Perfect Mondays

I feel compelled to write

It was just one of those perfect Mondays.  You don’t get them with your average 9 to 5 but I aint Mr. Average now am I ?

It started almost on schedule at 07.20am, I was up, dressed (well shorts anyway) and out by 07.30 with both groovy boards on the car – destination Arrifana.

I made it in good time, the drive through the twisty roads, pine and eucalyptus forests always inspirational, just as the sun was getting out of bed, sweet tunes pulsing from my quadraphonic in car audio (apparently Natalie Embruglia is torn!!  I really dig her songs, they remind me so much of summer).  I was delayed briefly for a galao in Vila do Bispo but only momentarily .

The call I made of being there from low on the push was a good one, a calm and clean metre and no-one else in sight.  Two dudes beat me to it though, while I was getting the neoprene gimp suit on, they walked past and into my surf – bloody tourists!!

I had 20 minutes of adult fun until, as if by magic ( the shopkeeper appeared – Mr. Ben!) the waves were turned off!! Gutted….I waited a while to see if they would reform as the tide pushed in even further but no such luck.  As a consolation, I was treated to two breast heavy Portuguese beauties donning their swim wear – you really don’t get many of those to the pound, not even in the metric system!!

I left Arrifana reasonably content, the ETR ratio was good, the PSP had been left well behind at home and the PMA was alive.  Next stop – Armado.  Always reliable , and offering something, today would be no disappointment.  Pulled on the gimp suit and jumped into the rip behind the rocks to help spit me out beyond the line up.

Had a couple of decent waves before it got too heavy and steep for a pranche grande !!  Keep stalling the damn thing, can’t quite find the tail when I need to turn – well it is 12’’ further back than I am used to.

It got a bit heavy after that so I sat it out for an hour and a half to see if the dropping tide would work in my favour – as expected, it didn’t.

I decided to head back to Arrifana again to see if the dropping tide had brought back the wave that disappeared too quickly this morning – no joy – flatter than a witches tit!!

Next stop Tonel – that was complete wank !!

I finally decided to call it a day and headed to Vila do Bispo to buy a rather cool BBQ.  Next stop Lidl – and that’s where it all went wrong.

Lidl was invented so that chavs and spastics can shop too!  What a nightmare – I had forgotten just how backward the Algarve can be.  Did you ever see the Victor Meldrew special? One foot in the Algarve – I tell you most of the time it aint far from the truth.

So here’s the deal, I join a queue, only one queue as there is only one cashier open.  The German couple at the head of the queue start loading their stuff.  The porky in front of me abandons her trolley in the line with two dozen bottles of water in it to return to shopping. I push it to one side and move forward, she returns…………..now I tell you, I wasn’t in the mood for practicing my Portuguese and I was ready for a well qualified , old England ‘Fuck Off’ if she was going to say anything……luckily for her, she kept quiet but did return to the queue behind me.  The queue now had grown to half the shops length – still only one check out open.

The German dude tries to pay with his credit card – no joy, Portuguese cards only, he tries another and then has to go to his car to get the PIN number.  The card reader then declines the card because he entered the wrong PIN.  He tries to explain that it must be the other number he has stored in the phone but the multibanco won’t give him another go – off he goes to get cash!  Finally , another check out was opened – only because the shop wasn’t long enough for the one queue they already had.

I get to the car park and start loading my car.  I see water ladies trolley abandoned again in the car park, with just water in it.  Turns out she had pushed it to the first row of cars and then decided to walk it to her own car in the next row – RETARD!!!

I forgot beer, so I head to the Alisuper in Raposeira, grab a 12 pack and then head to Roddies for a quick Imperial – had a quick chat with Pedro the builder and then home to fire up the BBQ.

The BBQ has a grill and above that a fish rack for grilling I guess sardines.  The porkies love ‘em – they are to sardines as Adolf Hitler was to Jews!!  I didn’t have any fish so loaded three monster pieces of chicken into the rack instead.  When things really got cooking I noticed the fumes that were burning off from the glossy black paint – all over my lovely tender chicken.  I doubt that they have health and safety regulations here that cover the use of toxic paint on cooking equipment so I will forfeit the chicken.  I will feed it to the neighbours cat, if the little fucker is still alive in the morning, I will know I wasted the chicken.  I hate that damn cat!!

So finally, I am fed, beer’d and content with the days activities.

Marple returns on Wednesday – that chick sure looks hot in a pair of wellies, next time she has them on , I promise to capture the moment – ah, Kodak

Authors footnote – I love these but I do often wonder how many of you read them.  You may have guessed that this entry was written under the influence of three beers.  So let me add, the German dudes wife looked incredibly like Fat Pat.  So much so that I did a double take with a bit of a stare – and she caught me – at least she smiled and I wasn’t drooling at the same time.  I did also overhear a girl talking in Lidl, an American accent.  I can’t tell you how tight my ass checks clenched when I heard it, memories of my one and only American girlfriend experience, combined with boat chicks – never again…..  I would also like to say hello to Max, who surprised me with a comment on my last passage only one day after I entered it – hurrah to Max!  And finally, the last comment of a rather large entry goes to Gary Lineke (name changed to protect the innocent)  Not only has she still not claimed her prize of a free BMW but now I think she is loved up with some American dude – you too will learn a valuable lesson!!!  Oh I almost forgot, ETR Ratio = Effort to reward ratio, PSP = pre surf poo and PMA = positive mental attitude….