I managed to pop into The Hope Café last week and caught up with my friends. Josh handed me a double espresso and I made my way across to Mo, who was looking tanned and relaxed. It transpired she had just had a couple of weeks in Provence in France with one of her daughters.

“Oh!” I said. “My daughter and family are there now, in France I mean; Paris for a couple of nights, Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne and Royan (Note 1) for a week each and then up to the Channel coast near St Malo.” 

“I read your last postcard reporting gossip from here (PC 343) and noticed you added, down at the date, that it was posted on Bastille Day. Why did you add that? You’re not French!”

“Well, that date always makes me think about a sailing adventure. I certainly don’t need to remind you how pivotal the storming of the Bastille Prison in Paris in July 1789 by ‘revolutionaries’ is in French, European and actually global history!”

“Absolutely not, as it led immediately to the revolution and the end of the monarchy.”

“My memory is more recent! In July 1973 I managed to secure a couple of weeks on the Sail Training Association (Note 2) TS Malcolm Miller, a three-masted Staysail Schooner, which offered an introduction to sailing, team work and all that stuff to some 36 young men from under-privileged backgrounds. I was one of three Watch Officers. Let me see, somewhere in my thousands of photos I might have one of the schooner. Ah Yes!

We sailed from Gosport, opposite Portsmouth, and, via St Peter’s Port in Guernsey, arrived on the 13^th July, the day before Bastille Day, in the French town of Douarnenez on the north west tip of France. Our visit was a major attraction for the local population, particularly the young women. I tried to persuade the captain we should stay for the town’s celebrations the following day, but he was unmoved so on Bastille Day we slipped our mooring lines and sailed north west to The Scilly Isles.

After a day or so there we went off to Lundy Island in the Bristol Channel …..

“Where? Lundy? I’ve never heard of it!”

“It’s a very small island off the north Devon coast, northwest of Bideford. Popular with ornithologists, especially those interested in Puffins, and it attracts day trippers from Ilfracombe.

It was given to The Landmark Trust in 1969 by a British billionaire. Anyway, we met up with the Malcolm Miller’s sister ship the Sir Winston Churchill. Looking down from the cliff outside Lundy’s pub, it was a timeless scene, two three-masted ships at anchor. The trip finished in Newport in south Wales.”

The Malcolm Miller’s track

“Lovely memories Richard and I now understand about Bastille Day! Listen, I must dash as I have a dental appointment, but I see Sami’s over there with Lisa.”

“Good to see you. Hope the dentist is gentle!” and I got up and joined Sami and Lisa. She had succeeded in getting an ad hoc agreement with The Argos, the local Brighton & Hove paper, and has submitted a piece about the fire on 24^th July that destroyed fifty per cent of the Royal Albion Hotel here in Brighton, opposite The Palace Pier.

The 208-room hotel was built in 1826 in the Regency Style, popular at the time, and had a 3 star rating. According to those who had stayed there recently, it had seen better days!

Note the sailing painting still in its frame, somewhat untouched!

“That’s great Lisa, I hope it’s the start of a good relationship with The Argus. Now Sami, I imagine you’re up to date about the Post Office scandal but I was moved to write to The Times the other day after Nick Wallis’ piece.

“Why was that?”

“I was mulling over the whole sorry saga again and I thought, have we all missed something? I know the figures are different for you, but to use you as an example, if you had been falsely accused of stealing £10k, ‘falsely’ as in there was no error in your accounts, and charged and ordered to pay the money back – the Post Office is suddenly £10,000 in credit. Multiply this by 736 and you can imagine a conversation between the CFO and the CEO: “We’ve got £7,360,000 in our account that is completely unaccounted for. What should we do?”

“Probably pay out bonuses and keep quiet! But it does beg the question Richard; was the Post Office never audited during this period? How did they explain the huge credits? We will probably never know! Anyway Richard, how are you?”

“Actually very good! But I did get fed up a couple of weeks ago when a friend of over 50 years with whom I had lunch sneered at my addiction to the hot yoga series! Why do people do that? It’s obviously not his bailiwick but I don’t ask in a similarly critical way why he does ‘x’ or ‘y’! Maybe I should? Incidentally I realise it’s your 65^th birthday in October. Are you planning to do anything special?

Lisa gives me a look as if to say ‘I am organising something but it’s a secret and we haven’t discussed it yet!’

“You know me Richard. Not a great party man so maybe a pizza somewhere.” Whereupon Lisa rolls her eyes to heaven!

“I think I’ll have a quiet word with Lisa and see what we can organise – it could of course be just a pizza!! Hey! I promised to pick up something from The Framing Workshop before they close; must dash! See you!”

Richard 18^th August 2023

Estoril, Portugal

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 Royan is at the mouth of the Gironde River; at the river’s southern end is the city of Bordeaux. In early December 1942 six Royal Marine canoes were launched from a submarine off the estuary, for an attack on the Bordeaux docks.  Only two canoes survived to complete the 50 mile paddle but they managed to attach some limpet mines to six ships. Two out of the twelve marines made it back to England, although Operation Frankton was judged a success.

Note 2 Now the Tall Ships Youth Trust, based in Portsmouth

Frogmore Creek at low water

My maternal ancestors, as far back as I have researched, came from villages astride the Devon-Somerset boundary. Matthew Nation, my great-great-great-great-grandfather died in Dulverton, some 25 miles west of Taunton in Somerset and some 75 miles north of Frogmore in Devon, in 1795 aged 47. The following year his eldest son Stephen, aged 16, joined the East India Company as a cadet and sailed for India. (Note 1) Whether Dulverton has changed much in the intervening two hundred years is anyone’s guess, as down here in the West Country life responds to different rhythms to the rest of England.

