What a game

What a game. I went to bed early yesterday, was woken by my wife when she went to bed. I did not sleep too well, but adjusted my alarm when I found out the game was delayed by an hour.  

My daughter had gone into Colchester to watch it with friends.  I knew that Mexico would attack, which would play to our strengths. But during the week, when talking about it at work, I had forgotten about how the altitude would work against us.  I was reminded about this later in the week when players from that game in Mexico in 1986.  I was not intimidated by the record of Mexico at the stadium, but I knew it would be tough. But, I kept the faith, knowing that we have come from behind to win games. But the joy of going two goals up in the first half was amazing. My wife had told me not to wake her up and it was hard not to do so. I did not lose faith when they scored their first goal, or when we went down to ten men, or even when they scored the second.  But the boys did good (my family hate the phrase) and did the country proud. Our multicultural team was amazing. 

It was strange seeing the sun up at the end of the match. I offered to collect my daughter from Colchester, but she declined, walking back with a friend instead. Anyway, time to catch up on sleep. 

Password failure

Well that was an interesting return to work. I love my job, but had a frustrating morning as I locked myself out of the clinical system at work by forgetting my Windows password, and that for my smart-card.  It was all fixed, but it took time. But from then, the day got better.  

Back in Blighty

We are home, and are exhausted.  We left our apartment early in the day. Last night I ended up swearing at the children as one decided to pack at ten at night while the other was trying to sleep. While the apartment is nice and has a great location, it has no air conditioning and sleeping has been an issue in the last few nights. 

The journey back was not too eventful. We arrived at the airport with time to spare, Portugal appears to have suspended the EU passport checks which have caused chaos for British travellers, which meant that we arrived too early. But having heard of planes leaving passengers behind, we did not want to risk that ourselves. 

Our issues were once we landed. The taxi we booked was not available and a slightly smaller car was sent instead. But the M25 was very busy and our journey home took about two hours longer than normal. And it was so hot! I did get to watch the England match on my phone but there was a lag which meant that I saw my daughter respond to the radio before I saw England go behind. We were exhausted by the time we got back home, the heat and being trapped in the car not being enjoyable.  I decided to get our dog who was at in-house-boarding in Ipswich. Leia loves it there and loved seeing me. She expected the rest of the family to be in the car, but they needed to rest at home.  The dog-sitter is amazing, she loves Leia and wanted to chat, which meant that I missed the equaliser and ended up watching the highlights to see the two England goals.

I knew England would have to attack as the DRC would defend, I just did not expect us to go behind so quickly. But I had faith in the team and we got the result we deserved.  Our next game will be against a team playing at home, at altitude, in a stadium they have rarely lost in. But that means they will be attacking us… 

But we are at home, and we are happy to be so.  It is back to work for me tomorrow, hopefully it will not be too much of a shock! 

Quinta da Tôr and the Strait of Hormuz

We split up today. My wife was keen on visiting Quinta da Tôr, a vineyard with pools. Our son was not too keen so stayed in Santa Luzia. It was the right thing for him to do. He would not have liked it here, and we loved it.  Good wine, friendly service and pools to both swim and cool down in. 

As for the Strait of Hormuz, I naively thought that things would be sorted after the latest peace deal was agreed. But I forgot about the greed. I had realised that the reason oil prices are manipulated by the weekends was based on computer algorithms running. I came to this conclusion when I was wondering why the market kept falling for the same lies. To me, it would be logical for the market to anticipate this and switch off the algorithms, or at least prevent them from making oil trades, over weekends.  I do hope that this is all sorted out properly and soon because, as it is, too many farmers have not been able to fertilise crops and the longer this continues, the longer Trumpflation will increase global food prices. 

Trump may berate NATO nations for not providing him with direct aid in his diversionary war from him being in The Epstein files, but I am glad that we are not helping him directly to strike Iran. 

Taberna Amaro

Today, we left Villa Stofero and its tranquil gardens, its pool and its working TV. We are now in Santa Luzia. The apartment has a bigger living space than before, two private balconies and is in a village.  Down the road from where we are is Taberna Amoro.

Over this holiday, I have had average meat courses most of the time. Today I had the best beef I have had this holiday. The service is friendly, we ate outside in the back garden which did mean we were exposed to some tobacco smoke. I would recommend all the places I have posted on this holiday, this place foremost of all. 

We had been to the nearby market earlier in the day for lunch were we had some local food. I liked the pork sandwich which I had, my son hated it. I felt the fries were from the freezer and were underdone. It may be that my enjoyment of dinner was based on how bad the chips were. The kids had been shopping and my daughter bought herself a bracelet. My son bought a present for a friend. It was an experience that is one we normally would not have on holiday and it added variety to the holiday. 

Restaurante de Querença

Today involved dinner at a distance from our villa. It is our last night here and our hosts recommended this place. It has a great view and the friendliest service we have had so far. I loved the traditional food, but sadly ate too much at lunch so could not enjoy it.  If we do return to this area of the Algarve, we will probably return here as well.  

Restaurante Rei das Praias

Today we returned Praia dos Caneiros and enjoyed a meal there. We actually did not go on the beach, but instead went to the restaurant we had been to in the past. It brought back many memories, but we all agreed that while the food was very good, it did not deserve the price. 

Thanks to my son, my daughter he and I actually went to some caves first of all. There were some rocks afterwards where some teenagers were reenacting a scene from the Twilight films by jumping into the water. Well, one of them did, the others watched. It was amazing to see but the beauty was spoiled by some leaving litter behind.

After that, we drove to Carvoeiro where the children went shopping. We had been here in the past and while we did not recognise it at first, we did remember it, each of us recalling different things about it.  But we did not remember the restaurant we went to before, not that I think it is there anymore.

It was after that which is when we went to Restaurante Rei das Praias. I would love to return to the beach. Fingers crossed…