He was a Very Big Saint - or is it the faulty perspective
First, I will get this Wednesday, 20th out of the way. We are in an enhanced State of Emergency, so no Sauntering Bubbles - just the two of us, and it makes decisions on cancellation easier. It was pouring with rain overnight on Tuesday/Wednesday and it lingered on well into the morning before fizzling out completely soon after lunch. I don`t think we even went for our daily Passeio Higienico on Wednesday, as by the afternoon, we had plenty to do with various administrative projects.
Besides 23 years in the Algarve induces a form of aquaphobia when it rains. I thought it would be more appropriate to find a word for `fear of getting feet wet`, but alas, was unable to do so. However this search led me off into a side alley, and I wasted rather a lot of time reading up on these words,, particularly pertaining to readers of this blog.
How about Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia?
The source swears it is a genuine word, applied, ironically, to fear of very long words,. It is clearly a manufactured word - hippopoto from hippopot(amus )- something very large, monstro from monstrous(ly) large and of course, sesquipedalia(n) from the word meaning polysyllabic. This led me to an investigation of the longest words in the English language." It turns out that even this monstrosity (36 letters) is not the official longest word in the English language, which seems to be Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis , which has 45 letters, and is a lung disease caused by inhaling fine silica dust. These must be relatively newly fabricated words, because I swear that when I was at school, the English teacher - the aptly named Mr Bright - had informed me that this honour went to `floccinaucinihilipilification`, which also has the advantage of being easy to pronounce and remember.
My research reveals that this word, (flocci etc) meaning the act of describing something as of little value or worthless, was only coined because it had one more letter than the schoolboy favourite, antidisestablishmentarianism, and coincidentally it applies to the last two paragraphs of this post. Of course since then, `supercalifragelisticexpialidocious` (34 letters) came to us via Mary Poppins in 1964, and survived a court suit alleging it was stolen from a 1940`s song , `supercalafajalistickespeealadocious`.
If chemical names are included, then the word for the human protein, titin (no titining please!) runs to 189,819 letters and takes well over 3 hours to pronounce!
And here concludes the lesson on Etymology - which brings me back to phobias - some of which are laughable and seem ridiculous unless you suffer from them, and some of them with which I have a lot of sympathy, eg gynophobia (fear of adult women`) Those still hanging in, will note that I didn`t say `old women`; currently most of us have `frigophobia` (fear of becoming too cold,); nosophobia, (fear of contracting a disease); and my obesophobia (guess) is becoming more pronounced during the restrictions and snacking opportunities of lockdown.
Myriam is fast developing pogonophobia, and while some of us may be susceptible to stasiphobia or basophobia: most of the WAGS and indeed some of the AWW suffer from ranidophobia - but not on the Rugby field!!
Well enough random musings, Rod very kindly reminded us that St Vincent of Saragossa, our adopted Patron Saint has his Saints Day, which we tend to celebrate, on 22nd January. This naturally leads to checking the archives to see what we did in previous years.
19.01.2011 St Vincent is honoured by AWW for the first time.
The walks was on a Saturday to coincide with 22nd January. John wrote the Blog of the walk, which had a very high turnout (lunch involved) which can be found HERE
The arrangements to view the chapel were made by Bob Bates and Rod and the walk itself was an uncomplicated but high speed walk along the tarmac mostly, from the Cape to the Forteleza. Five dogs accompanied us, but were not allowed in to the Forteleza, as they couldn`t convince the GateKeeper that they were Guide Dogs. Artur Jesus from the Cultural Section of Vila do Bispo Camara was a guest and proved to be very knowledgeable on the subject.
Oldest known Statue of S. Vicente
Artur Jesus briefing the troops
The Importance of being Artur!
January 25th 2012
S. Vincent`s Day was on a Sunday, so we walked on the following Wednesday. Yves wrote the Blog which can be found HERE
There was a lower turnout than the year before (no lunch), we took our own sandwiches though we had the usual (at that time) coffee before and beer after, at the only Snack Bar open, Cafe Vigia. You can tell it is January, by the Arctic Clothing most are wearing, though as usual blssed with weak winter sun.
History repeats itself as in this Blog was the first mention of `Bathmophobia`. Indeed by the time our section of the AWW broke away to form the WAGS, Bathmophobia becomes a principle guide for walk leaders. It means a fear of steep slopes and hills.
On this walk there seemed to be quite a few, and we covered just over 12 km and ascended 267 m.
