Robs & Jem - your parents are safe!

Friends of mine are over for the week - we met up for dinner and holiday-planning last night. Howard wants to see the sun hit the 'beer mark' on my terrace. I hope he's not expecting a Raiders of the Lost Ark dramatic moment...

Today they run the gauntlet of the Timeshare sales folk, so I'm getting some plotting done for the novel. There's nothing like unpicking something entirely - this is why I never achieve much in the knitting department...

Complaining

Another weekend, another battle with broadband. I thought I'd give it one more chance before phoning the company, as I've not yet mastered the complaints process/customer service ethos here.

One thing I bought was clearly priced, but it came up a few euros higher at the register. So I explained to the cashier, who called someone, who called someone else, with whom I walked to the other end of the store to show them the display filled with the lower price. They checked their database for a few minutes, then walked over and started taking the little plastic price holders down. I asked about my purchase, and they said the register price was right, and thanked me for pointing it out.

In one's own language, phrases like 'you have to charge me the ticketed amount; it's my consumer right under EU law' just trip off the tongue.

What's more, I took money out of a cashpoint yesterday and among the bills was half a bill, the serial number ripped through, not legal tender. So that's a discussion for this afternoon with someone in the banking world...

Free of Fall

I understand that Autumn is arriving elsewhere, but just to explain (and I only say this because someone asked if I had a fire lit) it's still 29 degrees here. My candles melt out on the terrace!

'Winter' is when I get to wear jeans and maybe two layers. It doesn't apply to Madeiran woman, who will be in proper winter clothes during winter. You can spot them easily in the summer because in the most debilitating sweltering heat they can wear skin-tight jeans and four-inch heels (in some bright colour which co-ordinates with their top).

I'll never be one of them...

Psst wanna buy a P? With P you can have...

So I'm getting this exotic fruit thing now. There are pomegranates everywhere at the moment. I've always loved their super-rich symbolism in myth, but now I'm going to try the reality.

Apparently you tell if they're ripe by tapping them: if they make a metallic sound they're good to go. Mine are making normal fruit sounds at the moment, so I will wait patiently.

Haven't decided what to do with them yet. Martha Stewart puts them on everything - salad, game hens, pot pourri - all the while directing you to buy her book/watch her Apprentice/purchase fine chocolates via her website. However, it looks like pomegranates would be pretty treaty on a pavlova, so I'm tempted to try that out...

What a week of learning!

So not only do I now know what a persimmon is (all hail Shona!) and that Monte Negran men are the tallest in Yurp (all hail the VERY reliable authority who may not wish to be named!), my eyes have also been opened to some of the kookiest folk around, who live here.

I'm going to teach the goldfish a key word so when they eventually get flushed to the big bowl in the sky and want to communicate with me, I'll know it's for real. Busy busy...

I can see clearly now

The world looks like itself again today: sky sea and earth have all reappeared.

My landlady appears under the terrace and calls for me on a regular basis. I help her with computery things (in that she doesn't have or use one), and she brings plants, yummy cake & generally treaty things. This afternoon she came bearing fruit: it looks tomato-like but comes from a tree, and you don't eat the skin or seeds. She didn't know its name in English, and we couldn't find it listed in the big botanical book. Anyway, it's supposed to be nice chilled, so I have it in the fridge and I await. I'm sure it'll be fine!!

Famous last words.

Just one more question

My broadband connection's been on the fritz for days. Everything takes so much longer...

Well, I woke (after nearly twelve hours of sleep) to find the day looking like this:

Forget the sea and the sky blurring - I can't see either!

All of which makes it the perfect afternoon to put on a Columbo dvd and curl up. Not the most energetic start to the week, but you don't want to rush headlong into these things...

Driven to distraction

A friend sent me a link to VoipCheap: they offer free computer-calls to landlines, including Ireland, UK, & the US. I just tried it out, and the sound quality is great. Superb - thanks Craig!

