Back in Portugal

Well, this has been one of my most adventurous trips yet! If I were planning surfing or mounting climbing I could not have planned a bigger rush! Weather has played havoc with our trip from the start. Our plane was an hour late in departing, not due to the snow in England, but I believe the "high disruption due to wind" on the Portuguese coast.

In air, our flight was fairly uneventful. We managed to get a few winks in here and there. When it came to landing however, we had quite the ride. The winds were blowing so forcefully the plane was bobbing and weaving like Mohammad Ali! Most passengers were not so sure we were going to continue to fly like a butterfly and were bracing for a sting. I was between my mother in law and husband, neither of whom took the bumpy ride very well. I was trying to get each of them to breathe a bit slower and relax. After one and a half attempts to land, the pilot let us know we were heading to Faro and we would reassess the situation from there.

After two hours on the tarmac we were told the weather in Lisbon "dramatically" improved and we would be taking off shortly. Most of the passengers would have rather been told they were bussing us back or we would spend the night in Faro, but we were in the air soon enough. The anxiety of the many passengers was laid to rest within an hour. We witnessed a lovely sunset and landed with gusto, but safely. The runway in Lisbon seemed quite short as he hit the brakes and we all slid forward in our seats, but the round of applause from the passengers showed that no one minded.

I had only one thing on my mind...chicken nuggets! I was brewing a migraine and it had been at least 6 hours since I had eaten anything. I was hoping like most airports a Burger King or McDonald's would be around. I was wrong. As we went about the typical airport activities we had no problems, luggage arrived promptly, SIM card for iPad very simple, and rental car, though a few in line ahead of us, easy peasy. However, no chicken nuggets.

We got in the car and saw a Burger King but we were in the far lane and it would have been a challenge to get into. So we decided to pass it thinking we would see another one along the way. Again, we were wrong. 58 miles later we pulled off the motorway and turned towards the grocery store. As my husband and I were trying to remember where things were, I realized this was one of THOSE migraines. I told my husband I would wait near the car while they went into the shop, but we didn't make it that far. I had to make my husband pull over at a bus stop and i wasn't catching the bus. At least I felt better after my stop, but I couldn't get near the fish counter.

After getting a few necessities we headed to the villa only to find the windy winter storm had knocked the power out in the village. We had a bite to eat and got settled in by the light of iPhones and iPad and headed to bed hoping for improvements with the light of day.

Happy New Year

Yeah, I'm a few days late, but nothing new here on that end. I still enjoy life at my own pace! Just a quick post to run down the last year as one of my resolutions is to write more.

So 2012 was a busy year I visited 7 countries (including my home countries of USA and UK)

I sadly lost 2 dear felines. One large, one small. The charismatic Keera the panther that touched and taught so many about the plight of the Florida panther. And my beloved Isis the little Manx black cat that went everywhere with me. They both battled cancer and both loss the battle, sadly I was on the opposite side of the Atlantic when each passed, a heart breaking way to loose an animal. But there was good news too!

We welcomed my new baby niece into the world

I saw the queen twice, once in York, and once in London!

I spent one week in Portugal

I spent 2 weeks on a ship in the Mediterranean

I crossed the Atlantic 8 times with 4 visits to the states

I spent 3-1/2 weeks in PA

I spent 7-1/2 weeks in FL

We bought a house in FL!

My husband experienced his first tropical storm, Debby was not that impressive.

I rescued 3 animals in Florida, 1 hawk, 1 box turtle, & 1tree frog, all released back into the wild!

We spent 2 weeks giving my parents a whistle stop tour of England

My sister visited for a week and we watched the USA women's soccer team win a gold medal!

I walked my family to the points of wholes in their shoes around England!

I watched one Frankel maintain his perfect record with lucky win #13 in York

We have painted miles of walls in both of our houses and we are still painting!

Wow, and that's only the highlights!

To a happy and healthy 2013!

Football Season, American Style

Fall is here and that means Sunday is football day. With the time difference we had the afternoon to get out and enjoy the sunny day before last weeks game. We found a few of the gold post boxes painted in the home towns of British Olympic champions. Since it is breast cancer awareness month, I had my pink terrible towel in tow!

I was lucky enough for my NFL Team, the Pittsburgh Steelers, to be televised on Sky Sports. It happens a couple of times a year, but typically at ungodly hours. For example they also played Thursday night, which began at 0120 Friday morning. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to stay awake for this one. From the results, it may have been a good thing, my husband may not have been able to sleep through my armchair commentary. It is a rough start to the season, I hope the get into a grove and start playing better soon.

