight to him, and apparently fishermen are occasionally lost here.

It would have been nice to have stopped at Portimao on the way back, but it's been a long day. Half past seven when we get home.

Wednesday, March 23/2011

The Accuweather site shows no rain for the region tomorrow (as previously predicted), so we book a tour for tomorrow with Follow Me Tours. Billed as the Historical Tour, it's a full day tour and covers most of the western Algarve.

Find Modelo, the supermarket up past the city hall. A good find as it has fair variety at much cheaper prices than the little shops. Knew the locals had to survive somehow, and things are tough here - in the evening the prime minister tenders his resignation when there is not enough support for his minority government's austerity budget.

Tuesday, March 22/2011

We take a look for a tiny restaurant that had excellent reviews - finding it in a little cobbled lane - for future reference. Sign on a nearby restaurant: Touts Wanted. It is, of course, what one calls them, but sounds a little insulting for a help wanted notice. Stop at the square for a beer - pints for €1.75 ($2.45 CAD, £1.55). Start by sitting in the sun, but it`s just too hot.

Email from Dino asking what country we`re in - the blog doesn`t say. Surely it must, I think - but no, he's right of course. There we are flying off from Gatwick and then landing with no country mentioned [since amended]. Probably foreshadowing the day when I'll have to search through the stamps in my passport to decide where I am - or look at the photograph to decide who I am.

Monday, March 21/2011

Now officially into spring, though it's mostly a state of mind and a question of location. We've really had nothing but spring since November. Read the restaurant reviews online and start on the first of the three bottles of wine from the shop on 25 April Street. Turns out April 25 (1974) was the beginning of the Carnation Revolution, leftish military coup leading to democracy. But 1974 isn't really all that long ago. People like Emilia must remember it well.

Sunday, March 20/2011

People on the sun loungers outside our patio, but never more than half a dozen. It is, as Emilia at reception says, very calm. Morning stroll and we take the escalator up from the heart of the old town to the cliff top overlooking the Fisherman's Beach. It's a very long escalator, actually two stage - maybe ten storeys? Saves a really intimidating climb.

Pass all sorts of coffee and dinner spots, mentally marking them as well as we can for future reference in the maze. Meanwhile J makes amazingly good spareribs for a man with two burners and no oven. Quite as good as barbecued. We're reading at night - alternating an Ian Rankin novel (detective fiction set in Edinburgh) and The Bookseller of Kabul.