Well that's another distraction all set up. The movie channel here is way too good for a healthy balanced lifestyle: in addition to the plethora of Woody Allen, Hitchcock & Coen Brothers movies, they also dig out gems that are hardly ever shown, like Diner, Prizzi's Honour, Gattaca...

It's not easy juggling it all!

It's Official!

I got a call yesterday from the Dept. of Foreign Affairs to say that my certificate of residency was ready. I confirmed that I could come in and collect it today (that's a lot of alliteration - probably a leftover from the story...).

So off I go this morning, take a number and join a queue. When it's my turn, the woman says I'm in the wrong building, I need to go to another place, right at the other end of town (where I just came from) and up a hill.

I go have a beer, walk up the hill past the park where the guys are playing cards. By now lunchtime has started, so the office is closed until 2pm. I hang out and watch the guys play cards, then go back. And take a number, and wait. The woman there tells me the certificate hasn't arrived yet; I say I got a call; she says it's in the other building. I explain that I went there, they told me to come here; she says it's all very difficult. Anyway, she phones them to confirm that the document is there.

So off I go, past the card game, walk back across town to the first building. Take a number, queue. And when it's my turn, a different helpful woman explains that I should go to the other building.

"Really. You confident about that?"

So I explain the phone call, my little tour of the city, but she's sure I'm in the wrong building. She asks someone else, who pulls out a box with the document in it. At that point the woman realises that she was in fact the one who phoned me yesterday.

On the bus home we passed the park; card game still going strong.

But it's official: I'm official!

Alliteration galore

Just finished another short story. I wrote it as an entry for a radio competition, so it has ample alliteration to give it a nice reading-out-loud quality. I read a bunch of medieval alliterative poetry before starting, but none of it filtered through to the final product (at least, not that I noticed). Anyway, I'm very pleased with it!

Off to hand in my coupons and collect the traditional prize for completing a short story. I can only imagine what I'll get when I finish the novel - does Absolut Raspberri come in Jeroboams?

:)

Born free, free as the wiiiind blows...

Today in 1985 the first Baby Shamu was born. Well, the first ‘Shamu’ to survive was born - there were ten orca calves born in captivity before that, but they all died before they reached two months.

There are various aspects to the whole Shamu experience that I don’t get. A magnificent creature who’s super-smart with complex language skills jumps up in the air, and we think that’s the cool bit. Apart from the vastly reduced life expectancies and the forced social groupings, the poor guys suffer the ignominy of performing in Shamu Hollywood Night Magic and Shamu the Yankee Doodle Whale.

Anyway, happy birthday Shamu. And commiserations…

Coming soon to a theatre near you

I saw a trailer for Snakes on a Plane. Is that some kind of joke??? I could just about forgive Samuel L. Jackson for Deep Blue Sea, since he cleverly got himself killed off once it was apparent how terrible a film it was going to be (at least that's my theory) but really, this is too much.

Snakes on a Plane. Gosh I wonder what happens...

A black and white thing

Ramadan is getting underway this weekend. Although the idea of fasting all day is daunting, you can eat and drink whatever you want once the sun goes down. The Qur’an is really trusting: it says that you can eat through the night “until you can plainly distinguish a white thread from a black thread by the daylight: then keep the fast until night”.

I think I would need a fixed time set for me, to avoid taking advantage of the situation - “No, I still can’t see any difference between the threads. I’ll just have another muffin and give it a few more minutes. Tum de tum...”

All down to perspective

Weird weather day. Looking inland was like this...


...but if you turned towards the sea this was the view.











My fun with subtitles continues. I went to see The Sentinel: there's lots of Secret Service talk about the bad guys' position being "at 3 o'clock, 7 o'clock" etc. At one point Keifer Sutherland is about to burst in to a stairwell, and he tells whassername from Desperate Housewives that the villain is at "11.30 o'clock". Now that's precise!

A plague upon this howling!

Curled up sipping coffee after a night of raging wind storminess. Apparently there were 80km gales, which would explain the Tempest-like quality to the early hours of this morning.