We had booked an AirBnB, The Granary, in the little hamlet of Frogmore (note 2), east of Kingsbridge, Devon for a week, to spend some time with my daughter and her three boys. Securing it months ago, I guess we all imagined sun-drenched days on sandy beaches, the warm after-glow of sun on skin; a period in late July when time would stand still. This year, however, autumn has come early to the United Kingdom and we managed one day on a small shingle and pebble beach, oddly named Blackpool Sands, just north of Slapton Sands. (see PC 308 From Pillar to Post November 2022)

Blackpool Sands

With a light rain forecast to last all of our first day, we took The Lady Mary, a little 50 pax ferry, from Kingsbridge down the estuary to Salcombe; a great way to both be on the water and also see something of the marine-scape.

What I hadn’t counted on was the cost. Three adults and three children cost £48 – one way! Clearly the wet-weather programme for families on holiday is extremely expensive. 

Salcombe caters for the tourists: lots of shops selling nautical clothing and nick-nacks with a nautical theme, local artists displaying their efforts and the inevitable pizzas, burgers, and pasta food options – oh! and ‘Cornish’ pasties in Devon! Later we took the ferry back to Kingsbridge …. in the rain!

I met The Pophams over 30 years ago and, knowing they had moved, many months ago, to Devon and settled in Buckfastleigh, we got ourselves invited for lunch. So good to be warmly-welcomed and bombarded with chat and chat and lunch ….. and then off to Hembry Wood for an afternoon walk with their two dogs along the River Dart.

moss grows generally on the north side of trees (in the Northern Hemisphere)

The Pophams are an artistic family, with daughter Ellie an aspiring opera singer and Karen a well-established oil painter and member of The South West Academy. The latter has an exhibition at West Brompton Cemetery Chapel, Fulham Road, London SW10 9UG 9^th – 14^th September 2023.

Chris, delightfully a regular reader of my PCs, is embarking on a new career in wood sculpting.

No wet-weather holiday programme would be complete without the visit to a cinema. Kingsbridge’s Kings Cinema has three extremely small and cute theatres and in one screened Pixar’s Elemental: “fire, water, land and air residents live together ….. two discover how much they have in common.” The age-old story – female meets male but they are of the wrong tribe, wrong side of the tracks, wrong social level, race, religion, sexual orientation – but love wins! And this aimed at children!

And with children there’s always a thrill in going to a castle, whether it’s Windsor, Cardiff, Corfe, Edinburgh or even Dartmouth.

Large guns faced seaward as it sits across the mouth of the River Dart, which we had encountered as a smaller river back in Hembry Wood.

I have been to Dartmouth before, when my brother was being commissioned from the Royal Naval College, so was aware that in this part of the world roads are often extremely narrow; everyone is tested in their knowledge of the width of their car but fortunately passing spaces are frequent. We live in the city of Brighton & Hove and adore being here. But cities and towns are not everyone’s cup of tea and I am reminded of the contrasts down here in Devon. Little concrete and glass, few high rise apartment blocks, less hard surfaces and grey; replaced by green in the trees and green in the fields and rolling hills, by cattle and wildlife.

Slapton Sands ahead in the murk!

In Torcross at the southern end of Slapton Sands we stopped for some afternoon tea and another chance for the boys to swim in the cool sea, under grey clouds!

A World War II American Sherman Tank

Parents used to use the expression ‘you’ll get square eyes if you look at television for too long’ before laptops, iPads and the plethora of screens which give us access to so much of modern life. My grandchildrens’ iPad use is normally extremely controlled but on a wet holiday they delighted in trying to alter the shape of their eyes! Aside from the odd card game and the completion of a 1000 word jigsaw, I tried to get one of my grandsons to contribute to this postcard. “Oh! It’s so hard! …… I can’t think! ….. Why can’t I …..? ….. So sorry, my mind’s a blank!”

We left a day early. On the day we should have returned it was again blowing a hooley; 40 – 50 mph winds and torrential rain. Lucy, a yoga chum currently not working because of the Writers Guild of America strike and its knock-on effect here, returned from Cornwall – “The worst drive of my life!”

Frogmore Creek at high water

A last view from the AirBnB across the Frogmore Creek reflecting that these rhythms are timeless: the tide goes out, the water recedes and comes back …… and we inhale and exhale, our breathe goes out. We breathe in ……..

Richard 11^th August 2023

Hove

http://www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 Stephen Nation, then a Brigadier, died of Cholera aged 48 in 1828

Note 2 Not Frogmore Cottage owned by The Crown Estates and recently occupied by Harry & Meghan. 

Not sure why those who attended Dauntsey’s School in Wiltshire were nicknamed ‘Puds’ as it wasn’t in regular use in the school; maybe it was the school itself that earned the moniker? Maybe ‘Puds’ is a nod to puddings, a term for both sweet and savoury dishes, reflecting the nature of the children that passed through the school’s main entrance. Maybe someone will enlighten me?

In 1964 I had hitched with Nigel Bond from Ostend down through Belgium to Luxembourg, then back up the Rhine to Koln, Antwerp and home. Other than that I had never been further than Germany to visit an uncle serving with the British Army in Mönchengladbach, unless you call The Isle of Man overseas?