22.01.2013
In 2013 we seem to have omitted to walk in Honour of our Saint. Antje led a walk on which it didn`t rain, from Carrapateira. Neither myself, nor Yves were there, Yves apparently being wounded in combat and I elsewhere, probably asking Sao Vicente for forgiveness! Remind me to ask Google where I was! John did a Blog but poor Vinnie was not mentioned. Notably, John attempted to propose a Rule for the Composition of Blogs.
Therefore, from now on, as a loose sort of editorial policy, photos in the blog of flowers and fruits will appear only once a month, on the second week and, similarly, pictures of walking gear, appendages and other accessories, fashionable or otherwise, will only appear on the fourth week. It is hoped that this measure will appease the perambulatory bedrock of our group, anti-pictorial although they may occasionally seem to some.
Sadly I heard nothing further about this.
22.01.2014
Also the 2013/14 season seems to be largely unblogged, at least by me. I have records of only 7 posts, between August 2013 and December 2014 . I can`t remember whether it was because of lack of enthusiasm or appreciation by the majority. John posted 3 and I posted 4 all well spaced. Were the walks blogged elsewhere?
22.01.2015 AWW
The mystery becomes a little clearer. In an opening to his 2015 Blog, John has provided a summary from his own files, of many of the missing walks. He writes:-
Even the occasional reader of these pages will have noticed that during the year gone by, although email reports of walks together with photographs have been regular enough, few have made it into blog format because the old blog hands ran out of energy and/or inspiration. Is it wishful thinking that, among the new blood in the group, there is an embryonic blogger ready to take things to a higher level?
Unfortunately no mention of St Vincent celebrations in either year in this Blog. The whole Shebang can be found HERE
2015 WAGS Rule
I guess that it was in 2015 that having found the new AWW too strenuous, I formed the WAGS with Chris. My Blog laid fallow for the whole of 2015 as I didn`t think it was necessary to post about the comfortably short meanderings that Chris and I accomplished, though Antje and Myriam often came along.
As an outlet for my creative juices I attempted an occasional Blog entitled `WAGS WASPS` the WASPS being an acronym for Whinges, Anecdotes, Sayings, Proverbs, Solecisms.
All posts at first were items of interest to me although I announced the blog to WAGS asking for contributions, little was added except by me. I am not sure if I even circulated further notifications to any of the group.
It can be found HERE
There were 23 posts from 29th March 2015 to November 2018.
An attempt to encourage other WAGS to post items of interest on this Blog on which anyone was an author, as a sort of Bulletin Board. The WAGS WhatsApp group eventually took over from this for notices and non-walk blog posts.
2016- 2019 WAGS First Walk Blog
After Summer 2016, the WAGS had swelled to about 18 members on paper. Some AWW were reluctant to give up their tough long walks, but enjoyed the WAGS company and dining ethic, and walked in both groups, as and when they felt like it. I decided to resume proper classic walk blogs for Walks held according to WAGS Criteria.from 12.10.2016. This Blog ran for 109 episodes until 18.12 2019, when I again changed down a gear and opened a new Blog for 2020 and the new decade.
The bulk of 2016 I have no record, and certainly Sao Vincent was in isolation that year.
In 2017, there was a resurgence of interest, instigated mainly by Rod. A two-day extravaganza was planned for Sunday 22nd and Monday 23rd January. I managed to get an awful lot of blog mileage if not distance under my feet out of this, there being no less than 5 blogs around the two day walk.
First we had the Inner Council Think Tank on 4th January 2017, when Rod, Myriam and myself went on a day 1 recce to Vila do Bispo. Peter joined us ceremonially at the start but then had to retire.The account can be found HERE
On 11th January 2017, we had the recce for our intended Day 2 walk. A much better turn out of aspirants and supplicants, with a total of 9 turning out on a beautiful January day.
The walk was distinguished by a very rare event, Rod retiring after 4km with sore knees, requiring rest before the big event, accompanied by Chris. The 7 remaining walkers revisited the famous Quinta steps, beloved for photos on RTC events.
Quinta Steps
After the day 2 recce we reccied Restaurante Palheira, where we had a good belt straining lunch!
.
Other photos from this walk may be seen in the Blog just HERE
Sao Vicente Day One 22.01.2017
The event attracted a good crowd of WAGS and camp followers, especially the Dinner on the 1st evening dinner. There were 17 walkers on Day 1 and Rod had booked us 9 rooms at Mira Sagres Hotel to ensure a prompt start and promote WAGeraderie.