It's lucky I wasn't writing about a Sumerian wind demon, cos that might have been kinda creepy.

Oh wait now...

Afternoon naps rule

I have a CD of yoga from the Om Centre in New York, which ends:

This last yoga pose is not a nap, but a meditative relaxation period.

That's right, you just keep telling yourself that sweetie :)

Creativity plummets as post arrives

Oodles of cryptic crosswords arrived this morning - a treat from Dublin. I adore the Crosaire from the Irish Times.

So I've abandoned writing, and am sitting out on the terrace trying to think laterally. Let's face it, if you had the choice between writing a story populated by a depressive and a Sumerian demon, or doing a crossword designed by 'Guy with brain the size of planet', you'd go for option B.

The sun is creeping across the terrace; in about 45 minutes it'll hit the spot that marks 'beer time'.

Happy happy happy!

Media frenzy

The K Club has taken over BBC World. Every time I turn on the tv there's a special on the club, the course, the double dogleg on the 4th hole (Arnold's favourite). They interview golfers, the club pro, Bertie, random hikers who are just lost in Kildare... what happened to the world news?

I shall go back to relying on The Onion as my new source.

May God help us all.

Fish out of water, and in, and out, and in...

I got some goldfish yesterday. Now, the important thing to bear in mind is that they're still alive.

It may be true that I flaunted every rule for settling in fish; there may have been a couple of deluges in the kitchen; and it's possible that the fish have been taken out of their bowl more times than is entirely healthy.

However, they're settling in now. They like to play in the filter bubbles - which is coincidentally what I do with divers' air bubbles when I'm snorkelling. You position yourself above the divers, and you get this fantastic stream of bubbles; it's like being in a glass of champagne.

Anyhoo, they're ensconced in the kitchen happily pootling around to Athlete. All is well with the world :)

Handle with care

It was stormy here yesterday, which brought to mind a half-remembered poem: a blonde comes in from the rain, lights a fire, and well, there's a surprise ending.

It was driving me nuts, so I went online to hunt it down. It occurs to me that we need to take more care with poetry online. I guess I'm a bit pernickety anyway (why would anyone put Keats in Times New Roman) but shoving a frame of 'sponsored links' into the middle of a poem is just criminal.

Anyway, I found it: Porphyria's Lover, by Browning. It's kinda depraved, but with gusto!

Lost in translation

Portuguese subtitles are good fun.

Numbers are often wrong, which is not much of a problem if it's a phone number in The Sopranos. However, in Malcolm in the Middle the parents were saying that Francis moved 3000 miles to be far from them - the subtitles read that he relocated '5 km' away. Not quite the same effect.

You know in Jaws when they catch sight of the shark and say "20 feet, if it's an inch... 25 feet. And three tonnes of him there". Here Richard Dreyfuss is all scared that the shark is 3 metres long - now, you'd hardly need a bigger boat for that little guppy.

Madeirans must think we're sissies.

Titles of songs have a tendency to go astray as well. Here Nelly Furtado sings 'Manheater', but my favourite is Bananarama's 'Look at the Hoor'.

Then again, maybe someone in Translation Land knows exactly what they're doing...

Absolutely fabulous

Well, it's been a simply heavenly day.

I'm very pleased indeed to say that I finished the latte art short story.

And you know what the prize is for finishing a story...

Seascape

Pretty patterns on the sea today.

It's forever changing colour and texture. Sometimes it seems to be made of ice; other times it doesn't even look like water, more like a wasteland, or a land covered in snow.

I can only imagine the photos that Yann Arthus Bertrand
would take of this place.

Some art with your caffeine?

A guy came to read the water metre today. Sending someone to take readings and issue water bills by hand is just pointless if the bills are only for 2 euro. The water board would be better off setting up donation boxes at regular intervals.


In other news, I'm on to the next story, which is set in a coffee house. My eyes were opened to the world of latte art today - who knew! Man I used to be happy just getting chocolate sprinkles...