Few of us growing up in the 1960s thought of taking a Gap Year but the nub of an idea of some adventure after taking our A levels took hold. Eventually the plan to drive across Europe to Greece firmed up and in late July 1965 six of us climbed on board a hard-topped Land Rover, complete with tentage and stores, Gaz bottle and stove.

We were Ray Morrell, Andrew Hamilton, Ian Leigh, Jonathan Appleby, Doug Tester and me. Two of us in the front, four in the rear, with ‘stuff’ piled there and on the roof-rack. If you sat in the back, visibility was limited and this, together with the fact that not everyone drove, meant we soon realised we couldn’t simply drive all day, for hours on end. I think it was on our fourth day, the first of August, when we woke up in our Swiss alpine campsite to find it had snowed overnight.

Our route took us down the Adriatic coast of what was Yugoslavia, formed after World War Two as a federation of six republics, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia. Communist President Tito’s policies allowed some liberal development within a planned economy and he was remarkably successful. (Note 1) Leaving the coast to go around Albania, we drove into northern Greece.

Memories of campsites and putting up the tent and cooking and washing up and sleeping and taking down the tent and loading up the Land Rover and  ….. all tend to merge into a general ‘we drove down to Greece and back’. I had never heard the noise of a Cicada before but now of course the sound brings an instant recall of warm Mediterranean evenings, coastal towns like Split and Dubrovnik, driving inland from the Gulf of Kotor up and around isolated Albania, being delayed by a landslip and finally arriving in Greece.

We had taken much longer than we had imagined to get there so stayed only a few days in Thessaloniki before starting our return! There was another reason. Greece in August 1965 was a country of strife and protest. King Constantine had dismissed the Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou and appointed Georgios Athanasiadis-Novas, who was very unpopular. The streets of Greek cities filled with anti-riot police and student demonstrations and eventually he was voted out of office after 21 days. Not a time to be a tourist!

In amongst ‘we drove to Greece and back’ one particular event remains quite vivid for me, as I was driving! We were on our return journey, making our way around the north of Albania, driving through the suburbs of Pristina, now the capital city of Kosovo, when we realised we had taken a wrong turning. We had lots of road maps but the levels of detail varied enormously and mistakes were easy. The side street was potholed and dusty and, as I started to turn left across the street to execute a U-turn, an unseen motorcyclist on a rumpty-tumpty moped clipped the Landrover’s left wing. He skidded across the street and the bike toppled over. Struggling to his feet, he had the presence of mind to pick up the revolver that had fallen from his jacket, before giving us his opinion of my driving skills. Not being a linguist, I could only judge he was very cross! A small crowd gathered, suspicious and unused to foreigners. The local policeman on his pushbike arrived, my details were taken down, all our passports stuffed in his bag and we were told to appear before the judge at a certain place at 9 o’clock the following day.

Pristina didn’t do camp sites in 1965 so we headed out into the countryside, found a suitable sheltered spot to erect the tent, made a roaring fire and, over supper, contemplated what might happen, wondering what Yugoslavian prisons might be like etc. The following morning we appeared before Judge Kadriu. Contrite and full of apology, driving on the other side, confused, so sorry etc ….. and serendipity came to my aid! We had given a lift out of Greece to a South African girl hitch- hiker named Morgan (Note 2) and our judge had learned his English in South Africa. Chat! Chat! Chat! Fined some 2000 dinars (about £10 in 1965) (Note 3) and told to drive more carefully.

Three days later at Trieste we turned left and settled into a Venetian campsite for a couple of days before driving home. On the way back we had an amusing interlude with a Volkswagen Beetle on the motorway between Basle and Koln. We passed them, they passed us and waved, we passed them and waved and then, as they passed again, they passed us some chocolates and we shared some of our biscuits and then they turned off.

We caught the ferry and, once home, went our separate ways, our adult lives starting.

Richard 4^th August 2023

Hove

http://www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

PS We are all still alive. Ray, whose father generously supplied the Land Rover, lives in Toronto, Canada: Andrew is in Surrey, Ian and Doug emigrated to Australia, the former living in Woongarrah, New South Wales, and Doug further down the coast in Sydney; Jonathan lives near Southampton.

Note 1. Typing these names brings back the horrors of the Balkan/Bosnian War that followed his death in 1980 and subsequent violent break-up of Yugoslavia.

Note 2 The only other Morgan I know, apart from the car, is a film titled “Morgan – A Suitable Case for Treatment”  (1966)

Note 3 £10 may seem a trifling amount but my first month’s pay when I joined the Royal Military Academy as an Officer Cadet in September 1965 was £65.

We drift in and out of consciousness following some surgical operation or physical assault, or overindulging with alcohol or drugs, drift off to sleep and sometimes feel our lives just …… drift!

Shopping, I know what I want and where I am going to buy it; quite focused and engaged. In the crowded North Laines of Brighton I get frustrated by those ambulating, strolling, drifting even. Occasionally I hear my inner voice: ‘Hey! Slow down! It’s probably quicker if you just go with the flow; you will certainly be less stressed, able to observe more!’ for there is much to see in these busy streets and quirky shops.