Regardless of how my team plays, I love watching football games and eating football food. Sunday's meal was chicken nachos with home made salsa. A fairly healthy variety I think, if you discount the chips and cheese.

These nachos included bell peppers, jalapeño peppers, kidney beans, and avocado.

Black currant tea

Meringues with Lemon Curd and Whipped Cream & Florentines

I can't believe the August bank holiday weekend is over. I have that crazy mixed up feeling that summer has flown by but things I did just a couple of weeks ago seem like its been ages since I did them... Silly nostalgia!

Last weekend, I participated in a very traditional English past time, the afternoon tea. Every year (for quite some time now) my mother-in-law has an Afternoon Black Currant Tea on the Sunday of the August bank holiday weekend. It is to raise funds for The United Nations.  This year wass my second Black Currant Tea.
  
So what happens at an afternoon tea? Money is collected and you get to enjoy lovely baked goods. Stewed black currants are served with cream and home made shortbread biscuits. The black currants are grown by my father-in-law on his allotment and slow cooked by my mother-in-law. Tea and coffee are available to accompany the delights, yet I still drink tall glasses of cool water.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie

This year I baked a variety of goodies including oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies, mini key-lime pies, zucchini (courgette) tortes, a tomato and zucchini puff-pastry tart, and cannelloni bean and eggplant (aubergine) hummus. Everything went over very well except my Italian styled hummus. One of the members is Palestinian and thought I was trying to make a traditional middle eastern chick pea/tahini hummus. Never mind, I had some for my lunch yesterday! Other goodies included cheese and fruit scones also made by my mother-in-law.

The "wow factor" treats that everyone looks forward to though are the meringues. A fellow member bakes them for the tea each year. Last year she dropped them off with home made lemon curd. She was unable to attend the tea last year, and left us to it! My mother-in-law knew we filled them with the lemon curd and whipped cream, and we decided cutting them in half and placing the filling inside would be the best way to do it. WRONG! Although no one noticed last year, Ms K was there to properly instruct us this year. You stick to whole meringues together using cream and curd! These are delicious meringues that are light and airy on the outside but still have a that chewy bit in the center. They can prove to be a challenge to eat, but I was told that I have mastered the art of eating a meringue elegantly (blushes). I managed to get the recipe for the meringues as well as the Florentines Ms K made and look forward to trying my hand at making them.

Mini Key Lime Pies awaiting whipped cream and lime wedges

Aside from eating decadent treats and enjoying each others company, there is a 'brick-a-brack" table where things are sold such as small gift boxed items like you might find at christmas or fresh flowers from someones garden and baked goods (the Florentines where only on this table). Several games are played. This year it was guess the number of (home grown!) sunflower seeds were in the jar, a Shakespeare mix up game (too much work for me!) and guess/remember the items in the bag type game.

The final fund raising activity is the collection of the "leu roll funds" the members collect pennies in a decorated toilet paper roll in the bathrooms. It cost a penny a go to use the leu at the in-laws house! We know it goes to a good cause so we are always generous with our coins. I was told in the beginning a bit of fun pomp and circumstance went into collecting these funds at the meeting, however now i think they are just lumped together with the rest of the collections.
So, when you come to our house, don't be surprised if you see a coin collection in the leu!

We may also start the tradition of the black currant tea in the states. We would hold it on the same Sunday as my in-laws do and even Skype them for a bit. Come up with some games we could both participate in and have a true United Nations experience!

9 weeks passed like 9 days...

Wow, I can't believe how long it has been since I last wrote a post. If time passed quickly for me, it must have flown for my husband as his sabbatical is over and he's back at work. I guess once Tropical Storm Debby passed Florida, we didn't spend much time indoors, which meant little time writing. We filled our days with bike rides, beach time, nature walks, and house hunting (more about that next week!).

We spent our last couple of days in Florida in Tampa with my friend Lisa and Def Leppard!

After Florida we spent a week in Pennsylvania with my family doing typical American summer activities: amusement parks, baseball games, and barbecues. I think it was hotter in Pittsburgh than it was on Sanibel.

Our last day in Pittsburgh was a whirlwind of activity. We packed our bags and brought everything to my parents' house. Joined by siblings and their families while having some of my moms good cooking and trying to do the last of laundry and packing for 4!

My parents accompanied us back to England for their first visit and first trip out of North America! They wee a bit nervous but had a great time, even if they were a bit like Clark and Ellen Griswald!

Loads of details to come as I try to get back in the habit of writing!

