Here I am on a Tuesday morning trying to write the Blog for last Wednesday. I have plenty of good excuses, but I won't bore you with them as I doubt they would earn me any compassion.
This is an old adage coined by the English writer Edward Young in his 10,000-line poem entitled: The Complaint: or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, & Immortality, more simply known as Night-Thoughts.
It has been borrowed many times, notably by Charles Dickens and Thomas Jefferson, and as with most adages, proverbs and aphorisms is essentially true. What is the difference between a proverb, an adage and an aphorism? I hear you thinking! In the light of the haste with which I have to complete this post, I will leave you to research that yourself, as it is a fine line between each.
All is not lost because we have a proverb here:-
And as you can imagine a lot of thought and work goes into a Blog Post.
This blog will be festooned with photos as even without Yves, who 'forgot' his phone, no less than 51 photos were presented for selection.
The walk itself was memorable, for me anyway, as I had specifically volunteered to lead because my daughter, Tanya and family were here for the first time in over 2 years, and I invited them to join us. Much to my surprise they all came along including the 2 grandsons, 13 and 11, who are at the stage of skateboarding, surfing and mountain biking, with their father, and might take the chance of the first predicted fine day since they arrived the Saturday before. Myriam was still on her sabbatical and would meet us later.
Most of us met at the former Cafe Vladivar, now known as Taberna Gloria. This is the same Gloria of Bensafrim, whose cafe there we have enjoyed on a number of occasions, and who also has a supermarket in Bensafrim. It is an improvement in service, and the manager, Irene is a very pleasant lady who put up bravely with my broken Portuguese until I realised she spoke good English. However at 10 am there was a strong cold wind blowing down the street, which probaably reduced the number of locals who formerly patronised the Vladivar, and whose parsimonious habits had contributed to its demise.
Like most conscientious leaders I had done a recce of the eating establishments of BSJ and not been encouraged by the offerings available as most appeared closed. The discovery of A Triba, was a strong motive to join the walk for my daughter who is mostly vegetarian. I suspected it might be the best place for a post walk alternative venue and announced the discovery on the WAGSAL chat.. Not greeted with dancing in the streets by the WAGS walkers but some agreed it might be an interesting choice.
After the walk we found out Taberna Gloria also had an advantage in cheap prices, unlike the place, A Triba (formerly The Palm) which was now an upmarket and quite expensive Vegan Restaurant. I don't imagine that with the prices there, it will last too long in Barao Sao Joao!
A Triba Menu.
Back to the walk. We started around 1030 having allowed Terry time to arrive from Salir.
A good augmented turnout for a walk in the West
L-r John, Yves, Terry, Janet, Rod, Myriam, Paul, Tanya, Felix, Dexter, Jeb It was very nice to welcome Janet back from grandmother duties and getting a new knee. It seemed to be working much better now. Ain't Medical Science wonderful!
Most of us are due for a service and change of parts!
Started with the usual gentle uphill drag to the turn towards Sculpture Hill. Sculpture hill has been much enhanced by scores of additional works by Deodato Santos.
Photo of a photographer photographing the photographers
At the bottom the last effort (or first but new)
The council sign painters had been out in force, probably preparing for the Walking Festival held the previous weekend. The Mata Nacional certainly had no shortage of route indicators.
Harshly used Algarve Way Sign. Some of us will remember when it was first set up but I don't think it is on the Real Way any longer
Latest route signing (no key supplied!)
Old style - easy to understand
New walk route indicators from the Festival
After we reached the bottom of the hill we saw the village laundry, and also a useful place for some WAGS who needed a rest after a surfeit of Culture.
The full walk I had planned would have been just over 11 km, so I decided to cut a little corner by turning left early and following GR13
After another gentle but long uphill we reached the Pedro Blanca and amused ourselves by climbing and posing at the Trig point.
It's tough at the top
Hazel handing round the half time cinnamon biccies. How many Octogenarians does it take to help an 11 year old off a trig point?
Here the youngsters decided they had enough of discussing the various ailments we were succumbing to and broke off along the central path back to the cars and vegetarian heaven.
We continued along the outer track towards the wiggly return, but found a new signpost along the way that saved a km or so.
Going though the forest were some natural local rocks engraved for the Festival.
Didn't expect to find a fish in the Forest
Nice shady walk - getting much warmer
Hazel striding out.
This was the latter end of the wiggly path, after our second shortcut.
Former Forester's House. now redecorated!
We passed through a nice picnic and BBQ site only being used by a Filipina from Portimao and her family, and after a chat on up to the Forester's sad building.
As we neared the downhill stretch at the end of the walk, I received a message from my daughter who had been at A Triba with her family, for some time and were still waiting for their drinks as it was crowded and understaffed. A decision was made at the car park soon after, to try Taberna Gloria rather than wait an hour or so.
On the way to park near the Church for Taberna Gloria, I stopped off to check on my family. They had just been served and seemed happy enough.
Reportedly the vegan food was very nice but expensive.
Myriam met us near Taberna Gloria thanks to the miracles of modern communication. Terry decided he had not burned enough calories to merit lunch and went home.
We made it to Gloria's where happily there was a table inside.
John gratefully quaffed his well-earned caneca
..........while Yves contented himself with a small beer.
and Rod had the best deal with his cup of coffee.
Myriam immediately started flirting with the locals and tried to scrounge some food from one, as there was no more Dish of the Day left. It had been arroz de marisco.
In a bid to save his marriage he hastily offered her a share and scarpered!
Irene was very quick to ready our orders, and Rod had a tosta mista, Yves a bifana in papa seco, John and Hazel a bifana in pao caseira, as did I , augmented with a decent plate of hot chips, and Myriam had a bifana in pao caseiro torrado.
Yves' bifana in papa seco
My Bifana with tomato
Rod settled for a Tosta Mista com tomate in Pao Caseiro
and the best chips in BSJ
Gloria and her husband turned up and greeted us as friends.
And the Stats and Map from Rod's OutDoor Active App:
Of course my Hi-grade Huawei tracking device didn't agree.
Sorry for myself to have missed this walk in the shady forest and also to have missed several events which I had booked for the Walk Fest the previous weekend!
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