Got me thinking about drifting …….. and the first thought that came to my mind, well actually the second as the first was the chorus of the song Drift Away, was about Continental Drift. The continents we know today drifted from where they had first formed. One particularly well known aspect is that what we now know as the South American Continent fitted neatly into the African Continent; you can imagine Recife in Brazil nestling up to Lagos in Nigeria, before the latter drifted away. Another fact is that the Himalayan mountain range and Tibetan plateau have formed as a result of the collision between the Indian Plate and Eurasian Plate; the first impact started some 50 million years ago and that movement continues today.

My first offshore sailing trip was on the west coast of Scotland, on an engineless 30ft yacht called Jutta. There was very little wind over the week and we drifted …… although at some point tried to make progress towards the harbour of Tarbert Loch Fyne by either pulling the yacht with an inflatable or by getting a tow; the latter was more successful.

Many years later skippering a 42ft yacht from Kiel to Olso, on the return leg near Copenhagen we had no wind and drifted for an hour or two, before accepting a tow into the nearest marina. Always difficult judging when to let the tow rope go as you needed enough forward momentum to get to a berth! In the same part of the world, I remember Billy standing on the foredeck of a yacht in a race from Kiel to Eckernförde and lighting a cigarette to see if the smoke would indicate any puff of wind as we drifted!  Incidentally Eckernförde had some of the best smoked eels in the world.

Drifting is so often associated with danger in a sailing sense, drifting towards a lee shore or towards rocks, but Eva Fosbery, the seventeen year old who was to become my great grandmother, recalls something else. Following the grounding of the barque The Queen Bee in August 1877 on Farewell Spit in the north of South Island New Zealand (see PCs 152 & 154), she wrote: “I think the Captain wanted us and the others in the lifeboat to stay together, but no sooner had we got on board the crew cast off and we drifted away; we should have had the Chief Officer and some food and water with us! I could hear the Captain yelling for us to come back but the crew seemed resolute in their actions. I was told later that those left on board constructed a raft but we lost sight of the Queen Bee after about seven hours so at the time imagined we were on our own.”

‘…. drifted away;’ – but they were all saved from beaches in the Marlborough Sounds two days later.

Elmslie’s Beach

Dobbie Gray wrote about losing himself in the music in his Drift Away (1973) with its chorus:

“Oh! Give me the beat, boys, and free my soul

I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away ….”

As I drifted off to sleep the other night, I had another memory, of The Drifters, an ‘American doo-wop (Note 1) and R&B/soul vocal group’, formed in 1953. ‘Who?’ you might cry! Well, surely you’ve heard the songs “Save The Last Dance For Me” (1962) and “Under The Boardwalk” (1964)? Maybe not!

Away from the world of lyrics this is a simple illustration of a drift net, used for catching, herrings, mackerel and pilchards:

Mona Storkaas, a Norwegian ceramicist, found fame attaching her pieces to driftwood she collected on the seashore. This one from 1986 :

In the mining of ore, a drift is a horizontal shaft that follows the vein. Phosphorus flares suspending by a little parachute will drift to earth. Clouds drift across the face of the moon, leaves from trees and shrubs drift into piles in the corner of your garden and snow drifts and makes driving extremely difficult if not impossible:

I have driven hundreds of thousands of miles in my lifetime but I don’t think I ever needed to, or felt inclined to ‘drift’. Drifting is a driving technique where the driver intentionally oversteers, with loss of traction, while maintaining control and driving the car through the entirety of a corner. James Hodges, a bit of a petrol-head, tried to teach me the technique but he’s no longer here so can’t comment on my ability!

There was a certain repetition to Army life in Germany in the 1970s; individual training kicked off in January, sub-unit training followed, then exercises at regimental and divisional level across on the North German plains in September and October. Repetition can be boring and after three years I felt my career was drifting, no longer driven, my life in neutral, so I found more excitement in sailing in The Baltic – although sometimes we drifted even there!  

If you catch my drift? (note 2)

Richard 28^th July 2023

Frogmore, Devon

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

PS If you read PC 342 about relationships and my new-found abbreviation IRL, I noticed that an R&B singer called Mahalia has named her latest album IRL

Note 1 Not sure I have come across this interesting description before – ‘doo-wop’!

Note 2 First used by Shakespeare in the C16th when drift meant a stream of thought or meaning.

Sufficient time has passed since Celina’s sister Ana Luiza died that I feel I can revisit my thoughts from seven months ago. It was on a wet Monday early in December last year I found myself ‘in support and under command for movement’ (Note 1) of my wife Celina. In short, the previous week Ana Luiza had gone into the local hospital’s ICU after suffering a blockage to her respiratory tract, which resulted in oxygen deprivation. She did not recover.

I find it hard to accept that the funeral was planned so quickly, brought up to believe the importance of a time interval, to come to terms with a death and to allow those at a distance to attend if possible. It feels unseemly to bury someone within a day or so, in haste almost, although this is very common in so many faiths across the world. The contra view: “Let’s get this over with, then we can grieve and reflect.”

The family gathered at the Centro Funerário de Cascais in the suburb of Alcabideche, Portugal, around 1000, to sit with her body and to accept the condolences of friends and those who had cared for her at Quintaessencia, (note 2) a day and residential home in Abrunheira that  “ …. promoted the greatest possible autonomy for the residents, stimulating their development and valuing their abilities, in a safe environment.”