Less is Mor(ales)

So I made my peace with the short story, poisoned pope and all. Sometimes, an album fits really well with the atmosphere of a piece, and I end up listening to it whenever I'm writing. With this story, it was an album of early 16th-century sacred music by Cristobal de Morales and Jean Mouton.

There's only so many times you can listen to it in a week without losing your mind.

So today was a Morales-free zone. I revelled in a bunch of different stuff, then investigated what corresponding videos were available online: Counting Crows, Talib Kweli & Mary J., Faith No More, Sugar, Hootie, Hothouse Flowers, and this beautifully-filmed video from Blackstar, with the sweetest melody...

If you knew you were going to sit beside Elvis Costello and play his signature song, you'd learn the lyrics right??? I feel such relief as Elvis takes over the song! Oh Billie Joe...

Perfect pet found for HR Giger's Alien...

Went snorkelling today: the idea was to fin over to the Cristo Rei statue, but the sea was a smidge choppy. I tend to gauge risks by what I imagine my mother would say if I died under those circumstances. Today imaginary-mom was quite scathing:

And are you telling me that she kept swimming farther out with the sea that rough? Idiot. [Stubs out cigarette harshly]. Well, I'm not saying anything.

So I turned back and started my battle against the current. It was very slow going, which gave me ample time to consider scabbard fish. Apart from being a local delicacy, they're one of those fish that live way down under immense pressure. Apparently their entrails are spat out when they're being reeled in because the decompression is too much. Charming...

But my point is, on my slow heaving paddle back along the coast, I was particularly grateful for the knowledge that no scabbards could be tootling around at my level!

So good they named it twice

So apparently it was on this day in 1664 that the Dutch surrendered New Amsterdam, which was then renamed New York.

I've been working away on that short story I was 'practically finished' a week ago. Spent much of yesterday trying to find a suitable pope who had died of poisoning. It's fair to say I was off on something of a tangent.

Anyway, nearly there now, for real.

Have a lovely weekend :)

Anchorless

There are days here where you can't tell which way is up.

The horizon blurs, and there's no longer any boundary between sea and sky.

And when the horizon disappears (in Bagpuss fashion), so too does all sense of distance and space. Perspectiveless, you're left with a floaty feeling to the day which is quite surreal.

And not altogether unpleasant!

Burnin' Down the House

Yesterday some Captain Clever decided to torch a nearby field. It was probably the owner of the field preparing for the foundations of another 10 zillion apartments to be laid, but it just trashed the neighbourhood. The air was filled with burning debris; like something from 'When the Wind Blows'. I can tell you, it was a race to close shutters and protect my precious Liberty bedlinen from the grey sooty bits.

My landlady went to scope out the fire last night (it burned all day & evening). She said the people whose homes were adjacent to the field were just terrified.

You'd think if you were planning such an extravaganza, someone would need to be informed at some point before you started the blaze. Well, them's the super-bendy-stretchy Madeiran version of EU regulations...

Neighbourhood back to normal today. And the dolphins are in, which is stunning.

Hands up!

The counter-espionage folks next door call my place 'the gallery'. That's fair; I kinda do have a bunch of art...

Anyhoo, they were in the other day looking at stuff. There's an embossing by Mike Tingle called 'Art is...', which has lots of people in different stances (art being different to each individual). The neighbours thought the stances looked like semaphore, albeit without flags.

So I went online to where the semaphore folk hang out, and lo and behold, the stances spell 'meaning'.

It certainly helps to have codebreakers next door!

Residency Permit

I tried again to apply for my residency permit this morning. A sweetheart of a guy went through the process with me: first he sent me off to get photos taken, while he started filling out the form. It was a regular photo booth, but members of the public aren’t allowed to operate it themselves: you go to reception, and from there they call an overseer who puts your money into the machine and presses the button for you. You know, just in case…

So I get back, and he’s just getting started on the form. He fills out by hand four pages of personal details, stamping, dating and initialling each page with different combinations of the four stamps on his desk.

