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November newsletter 2009 - archive
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by: Carol Carpenter |
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Hello once again – better late than never as my Mother used to say - well
what an effort !! It has taken Roy almost three years to make a
contribution to a newsletter (at
the bottom of this page) so I guess a big thank you is in
order, very impressive - now I only have 500 words to write. PHEW!!
I hope you all enjoyed the summer months and to those of you who chose to
visit the Algarve and CVO I hope you had a really great time. |
Our summer was a little hectic and at times somewhat fraught, with a lot
of family health problems. It started when my 87 year old Father was
rushed to hospital with gall stones in July which sent me flying back to
the UK to nurse him following his operation. Anyone who has an aged
relative knows that you are usually the last to find out they are unwell
as they never want to bother you. We all ring him twice a week and not
once did he say anything. After being reprimanded by his three daughters
he promised never to do anything like that again. Bless him he looked like
a naughty little boy so of course he ended up being hugged by us all. It
was not long though before he was back to normal and bossing us all about.
Pension on Monday, bank on Tuesday, plumber, gardener, window cleaner, and
the shopping – “not the cheap cornflakes it has to be Kelloggs”, “butter
not marg” and “only the healthy soups not that tinned rubbish” – “oh and
don’t forget my smoked Mackerel.” We all had to laugh as we returned from
our duties. I’m sure there was a little smirk on his face, especially when
he asked for his tea cakes – OOPS!! - we had forgotten those. Joking apart
he is a real treasure and an absolute delight to look after. He is now
recovering well and is almost back to his old self again. |
After my ten day stay I returned to the Algarve for a few days to get the
house ready for our visitors. We both then flew back to the UK to look
after the grandchildren this time. This was again quite a worrying time
for us as we knew that my daughter was also awaiting test results. It was
another distressing time for her as she has been suffering health problems
for the last few years. However we were all relieved when the test results
proved negative and they can hopefully resolve the problem without an
operation. Hopefully she will now be on the road to recovery.
We thoroughly enjoyed our time with the grandchildren as they are always
great fun and keep us young. The eldest grandson is a budding rugby
player, our granddaughter wants to be a pilot and the youngest grandson I
am sure will one day be on mastermind. I was up at 5am every day arriving
at their home at 6.15 just in time to say goodbye to my daughter. Funnily
enough I never once felt tired, on our return however I found it extremely
difficult to wake up in the mornings. I really love being with them
especially when I have complete control for two weeks – truly magical. |
Our last visitors have now returned to the UK so it is back to normal for
us. Roy is quite busy and I am now back walking CVO for news.
Unfortunately I have very little to tell you at the moment. The local
elections are over and there are no changes for CVO it is the same
party in the Junta and apparently a lot of people are surprised by this.
According to some of the restaurants they had quite a good summer although
I have not spoken with all of them. The Galeria da Arte next to
Millenium Bank is for rent but I have never seen this shop busy, so I
suspect they are closing. There are a few places closed at the moment, but
it could just be for holidays, there are no signs advising us The only
sign I have seen is outside the take-away on the in road, they re-open 2nd
December. |
They have started the alterations at Algar Seco
and I will keep you informed on the progress. CVO is now very quiet
but we are still enjoying glorious weather and still wearing our shorts,
the sea is a beautiful blue, the skies are cloudless and the nights are
still warm, definitely no need for log fires just yet – well it is only
November!!
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Please find these photos and more in large
formats
here [opens new window] |
We did manage to meet up with Sandy and Gordon (Rampage) who were over
from Borneo, and enjoyed a really lovely meal at Maximes last Monday.