I recognised Miguel Mata Pereira who had been the Clinical Director but was now pursuing his PhD in Educational Psychology. I remember visiting before Ana Luiza had moved from Rio, being given a tour of their wonderful facilities. “You allow the residents to smoke?” I asked seeing a resident come out and light a cigarette. “Why not? We must treat them as adults with their own free will. And if they form romantic attachments with others, so be it!” It was a refreshing attitude of someone caring for vulnerable people; the easy answer was ‘control’!

A few years ago Celina’s brother had taken advantage of Portugal’s hugely successful ‘Investment Residency Visa’ policy. (Note 3) The international nature of his children’s school is reflected in some of the other parents who had come to pay their respects, a Brazilian/Swiss property developer and his Brazilian wife and a South African and his Mexican partner.

In keeping with the Catholic tradition, Celina’s sister’s body lay in an open casket, surrounded by flowers, a posy wrapped by her hands; she looked very peaceful. I am not a fan of this open display, preferring my memories to be of the living and not possibly replaced by that of the dead. But while I type this, the latter is all I see! Around midday a priest arrived to conduct a short service around the coffin. Naturally it was in Portuguese and I had no real idea what was said, although I recognised the Lord’s Prayer with its familiar lilt; others mumbled the automatic responses to the priest’s petitions. The family were offered a little communion wafer but oddly no wine. After the priest left I sensed the atmosphere was slightly lighter and memories surfaced; for example, how Ana Luiza had claimed to be married to her fitness instructor Leno and had two children! Everyone agreed she had had a very fertile imagination!

In another of the crematorium’s areas, the gathering was all over in three hours. I glanced through the huge glass entrance wall, envious at those leaving, but I was ‘in support’ so had to remain. Time has no meaning for those who grieve, for those whose heart has broken; the moment to say goodbye should never come but it does, just like a train departing, or the moment an examination ends, or when the curtains close after a stage show or the conductor’s baton is allowed its final flourish to bring the orchestra’s performance to a close.

The falling drizzle matched the human expressions of grief, completely natural and beneficial. Those who had looked after her in Quintaessencia had come to say goodbye, that bond between the carer and the cared-for very evident. Isabella, who did the midnight to midday shift because it suited her, says she was extremely popular; Andre, who was inconsolable at Ana’s death, was just that, inconsolable. I recognise the same issues we have in the Care Sector in the UK, lack of staff. The Spanish sector pays more and many Portuguese move across the border.

The coffin’s lid was finally placed gently over the base: a last look, a last heart-wrench and then the departed truly depart through doors to the crematorium. On the way home, there was silence in the car, everyone’s own immediate thoughts crowding out the external world, whose urgent nature would soon re-impose itself.  

That physical umbilical cord that started life is finally severed forever, although the emotional one has no end.

Her cousin commented: “Ana Luiza was in a way God’s gift – to help us be more loving and caring to others.”

Richard 21^st July 2023

http://www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 The Military has various states of command, for obvious reasons. ‘In Command’ and ‘Under Command’ are well understood but there are others. As a Gunner, we were often ‘In Support’ of some operation, the command element remaining in the Royal Artillery Chain of Command. In a complex operation we might have had to fit in with an overall movement strategy, so could have been ‘In Support and Under Command for Movement’.

Note 2 Translated as ‘the fifth element’

Note 3 There was another visa option for retired individuals, to settle in Portugal and pay no tax for ten years. It was so popular with Finnish pensioners that the Finnish Government complained it was putting the country at a financial disadvantage! (Pensions being sent to Portugal and spent there – as opposed to being spent in Finland)

“Ah! Richard; haven’t seen you for a while. How are you?”

Always good to be greeted personally wherever you go, whether it’s in Gail’s where we buy our San Francisco Sourdough bread, by Dean who runs the ‘Fruit & Veg’ stall at the top of George Street, by Rahmi where I collect my paper-copy newspaper every morning (Note 1) or by those here in The Hope who, after two years, recognise me. It grounds me in my local community.

Josh is already organising my double espresso so I look around to see who’s here: I spot Sami & Lisa, both head down into their mobiles and Mo, sitting by herself. Libby is loading the dishwasher so I naturally ask if she has news of Susie. Apparently she’s working in the Queenstown ski chalet until the end of the month and then starts her way north; no news is good news, as they say!

I am surprised to see Sami so walk over. “I thought you two were going to Berlin? That’s what you said last time I saw you.”

Lisa rolls her eyes to heaven. “Well, yes, that was the plan and it was all booked with EasyJet (Note 2). Then 10 days before we were due to fly they cancelled our outbound flight with no alternative. Two days later they offered a flight to Milan, a three hour stopover, then a flight to Berlin. My knowledge of European geography said this was nonsense!”

“So did you get your money back?”

“We had booked through Opodo, an online travel agent. Eventually got all the money back on the hotel but still almost 20% short on the flight costs. They say that some charges are non-refundable, charges such as Online Baggage (£25), Priority Boarding (£18) and Online Seats (£47); ‘It’s in the Ts & Cs’”

“But these are for a flight which didn’t happen! They cancelled it!!”

Sami interrupted: “She’s like a dog with a bone! She won’t give up!” 

“So Berlin’s off the radar?”

“No we’ll try and go in early October but through Heathrow! Now what do you have in your cuttings/ideas file Richard?”

“You read my last PC about relationships ‘in real life’?

“Yes, really enjoyed that ……..”

“I sense I could write postcards about online grooming, online scamming, fantasy worlds and all sorts of things but in my notebook I have this scrap about The Post Office agreeing ‘to revisit scandal victims’ pay-outs’. Not sure what your position is, Sami, but for instance one sub-postmaster accused of stealing £17k was offered £10k!”