Starters Day 1
The whole blog for the Day 1 walk may be viewed HERE
Our walk was based on arriving at Cabo S. Vicente, by 1530 hours for an unveiling ceremony of a statue dedicated to Sao Vicente, commissioned bu a slightly eccentric Finnish gentleman, Rikki Graunhe. Read the blog for more info, but the statue? unveiled is shown here.
A Sculptor`s impression of Sao Vicente (Rikki next to the statue looking suitably proud)
Speeches over, duty done we headed back to our Hotel for showers, pre-prandial drinks and a very welcome dinner.
The Dinner
The dinner was at Cafe Correia, just a short stagger across the road from the Hotel
Artur Jesus and his wife were Guests of Honour.
This was the 2nd part of 4 parts of the Event Record, and can be viewed HERE
Day 2 Walk:- 23rd January 2017
The next morning only 14 toed the line for the 2nd days` exertions. Gita went solo exploring, Chris went solo on a shorter walk, and I sacrificed my walk so that I wouldn`t have to blog it!
Starters Day 2
Another lovely day, and this time the walk we had reccied on 11th January, to the south and down to Praia de Barranco back via the Quinta.
Maria went Pole Dancing........
.........and the steps were better populated than on the recce. John only just made it back to his seat before his camera took the shot!
Day 2 Lunch
The final lunch was quite well attended and held at O Perceves which used to be one of Myriam and my favourite perceves restaurants. Alas, it wasn`t a good day for perceves, and there were mutterings of discontent among the hungry diners. You can read John`s Blog, which also summarises the walk stats HERE
2018, for some reason we had no Sao Vicente related event.
January 22nd and 23rd 2019. The event over 2 days was resurrected by Rod, and more than ably blogged by Antonio de Montanha. I was with Myriam on MV Brittania in the Caribbean, and we didn`t see the video on the blog through lack of wifi.
There are some very nice photos in the blog, taken by a Pro, and a superb and humorous video summary. I have just been through the whole post enlarging all the pictures, so go back HERE and have a look. So great to have the use of a drone for video and pictures.
In 2020 on 22nd and 23rd January, 10 faithful supplicants once again gathered together to venerate out Saint. Again a 2 day event based at the Mira Sagres.
The walk was pretty tough because of the broken rocky terrain, and in fact, I had Walker`s Back as opposed to the normal, and even Hazel and Geraldine had cut short their walk. Consequently, by the time the main body arrived back at Cafe Vigia, we three were well into our tostas and coffee.
In the evening we had a new venue for our Feast - we had done some research and from the short list we chose Eira do Mel. It was an inspired choice. and we were allocated the lower private room. We were joined by Jill, Mike, Chris Antje, Andy and Marguerite.
The food was excellent and replaced more calories than I had burned off.The blog of the first day can be seen HERE
Day 2: 23rd January 2020
The weather looked a bit marginal at the start, so I wisely pulled my Excused Boots card, and opted to be Start photographer.
By digital trickery, i even got in it myself. I had only just got back to my car when it started raining, confirming my decision. Luckily for the group it didn`t last too long.
John`s Blog started with a One Act Play, an innovative feature, and the route comprised a very similar one to the 2017 walk. ie not as far as the first day.
I returned to Cafe Convivio, just in time to join the feeding frenzy.
It is amazing how eating TM`s make you look glum.
The blog of 2020 Second Day can be found HERE
And that`s it , we are completely up to date with our dealings with S. Vincent, this blog being the latest homage. It all arose from a casual WhatsApp from Rod asking ~ "I wonder Paul, if you can recall some relevant blogs covering these days?"
Well I could and I did, and it took Saturday afternoon and all of Sunday to achieve, including phone calls to John to retrieve photos which had vanished from my computer.
Shortly after this, in fact halfway through March, we went in to Covic-19 restrictions, which were published you may recall as `The Quarantine Diaries Volumes 1-12, and by then it was end of season as it was getting to warm.
At the end of September we started again and managed 4 weeks before we were restricted to Bubbles. these went right through to the end of the year, with the Silves Six being the most consistent. Apathy and illness splintered the Lagos Bubble, and the New Year 20-21 ushered in the era of the Wednesday Algarve Geriatric Saunterers.
To date 2 walks were attempted and then Portugal having become World No.1, (even overtaking UK) in the Covid League for Deaths per Million of Population, things have closed down to merely allowing us out for a healthy walk once a day, but not mixing with other persons or households. Most Airline traffic is closed down, even if you did want to take the risk of travelling in a metal cigar tube breathing the same air as other passengers.
No one is predicting when we will get back to anything approaching normal.
But its not All Doom and Gloom - or is it?