When I said that I thought it was going pretty quickly, he said that this was the easy part. The long part was issuing the receipt.

And so it came to pass, the receipt was another form to be completed by hand, which duplicated all of the information already given. So, he writes it all out again and hands me the carbon copies of the form. As I’m about to go he says that the receipt is valid for three months - would I like it stamped? I said ‘Well if you have a stamp, I guess we should use it.’ He then produced a fifth stamp and happily stamped, dated and initialled each page, declaring, ‘This is Portugal, we have many stamps!’.

So the bureaucracy turned out to be fun after all :)

Busy busy busy

This weekend, the world mostly looked like this...

...or this.


In other news, I've decided that if Jamiroquai were a cartoon character, they'd be the blonde from Captain Caveman. Remember, she'd say 'zowie' and little sparkles would appear all around her. I feel she captures that cosmic quality of Jamiroquai's music nicely. Just a thought...

Orlaith in Getting-Stuff-Done Shocker

Yep, this week I am actually accomplishing things. I finished a short story and sent it off on Monday (thanks to my sister, who submitted it for me). And I'm almost finished drafting another short story. Frankly, I'm pretty stunned at myself.

If that doesn't call for a vodka martini, I don't know what does :)

The geese that laid the golden eggs...

I spent the afternoon talking cryptanalysis with my lovely neighbours. The husband was a codebreaker during WWII. His job was to break the really hard codes - stuff that makes the Enigma machine look like a Fisher Price toy. The Enigma machine had three wheels; the machine whose code he was trying to break (the SZ40) had twelve. On a good day, he'd have decoded the message before Hitler read it over his morning coffee.

Under the Official Secrets Act he couldn't tell anyone what he was doing. His brother was fighting out in the field, and all he told his family was that he was 'pushing paper'. Churchill called the women and men who worked as codebreakers at Bletchley Park 'my geese who laid the golden eggs and never cackled'.

A fascinating afternoon!

Shadow play

As coincidence would have it, in 1846 Madeira suffered a a potato blight. Potato was the island's main food crop, and famine ensued with devastating consequences.

As in Ireland, many felt that their only hope for survival was to get off the island. The then-British colony of Guyana was seen as a haven: since the abolition of slavery in 1807 there was great demand for cheap manual labour. Thousands left Madeira under a 'bounty' system: the British government paid the plantation owners for each immigrant transported to the colony, and the immigrants worked as indentured 'servants' out on the sugar plantations, earning their freedom after 2-4 years.

In 1846, 6000 people took the boat to Guyana, with another 4000 following over the next two years. Immigrant death tolls due to climate and yellow fever were sky-high.

Sounds familiar. In some areas, our learning curve is pretty horizontal.

A room of one's own

I started scanning in old childhood pictures - the idea is to put together an archive for the family before the photos degenerate too much. Although the photo software I have is pretty good, it's powerless against the wallpaper patterns of the 1970s.

Anyway, pictured is my wigwam, where I spent much of my childhood. This is probably the spot where the concept of 'Orlaith Land' first formed...

Just the one, thanks

Part of my going-away present from Devon Music Service was a piece of Dartington Crystal; I'm finally getting around to the test-drive.

It's a wine glass that's supposed to hold an entire bottle of wine.

And it really does!

There goes the evening...

'Cos when they met, it was murder...

My mom emailed to say she hopes the German Porn Man goes swimming and forgets to stop.

She is one lady you do not want to get on the wrong side of.

Imagine when they meet - it'll be like the Hart to Harts. Or worse.

FAQ

I'm catching up on emails and a few people reminded me that I never explained about the German Porn Guy. So here we go:

He's in his seventies, and has been living here for decades. The first time I met him I was in the communal garden chatting with the landlord & landlady. He pulled up in his car and immediately shoved a newspaper in my face, opened to a page 3 girl. Odd.