“Still in discussions ……!” His face said he was resigned to the way the Post Office is handling it! “Hey! We need to get going as Lisa has an appointment with the Commissioning Editor of The Argus (Note 3) in about 30 minutes, to see whether she can submit local stories here, just as she does up in Derbyshire. See you soon!” ….And with a nod to Josh, they head out the door.

I grab another coffee and go across to Mo. She motions me to sit while she finishes off a WhatsApp message to her mother. Putting her phone down, she asks:

“So Richard. How are we today?”

“Actually really good! Yesterday had a false tooth implanted in my jaw, the culmination of a five month’s process. Tooth out, mouth settles, implant team place the spike in, time for this to settle, time for the implant to be made, and then eventually screwed in place.”

“Let’s see?”

I open my mouth wide, not something I would normally do in a crowded café!

“Top right.” I mumble …..

“Wow! Have no idea which one is not real. Good job!”

“Well it should be! Almost had to take out a mortgage; as it was, it cost an arm and a leg! Changing the subject, did you see that interesting comparative table about the population density of some European countries? The Dutch government has fallen over the issue of the number of immigrants the country was accepting and the article had, inter alia, this little table, showing the number of people per square kilometre.”

“That’s fascinating. And we think we live in a crowded island, yet in the Netherlands they have twice the density!”

“I was reminded of another comparison, that between France and the US State of Colorado. France’s 550k sq kms is twice the size of the state but her population is 67 million (population density 121) and Colorado’s 6 million (population density 21). (Note 4)”  

Mo leans slightly towards me, as if our conversation should be more private!

“Look Richard I’ve been mulling over this as I really can’t make up my mind. You remember in March this year, in the German city of Hamburg, the news that “Seven people, including an unborn baby, have been killed in a shooting at a Jehovah’s Witness hall.” hit the headlines?”

“Yes! Go on”

“Whilst the actual event is tragic enough on its own, I was brought up short by the mathematics! Four men and two women, all German nationals, were killed; so that makes six. In the United Kingdom an unborn baby doesn’t become a separate person with legal rights until they are born and draws breath. Interestingly in the USA, ‘an unborn child is a person within the meaning of the 14^th Amendment to the US Constitution.’, but American CBS News reported only six dead.”

“I see what you mean ……….

Richard 14^th July 2023 (Bastille Day)

Hove

http://www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 My Times’ subscription covers both paper and digital and I find myself more often than not doing Killer Sudoku on my iPad.

Note 2 EasyJet flies from London Gatwick, some 35 minutes’ drive north of Hove. Other airlines that fly to Berlin such as Lufthansa or BA fly from Heathrow, a 2 hour drive.

Note 3 The Argus has been East and West Sussex’s local paper since 1880 and is based in Brighton & Hove.

Note 4 I used to use another comparison I’d heard; that the US State of Montana and France are geographically the same size but Montana’s population is 1 million and France’s 67. Then I looked at the actually figures and Montana is 377k sq kms, so only 70% the size of France!

Four months ago I wrote about the couples who had bared their souls in front of Orla Gurainik, in the television programme Couples Therapy (PC 326  The Hope – Exploring Relationships March 2023) and mentioned particularly Dale and India as two of their issues had intrigued me. One was about generational trauma and Dale’s belief that it was only African Americans who had this, handed down over the decades and still imagining it could be used as an excuse for failings in how he approached his relationship. The modern psychological belief that history leaves deep fingerprints on the psyche of whole populations is well accepted but it’s not exclusive to his group! The other issue: “….. and there has to be a lot of soul/self-searching in order to understand how real life affects your relationship.”Excuse me? What other sort of relationship could you have with another live human being?

I live and learn. Three weeks ago we had a small supper party; interesting group of individuals – budding criminal lawyer, budding writer, budding actress and dance teacher and Julian, who lecturers here in the city about the practical aspects of film production. With a sprinkling of fertiliser, some rain and some warmth, everyone should flower! I mentioned the Couples Therapy programme and my observations and Julian suddenly says:

“You mean IRL.”

“Sorry! What?”

“In real life”

“That’s a common abbreviation? IRL?” Apparently! (Note 1)

‘Real Life’ featured in Trevor Phillips’ essay about his daughter’s 22 year battle with Anorexia. He quotes Sushila who, in a final video, “….. railed against the celebrities and influencers who co-opt the language of mental health to describe feelings that previous generations would have ascribed to the medical condition of ‘being human’ – sadness, misery, loneliness and uncertainty – while simultaneously stoking the fires of teenage self-loathing with airbrushed social media images, expensive dental work and ruthlessly honed physiques.”  She was 36.

When do you think ‘real life’ starts? Before your 10^th birthday you’re encouraged to use your imagination, for instance through reading, through cartoons or through play with others of a similar age. From the Beatrix Potter series, from The Very Hungry Caterpillar (1969) or from The Gruffalo (1999), children are regaled with tales of talking animals, often with a hidden ‘life lesson’, such as over-eating or junk food as is the case of the caterpillar. At some point they learn that animals don’t talk – probably about the time they learn that Santa Claus isn’t real either, although it doesn’t stop their parents putting out a carrot, glass of sherry and a mince pie at Christmas!

