A Photo of Olhao Street Art - a cartoon version of Inspector Clouseau maybe?s

The first thing you miss

All this stuff I write tends to flow better when I’m having a beer. So now that I’m in Portugal, I do it from my office.

Well, I call it my office, but really it’s the local bar. I pass it whenever I wander down to the beach, and I love it.

I often nip down to the shack for a beer (I have no idea what it’s really called), buy myself a Sagres and wander across the road to my office – or rather the bench by the shack.

This is the view from my bench:

At least, at the moment it’s my bench.

When the girls are here, it’s Beth’s bench. If we take Beth into the shack, she’ll trash the place (that’s a story for another day…) but sitting by the water seems to calm her.

So this is where Sue and I will have a drink, whilst Lexi has a Sumol or a Gelado, and Beth has a packet of crisps. Don’t judge us! Beth demands crisps whenever we come here, and it means that we at least have a bit of downtime to enjoy a moment….

But when I’m here on my own, I see it as my office.

It makes me think of people I love, of things I want to do, of stuff that otherwise gets neglected amongst all the bollocks that we all deal with every day…

Here I can relax, sup my beer, consider my options, worry about what Sue is up to and having to deal with, and wish she were here….

I want it to be Beth’s bench again…

I miss the girls….

Facebook/Beth’s Ups and Downs

“Blinking Flamingos! The musings of a middle-aged bloke living in the Eastern Algarve: one who has no idea what he’s doing…”