We were introduced after that. He started ranting about some tenant who he felt was too noisy, and the landlady quickly ushered me away from him. Apparently he's always violently complaining; he shouts at people for using 'his' garden, and some tenants have moved out because they've found him so difficult. He also subscribes to every major porn mag going, and sits in his garage 'reading' them. And THEN he offers his second-hand porn to her husband. Right neighbourly!

I know it takes all kinds. He was out in the garden this morning poring carefully over flowers in the sunshine, and he seemed happy. Or at least, not furious.

Star light, star bright

Gorgeous day here. It's good to feel that I'm getting stuff done, whether it's making granola or drafting a short story (and I did both today!).

There were minor issues with the granola: I couldn't get the gas oven to work (I fear gas) so it was grilled to perfection instead. Tasted good to me at least! The short story was trouble-free :)

Night here comes quickly: you have about twenty minutes from dusk to pitch dark. The night lights on the terrace are lit, and the first stars are twinkling.

Heaven.

Yeah but no but yeah but no

So, I explain that I want to apply for a residency permit, and am told:

• We don't do that anymore for EU citizens.
• We do them for EU citizens, but the system is down.
• You can come back in September, or go to your municipal office.
• When I ask for the name of the municipal office, she hesitates before writing it out. It turns out I may not be able to go there: the local office used to accept applications, but now there's supposed to be a meeting between them and Head Office, and she's not sure. The meeting date hasn't been set.

When I ask about deadlines or the process in general, she's remarkably laid back, and tells me there's nothing to worry about (cue: nervous laughter).

Needless to say the afternoon involved beer in the sunshine.

And in other news: happy birthday to my big brother, who is having a fine time in West Cork today. Have a great evening Sean!

The next big thing

So tomorrow I go to apply for my residency permit. Rumours are that the department is a haven for all things bureaucratic - not an environment where I tend to shine! Set aside the fact that under EU law I have the right to live here, as Madeira seems to pick and choose which EU regulations it decides to enforce (don't get me started on child car seats...).

I'm getting the paperwork ready today: passport, banky things, a credible story as to how I intend to support myself... Apparently I need a medical certificate to say that I don't have 'psychic disturbances' or manifest 'stages of psychic agitation'. Good luck to the doctor who has to sign off on that :)

In other news, we broke 1k hits yesterday: this blog has had 1057 hits since the first week in July (when I put in a counter). Thanks to all who have given support & feedback - I really appreciate it. Now everybody get back to work!

A beautiful sunny day

My sister left oodles of beauty testers for me, and I am currently a smorgasbord of Dermalogica, Kerastase and l'Occitane products. Man I smell good!!

I'm trying to get some paperwork and ordinary things sorted out, but frankly the view is just distracting.

It's a hard life.

The Day After

The wigwam is dismantled, paddling pool deflated, toys put away until another time. Orchid bulbs that the kidlets carefully planted upside down have been restored. The art is back within reach, candles lit once more. I've put away the Van the Man CD that we danced to yesterday, which exhausted everyone for naptime.

"And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter and the sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed."

I wonder how much all of us - adults and children - will have changed the next time we meet.

Guest Blog - Mike

Mike here, Orlaith's brother-in-law, losing my blogvirginity ... positively casting it away in wanton fashion. We're really enjoying our Madeiran odyssey (exaggeration? No, everything's an odyssey when you have year-old twins - just spent 100 minutes trying to persuade Molly to have her morning nap). Orlaith is the perfect host (ess? discuss obsolescence of gender specificity in such terms ... another time), she has helped us out so much and made this holiday feasible. Madeira is very impressive, I can really understand why Orlaith would decide to move here ......

Then 4 days passed, lost in TwinTime, which is quite like a Black Hole ... the physics is a bit complex, I'll spare you.

It's now approaching sundown on our last evening in Madeira (for this trip), and it's a little sad. We had a little party this afternoon, thanks Orls, and soon we'll be heading back to the hotel and trying to get everyone a few hours sleep before we arise at 4.30 a.m. to be picked up for our flight. Before I became a father, I would have considered 4.30 as a ludicrously early hour to rise. Now, the thought that occurs is: "Wouldn't it be great if we all slept through to 4.30? Lie-in!"