Maybe it’s only when you become a teenager do you begin to experience real life, understanding it happens at home, in the class room, in the playground, on the sports field, the interaction both with another human, with other humans and with the voice inside your head. And gradually we learn what works for us, for others and how to adapt and adopt. And we learn that there are some people we instinctively get on with, are drawn to, are comfortable with – and vica versa!

If you need to be reminded how we are subconsciously attracted to others, read the passage in ‘PC 149 Relationships’ about The Institute of Family Therapy exercise called Family Systems. Although there might be an unintentional bias in the students, the results are fascinating; real life!

Humans have always dreamed, have always acted, have often developed an ‘alter ego’ but the internet has offered unparalleled opportunities to expand the simple concept into the personal development of some fantasy figure. It allows individuals to do all sorts of things, some legal and some extremely dubious, all out there in the ether, but not IRL.

Real life is, for some, awful. Experiencing deprivation, hunger, domestic or parental abuse or loneliness, with access to the internet individuals can fly to some fantasy world, created by themselves or by others, and this world becomes their real life. The danger of course is that it creates unrealistic expectations and possibly  opening them up to exploitation. Sadly examples of sexual exploitation through online grooming are far too frequent. And a good friend’s brother, well-educated and outwardly sensible, but lonely, fell for some Russian doll and parted with £25k before realising it was more likely a Nigerian troll!

Gamers dream and act of ruling the world, winning the fight, beating the odds in some fantasy world, although some get so mentally twisted they try and act out their fantasy IRL. Interestingly the Gaming Industry in the UK, in some perverse way, was worth over £7 billion in 2022.

I have never used a dating website such as Grindr, Tinder or Hinge but believe individuals cheat and distort and obfuscate and exaggerate – and IRL it’s a very different story. Sad huh?

When I was at school sex education co-opted the birds and bees as though using the human body was sort of smutty. But now we have the internet and children “risk having a distorted view of sexual issues because of pornography” says Nick Hewlett head of St Dunstan’s College in south London. “We will end up in some future society with a generation that has had sex lessons through an unregulated cyberspace, with a distorted view of healthy sex and the government needs to do something about it.”

Ah! Yes! ‘The Government needs to do something about it!’ Where is the parental responsibility? Why is it that parents seem to think that schools are the only place where these life lessons get taught?

Then we have Cindy Gallop, creator of the video-sharing website ‘Make Love not Porn’ (Note  2) which apparently posts ‘real life’ sex content (that term real life huh!). She says parents should talk to their children about pornography in their first conversations about sex. No more ‘birds and bees’ then?

Have you heard the joke about the chap watching a ‘pornographic sex’ channel? His wife unexpectedly came in with a friend to show her the aspidistra and he hurriedly changed channels. She noticed him engrossed in some fishing programme. “Why don’t you go back to the sex channel? You know how to fish.” 

We don’t chose to be born, but we live in a moment, in a place, at a time. So we make the most of it, sucking everything there is to suck out of life.

 In real life!

Richard 7^th July 2023

Hove

http://www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 Julian recommended Chris Stedman’s book “IRL – Finding Realness, Meaning & Belonging”

Note 2 Fortunately spotted a typo – had written ‘Male’ and not ‘Make’!

Traditionally two stick orderlies led the 1000 officer cadets onto Old College Square at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst for the end-of-term parade. That’s me on the extreme right!

I don’t think I have personally contributed to the rich fabric of our traditions, rather pompous to think I might have done, but the late Queen’s funeral and more recently the new King’s coronation have reminded me just how deep tradition is imbedded into the way we do things in the United Kingdom. Seems a long time ago now when Charlie Wilson and I were ‘Stick Orderlies’ and formed the guard for the Inspecting Officer for the Commandant’s Parade; in fact December 1966! Tradition at Sandhurst dictated everything.

In a constitutional monarchy the coronation of a new sovereign (Note 1) is a hugely important event, a time when tradition dictates so much of what happens and we the public marvel and gawp in equal measure.

Unless you’re involved …… like the current Leader of the House of Commons, Penny Mordaunt, who had to carry the Sword of State, weighing 3.6kgs, for nearly an hour – keeping it upright of course! (Note 2)

Unless you’re involved …..  like Charles who, as King, placed his hands on a bible from the C6th: the Augustine Gospels are regarded as the most precious and important medieval manuscript to survive in England. Then tradition had it he had to be dressed in the colobium sindonis, supertunia and girdle, a sort of solid gold overcoat before being given some spurs, representing bravery and knighthood, the bracelets of sincerity and wisdom, the Sovereign’s orb, the Ring of Kingly Dignity and the rod of Equity and Mercy.

Caitlin Morran of The Times wrote it reminded her of the end of a TV game show called Crackerjack, when kids had to hold an increasing load of prizes and cabbages. I think the ‘Glove of God’, looking remarkably like your average oven glove, was the last straw! No wonder Charles looked rather overwhelmed by the whole occasion.

Unless you are involved ….. like the Archbishop of Canterbury who played an important role, having earlier put his foot in it saying he thought the public should swear ‘allegiance to the new king’ – sort of ‘touch the forelock’? In 2023, I don’t think so!

And each to their own, but I personally find it difficult to believe that the chrism or holy oil used to anoint the king came from God. I would prefer to understand that our upmarket Waitrose had a special offer, or maybe they bought it at the King’s grocer Fortnum & Mason, but I do know it was vegan.

