We woke this morning to a totally overcast Vilamoura. First time we have woken up to any clouds in the sky for a number of days. It was also appreciably cooler. Last night we also didn’t spend the night been attacked by the squadron of mosquitoes as we closed the door and ran the aircon the whole night. Resulted in a much better sleep.
Michael and I had our final scheduled round of golf today. We wanted a repeat round at the Millennium course which we had played before with such success. We could only get an early afternoon tee time which actually worked out quite well as it was fairly cool in the morning and by early afternoon the temperature was just above 20C. It was relatively windy and it picked up during the course of the round. That didn’t stop our deft skill around the course and we both improved our previous round there by 1 shot which made it Michael’s best round ever (again) and one of the best rounds I have had in about 2 years. It has become our favourite course here no without a doubt. Helen went cycling again and she cycled past the course and apparently saw us and screamed at us. We were so “in the zone” we never heard anything but the crisp sound of our club hitting the ball.
Our sport TV watching continued – this time we watched the Wimbledon tennis final. What a great match – such a pity that Federer didn’t win it though. We were (like everyone else it seems) wanting him to win but unfortunately not to be.
Tonight is our last night in Portugal and we decided to have dinner again at the Marina. Helen decided to have Sangria but you can only buy it in 1 liter jugs. That didn’t hold her back though and besides 1 glass that Stephen had, Helen and Michael finished off the jug between them. Apparently it is 1 liter because they use a bottle of wine (750ml) and then the rest is what they add to make the 1 liter. We were hoping that the one they drank contained less than 1 bottle of wine though. At the end of the meal Helen asked “Why did it take me the whole trip to order Sangria, I have missed out the other 10 days”. We were concerned about how much assistance they might need to get back to the car!
Now I know the family are reading this blog and most especially Helen’s parents so I better be fair and put Brian’s (Helen’s father) mind at rest. Helen definitely has Brian’s genes when it comes to drinking alcohol. Seriously though, it was a good relaxed evening sitting looking over the Marina and just enjoying the sunset and environment. Helen even went for the local dish of Piri Piri Chicken. The Portuguese know how to do chicken – Nando’s is testament to that. While the food was good the service was pretty poor but then again we weren’t in a hurry to go anyway and so we didn’t really care. Some of you are reading this and wondering whether it really is me typing the blog given how poor service usually drives me crazy. But that just gives you an idea of how relaxing this holiday has been.
We did try and find the Old Town again on our way back to the house but sorry Dad, still no success on that. We will have to find it the next time we are here. But the good news is that we did find the Spar. We have been looking for it for 2 weeks. We see people walking with Spar shopping bags but could never find the Spar. The Marooners who were with us earlier gave us some vague idea of where it was but we didn’t find it from their description. But we found it tonight so at least we know where it is when we come back again.
Until tomorrow and our last day in Portgual …. P, H, M (for his best round of golf ever), S (because he takes the rubbish to the bins without being asked) & C