We've had a great time in Madeira, done some wonderful things - I think we'll look back on this trip as a remarkable (and slightly insane) achievement.

Until the next time ....

Don't Cry For Me...

This evening was a 'sisters' evening, for Tara and myself to go out for a bevvie or three. We ended up in the swanky Miramar hotel, which has not one but two cocktail bars, as it turns out. It also has lounge music. And if anything is inclined to reduce us to fits of giggles, it's a portuguese lounge singer blasting out torch songs from 'Evita'.

Tara tried to take photos of Torch Lady's shoes for the blog, but the pianist thought that she was checking him out, and it kind of went wrong from there.

Well we weren't barred, and that's the main thing :)

The High Point

This is Pico do Arieiro, the highest point on Madeira. My oh my but the air is thin up there - I felt like a very unfit ninety-year-old.

As I looked down on blankets of cotton-wool cloud, higher banks of cloud rolled over the mountain top, obliterating the paths. All you can do is stay very still and wait for it to pass.

It's the same view that you get from a plane, except you're standing on the ground. Standing, and maybe wheezing a bit.

At the peak

This morning we set out for a tour of the East of the island, including its highest peak (something like 1800 m). Unfortunately I left my camera over in the Savoy this evening, so no pictures of the trip until later this week.

Instead, let me say that my sister is unable to get trashed on the island. Today we split two bottles of red wine and numerous beers (including some poolside, which normally do the trick), and she still wasn't sozzled.

I should mention that in Dublin one glass of shiraz has her giggling like a schoolgirl. She's adorable...

Monday Monday...

Today we went to see a bunch of museums, none of which were open on Mondays. We did manage to get into the Santa Clara Nunnery, where people seemed to think that Jack was a latter-day Baby Jesus and Molly was some kind of prophet. People came over to us throughout the tour and marvelled over the children in Portuguese and French. In fact, the tour guide kept Molly with her for most of our visit. The great part was that everyone helped us to carry kids and buggies up and down the sixteenth-century monastic house.

It's a fabulous place, with painted ceilings, a beautiful Black Madonna, and plenty of original 16th-17th century tiles. Like everything else on the island, the history involves marauding pirates (are there any other kind?).

Apart from the pirates, it's amazing that the house and its artefacts have managed to survive: in 1974 Madeira was the poorest part of the European Union. They're underway with restoration work at the moment - in a few years it'll be fascinating to see the art and architecture restored and get a better sense of 'life in the day...'

Aunty's Work

I did some babysitting today. Jack was a little angel: he looked cute for a while then went to bed promptly.

Molly decided to hang out for a while.

I figure she's gonna be fun when she's a bit older!

Up up and away!

Yesterday we went to Monte Gardens. While you can get there by bus, it's more fun by cable car.

The gardens are one of the gems of the island, and have a spectacular view over Funchal. There's a gorgeous japanese section with loads of koi, orchids, cycads, little cobbled grottos, lake with swans, the tallest vase in the world (Guinness said so), and Madeira wine to taste along the way.

Now, the gardens are set into the mountain, and so feature a whole bunch of uphill paths. If you're one year old and being pushed around, you tend to find this exhilarating! For the adults it's a little more strenuous...

A great day!

Guest blogger

hi there

tara here... actually here in Madeira. We're having a wonderful holiday. The place is fantastic ... and Orlaith's apartment is gorgeous, really bright, spacious and with a breath-taking view of the sea.

The holiday is going very well - the kids are very happy. Getting used to eating alot of different foods, and saying hello to alot of new people. The Savoy Hotel is lovely, but with access to the Savoy Resort (new plush hotel), you kind of feel like a second class citizen. They even took our towels away on Tuesday because they were the wrong colour! I nearly killed the pool guy.

So, one slight issue with the island is the, ahem, inclines. I guess i figured that given the island is, oh I dont know, an island, that there has got to be a significant area of the developed part of the island that is SEA LEVEL. And when I say level, I mean not enormous bleedin' mountains from one restaurant to another.