After dropping them off at their house we returned home, only to find
Sandy peering into the window half hour later. They were locked out as the
key would not work. They didn’t have a mobile and the keys to the car were
inside their house so they ended up walking back to ours and staying the
night. It was really quite funny. The next morning off they went with Roy
back to the house, WD40 in hand. Still no joy so they were back 15 minutes
later. They ended up borrowing the car, because we were due at a bowls
match. Eventually they did get in and returned the car about 4pm. A few
days later, Sandy and Gordon arranged a pool party which proved to be a
great success as their pool was like bath water. Thanks for a lovely
evening great food, great company we always enjoy meeting up with you and
look forward to seeing you in March. Thanks once again for the beautiful
orchid - it is still surviving.
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Please find these photos and more in large
formats
here [opens new window] |
Between our travels back and forth to the UK we did manage to go to the
Sand Sculptures, they were absolutely brilliant this year and one of
the best I have seen. |
Because CVO is so small and not a lot changes each month it was decided
that a bi-monthly newsletter might be a better idea. The next newsletter
will now be at the end of December and that way I should be able to fill
it with a lot more CVO news. I’ll give it a try anyway and see how it goes
and would welcome any comments you might have.
December may well be my last newsletter as I have many plans for next year
and I could be away on several courses. We are also off to New Zealand for
January and February and I feel that I would not be giving my best to the
newsletters, so again if there is anyone who would like to take this over
please contact Steen
(Webmaster)
I have really enjoyed writing the newsletters and it has been good fun. I
hope whoever succeeds me will get as much pleasure and satisfaction as I
have.
Ciao
Carol |
SUPPLEMENTARY NEWSLETTER
As we have been away for most of the summer resulting in Carol not having
a lot of news, information and gossip about Carvoeiro, I thought it might
be interesting to give you a CVO residents views on Britain and driving
there.
The most noticeable thing is how crowded is Britain compared to Portugal –
after 10 hours of stress-free motoring with cruise control in operation
for most of the journey from CVO to Santander, I almost needed a Vallium
after the drive from Plymouth to Gloucester. Apart from the volume of
traffic, road repairs in Portugal and Spain seem to slow the traffic to
about 80 k.p.h., whereas in England repairs to one lane (3 left open) at
Avonmouth- bridge caused constant stopping and resulted in taking 1.5
hours to travel 8 miles!!
We took the Brittany Ferries ship “Port Aven” which is a vast improvement
on the earlier ferries with fittings up to cruise liner standards and very
little motion. The food is also good with the dining room buffet selection
being better value than the a la carte menu and the bar prices reasonable
– although the exchange rate of 1.25 euros to the pound made it much
cheaper to pay in sterling – strange on a French boat!!
I used my bus pass in Gloucester and unlike Portugal where the children
are well behaved and offer their seat to you (appreciated even though it
makes me feel old) the locals remained glued to their seats chewing gum
and talking loudly on their mobiles.
At the exchange rate of around parity at the time we found Britain very
cheap and brought back £ 200 of Tesco products which we estimated would
have cost € 400 in Portugal. We also brought back some delicate optical
equipment which would have cost about £300 by a transport company and
saved the € 5000 quoted to matriculate the car by getting an M.O.T. (£ 45)
and road tax (£190) so the initial apparently high cost of £ 800 for the
journey became, instead, a good investment.
The other advice I would give for anyone driving down to CVO is to take
the apparently longer journey via Seville – only 8 miles and 10 minutes
longer according to my satnav – which is well surfaced dual carriageway
virtually the whole way, petrol in Spain around € 0.35 less than in
Portugal and only one section of toll road approaching Santander. Our
stopping points were Vallodolid north bound (about 2 hours from Santander)
at the Ibis situated less then 5 minutes from the motorway - and Salamanca
south bound (about 4 hours from Santander) where we had the best Spanish
food either of us had tasted at the Oasis Horus hotel (see Tripadvisor for
reviews).
I hope my comments are helpful for any surface travellers and it is nice
to be back in the beautiful Algarve again even if things are a bit more
expensive and we still cannot get my favourite Shreddies breakfast cereal
here at anything less then daylight robbery prices :>)
Roy (the other half)
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