It was a relatively leisurely day today and our first full day in Vilamoura. Helen woke up first and decided a run down to the beach and back was in order. What she seemed to forget was that even at 7:30am it was already 26-27 degrees and that it is about 9.5kms there and back. She did make it back though before anyone else (except me) had woken up. It was cooler today – only getting to about 32 degrees. Breakfast was a staggered affair because everyone woke up at different times.
After breakfast we headed out to the Algarve Shopping Mall. Fortunately the Portuguese are not like most of Europe in that their shops are open on a Sunday. We needed to do a serious food shop at the Hypermarket which is about 20 minutes away toward the west. It is situated in the mall (the only mall in the area for probably 100kms in either direction). With 7 people even shopping at a supermarket takes a little co-ordination and at times I found myself wondering if the other 6 had deserted me. After getting enough food probably for the next 2 days we headed back to the house for lunch and leisurely afternoon of reading, sleeping (it was Sunday afternoon after all), sun tanning and swimming in the pool. Only Michael and Oli ventured out for a walk around the area. Stephen spent most of the afternoon (and in fact day) behind the television fiddling with cables and trying to get Netflix working (it looks like we had banished him to the corner).
The girlfriends had offered to cook so we left the kitchen up to them this evening. Fortunately they have been well brought up and well-trained in the art of cooking. They did a great job and all the better for the fact that the rest of us could laze around some more after the extremely busy day we had.
After dinner we drove down to the Marina for a walk and ice creams. The Marina is impressive for a number of things. Firstly there are the yachts. These are not your average small sailing yacht. These are the type which led Helen to say ‘more like a mini-ship’. There are some seriously wealthy people living down here because to own one of those yachts you have to be a multimillionaire (and not in Zimbabwe dollars). The second that makes the Marina impressive are the tomato skinned English people. I suspect that the English have not heard of sunscreen. I suspect there are many sore people out there tonight. The other amusing things is how posh they are dressed. The women are all in short skirts/dresses with very high heels and the men in shorts/T-shirt with flip-flops. Big mismatch.
It has cooled down tremendously to 27 degrees now at 10:15pm.
Until tomorrow
P, H, M, O, C, L, S (he knows why)