What's really galling is that the locals hop and skip along overtaking you as you sweat buckets, and they are the octogenarians! It is fairly humbling to say the least.

But we are loving it ... and its great to see Orlaith and her new life.

Go West!

Having caught up on some sleep, we spent yesterday touring the left half of the island, from the highest sea cliff in Yurp through lush green interiors to the breathtaking north coast.

When the island was first discovered the forests were so dense that the portuguese spent seven years burning out spaces to build on. The only remaining original forest is now a national park on the north coast - it's filled with laurel trees, and has a fabulous enchanted forest atmosphere. It's the kind of place you'd expect to catch glimpses of dryads, or see Aslan strolling through one of the picnic areas. Well, I'd expect to anyway...

The weather changed as quickly as the geography: at one point it felt really overcast until we drove up through the clouds and came to a sun-flooded plateau above. That bit was like something out of Tarzan :)

It's fair to say the visitors are having a good time!

Visitors

My sister is here for two weeks with her husband and their one-year-old twins. They're luxuriating in the swanky Savoy Hotel. We've spent the last few days on basic orientation, so we're just getting into the swing of things.

The kids didn't sleep much last night, and everyone was tired today. Molly pulled it together and was adorable pretty much throughout the day.

Jack, on the other hand, did this a lot:



And then at the dimming of the day, he smiled his cherubic dazzling smile, and all losses were restored. Ya gotta love 'em!

Back on the air!

Everything is unpacked. Feels like home! It would be a bonus if I never needed to flatpack another cardboard box in my life.

Thanks to the faaaamily, I have a beautiful spanky new laptop and digital camera. All is well with the world!

Blogger is a bit twitchy tonight and won't upload photos, so they'll be coming soon. And now to rest...

Fisssshies

After unpacking for what feels like the last ten years, I finally got to my snorkelling gear yesterday morning. Then I promptly abandoned unpacking.

The nearest bathing place is right on the edge of the protected sea reservation, so you can snorkel right over. I´m sure someone has gone to the trouble of giving each fish long latin names, but for me the local sea life includes: ´cool black fish with electric blue stripes´, ´citrus-inis´, ´big salmoney-types´, ´the teeny tiny glitter brigade´, ´grey sea-koi´, and ´Old Patches Mahony, the gold and purple fellah who hangs out by the old anchor line´.

It was great. The dolphins weren´t in, so that´ll be an adventure for another day.

I´m nearly finished unpacking. Then comes the task of allocating a place for everything and everything in itsnooozzzzzzzzzzzze

Popcorn for Breakfast :)

Oh happy day!!

So yesterday afternoon three guys brought two massive wooden crates containing 60 boxes of my gear. Their first move was to ask me if I had a hammer. Er yes, inside one of the crates... lack of foresight alert.

Anyhoo, so I ask the nice neighbours (not the German porn man - that´s another blog entry). They produce one philips head screwdriver and a pair of pliers. Now, these crates are heavy-duty international shipping crates. We´re not talking about some spindly lemon boxes.

Still, the guys spend 40 minutes trying to chip away. Meanwhile the nice neighbours have asked another neighbour: she is eager to help, goes to her brother (who has a shop around the corner), and comes back brandishing
...a plunger.

Some slight hitch in communication there.

Finally one of the three comes back with a crowbar - Captain Clever! - and they get to work. All the boxes are numbered and I need to check them off: so nice neighbour #1 stands outside, reads the box and tells the hauler the number in English, hauler comes in to the building chanting the number, which gives me time to find it on my list and decide where it should go. Nice neighbour #2 is inside with me, as the haulers abandon English easily enough and she´s better at her Portuguese numbers than I am. I feel everyone learned a lot.

Unpacked for hours, then curled up on my sofa and fell asleep.

By the way, I heard back from Muppet Movers: they were shocked to hear that my stuff hadn´t arrived. They´re going to look into it and get back to me.