Cheers :)

Tropical Storm Deby

Since Wednesday we have seen a turn in the weather. The bright sun and extreme heat was displaced by light cloud cover and intermittent showers. It was not enough to stop us from cycling or snorkeling, just enough to cool you off a bit while cycling.

On Thursday we played some tennis before heading out to the beach. It was lovely and sunny, just a lot windier than it had been the last week. When we got to the beach we could see the effects of the increased wind. The tide was extremely high as were the waves. Areas of beach we had sat reading on were now covered with a foot of water, sometimes more. The sandbars we had comfortably waded discovering sea stars and sand dollars with our toes were now getting pummeled by crashing waves.

We spent some time in the sun reading our Randy Wayne White novels from his Doc Ford series, watching the waves from time to time. Eventually we were too tempted by the activity in the typically docile Gulf of Mexico to sit and watch any longer.

I put on my rash guard and headed down to the water. Getting in was almost the hardest part as there was an escarpment about a foot high at the waters edge. Once in the water, you were carried by a long shore current along the beach as you dodged, jumped, our swam through waves. When you were back at the escarpment it was time to get out, walk down the beach and do it again. No rip tides occurred on our stretch of beach so we played in the waves until I got cold. I definitely wished I had a wetsuit and a surfboard that day (and knew how to surf)! After a short bike ride, we came back to the beach, prepared for big waves and they had already died down significantly. We could swim against the long shore current when earlier we couldn't even stand in place.

Friday morning we tried our hand at shuffleboard then headed out to the beach. The tide was not as high as Thursday but it was getting higher. We did not spend much time on the beach as the rain was closing in. By the time we got back to the room heavy showers had begun. We read on the balcony with the rain as our background music. The eurochampionships entertained us in the afternoon for a while, but cabin fever set in soon afterwards. We drove around the islands exploring new corners and walked around Captiva for an hour or so between showers, keeping us occupied until supper time.

Yesterday was obviously a wash out from the word go. We visited with Charles, our real estate agent for a while and talked more about the environment than houses, but enjoyed our time out of the condo. We watched another eurochampionship match and met him again and some of his friends (more wildlife people) for supper at the Lazy Flamingo. Charles brought fish he'd caught in the Gulf, the cooks prepared it for us and we had a family style meal served at a very reasonable price. It was a local secret and we were glad to have been chosen to have it shared with us.

Today I had hoped to cycle to city hall for the farmers market, but the rain was too heavy. We drove past and it appeared to be too heavy to even set up the market at all. So we drove off the island and explored Cape Coral. We went to one open house and drove past a few other houses on the market. Since we missed the farmers market, we stopped at the fruit stand and the fresh seafood truck on the way back to the island. We wanted to be back in the room for the England match of the eurochampionship. As we crossed the causeway back onto the island, the Intracoastal Waterway was splashing over the road. We made it back just in time to see kickoff! Come On England!

Two down One to go.

Our second week was as good as our first week on the Island. We have used our bikes and racked up quite a few miles. We even did 21 in one day! Our roller blades have not been quite as successful though. My husband had a little tumble and we've not been back on since. We will go on again before leaving Florida, just not sure when.

We kept hoping for some rain, actually the thunderstorms that are part of the hot summer afternoon routine in Florida. Instead, we are getting outer bands of a tropical depression (could be tropical storm Debbie soon). It doesn't look like it will have a major impact on Florida but it will create a lot of rain bands for another day or so. The upside to the storm? Great waves. This is not the gentle Gulf of Mexico I adore, but it is fun for a little while. Just wish I knew how to surf!

We have seen some great wildlife so far too. You can see a one day list on my Wild Wednesday post. I will make a list for the whole trip as well. As far as our hawk goes, I need to check up on him after the weekend. I promised myself I would only check once a week so as to not bother the staff of CROW too much. Today's big sighting, flying ants. The rain must have flooded out a nest. They are looking for drier ground but have only found our screens so far. As long as they don't come in I'm fine.

In between the cycling and wildlife viewing, we had time to learn a new activity, shuffle board! There is a board next to the grills, so our curiosity was peaked. We weren't sure of the rules so we had a look online and played a little yesterday before the rain came too heavy. I could see us playing more while we are grilling, as long as we remember the bug spray! I think we counted 54 bites on my poor husband!

We hope to get out on the water next week. We are looking at renting some kayaks or just doing the tarpon bay explorers cruise. It depends on the weather and how ambitious we get!

I almost forgot, we found the dream house! It is well beyond our means, but a girl can dream! It has prime location, gorgeous views, private dock and beach, and it's for sale! Really need to win the lottery now lol.