Other snippets of information that intrigued me? The Roman Catholic prelate Vincent Nichols became the first of his office to play a part in a coronation since the Reformation (1517-1555). The Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, reminded the congregation that in 1189, when Jewish leaders came bearing gifts to the coronation of Richard Coeur de Lion (Note 3) they were stripped, flogged and thrown out of the abbey. Fortunately we have a different view in 2023. And you have heard of King’s Troop, Royal Horse Artillery? The ‘king’ in this case was George VI and the troop provides gun carriages for state funerals and uses its 13 pounder guns to fire salutes on State occasions. Apparently, at the moment, all the riders are female, as is the Officer Commanding.

As I dutifully watched the King’s Coronation Concert in the back garden of Windsor Castle, on the Sunday evening of that weekend, I was reminded of the overheard conversation between two American tourists. As a Boeing 747 (so that dates it!) roared overhead on its way to landing at London’s Heathrow airport, one turned to the other and yelled:

“Why did they build the castle so close to the airport?”  (Note 4)

And never one to miss an opportunity to have fun, our rabbit Francisquinha (see PCs 172, 217 & 331) managed to appear above the castle holding on to dozens of drones!

It goes on! Next week, on July 5^th the new King & Queen will be presented with the ‘Honours of Scotland’. The oldest crown jewels in Great Britain, they were first used in the coronation of Mary Queen of Scots in 1543, then in 1707 put away in a chest when Scotland was joined to England in The Union.

The newspaper says they were ‘rediscovered by Sir Walter Scott (and others?) in 1818’. Brief descriptions such as this create incredulous thoughts! What? Stuffed in the attic, in a cellar, in someone’s bothy, these priceless items wrapped in some cloak or blanket. And who told Scott where to look? Ah! History huh!

But at the end of the coronation, seven thousand of the troops who had taken part marched into the grounds of Buckingham Palace and formed up in long ranks on the grass; not easy marching in time on grass. Rifles were laid on the ground, headgear was removed and as the new King and Queen arrived at the rear of the building, the Sergeant Major in charge of the parade gave the order:

 “Three cheers for His Majesty. Hip! Hip!”

 ……… and the sound of thousands of voices shouting ‘Hurray’, three times, reverberated around the grounds, over the roofs of  the palace and down The Mall to Trafalgar Square.

Watching it on television produced a lump in my throat, the slight wetness in the eyes and the thought: “Yes! Wonderful! We do this sort of thing really well. That’s tradition.”

Yes! That’s tradition.

Richard 30^th June 2023

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

PS At a rehearsal for the King’s Official Birthday Trooping the Colour Parade, one of the bandsman succumbed to the heat.

Looks as though, even horizontal, he is still trying to play – probably a flat note!

Note 1 For instance, Victoria in 1838, Edward VII in 1902 (delayed a month because of acute appendicitis), George V (1911); Edward VIII’s was cancelled due to his abdication and his brother George VI was crowned instead in 1936; then Elizabeth II in 1953.

Note 2 The weight of the sword was eased by placing its hilt in a small pocket at the bottom of a sash around her shoulders.

Note 3 Richard 1 (1157 – 1199) also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Aquitaine and Gascony. His statue is outside the Houses of Parliament.

Note 4 The building of Windsor Castle was started by William the Conqueror in 1070 on some high ground overlooking the River Thames. It was completed 16 years later.

My postcards have covered an eclectic range of subjects; you have only to look at the vague synopsis in PC 300 (September 2022) to see I have, for instance, scribbled about travel, about health issues, about sailing, about current news and whatever has peaked my interest. This week’s title was prompted by reading a recent obituary, but let me explain.

If I reach for my dictionary I find: “Serendipity – The occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.” Apparently Britain’s favourite word, it was first coined by English writer Horace Walpole on 1754. (Note 1) He had made an unexpected discovery of a Persian fairy tale of the Three Princes of Serendip, an ancient Persian name for Sri Lanka (formerly also Ceylon), often referred to by Arab traders as ‘Sarandib’.

A little like a water droplet on the tip of the Indian sub-continent

First written down in 1302, the fairy tales of the Three Princes of Serendip are based on the life of the Persian king Bahram V, who ruled the Sassnid Empire between 420 and 440 AD. Briefly, the three sons of King Giaffer are sent abroad to learn more about the real world. They come across signs of a blind, lame camel carrying butter, honey and a woman …. but never actually see the animal. When they report their findings, they are arrested, accused of stealing the camel and taken to Emperor Beramo. Suffice to say the camel is found, the Emperor is impressed by the princes’ sagacity (Note 2) and their powers of observation and appoints them as his advisors. They were always making discoveries by accident and sagacity, of things which they were not looking for …. so we have ‘serendipity’! There’s also a version of the fable of the camel with a blind eye included in the Talmud!

There are many examples of serendipitous discoveries:

Perhaps the most famous is that by Sir Alexander Fleming in 1928 of the antibiotic penicillin. On his return from a holiday, he found a petri dish containing a staphylococcus culture that had been left on his laboratory bench. Peering into it, he noticed it had been infected by a Penicillin mould.

In 1954, on his return from a bird hunting trip (Note 3), the Swiss George de Mestral removed from the outside of his trousers some cockleburs and put them under a microscope. Each burr was covered in tiny hooks. He named the hook-and-loop fastener he subsequently developed Velcro (from the French words ‘velour’ and ‘crochet’).

When you next use your microwave oven, think of its inventor Raytheon scientist Percy Spencer. Fiddling with some radar equipment in 1945, he noticed a chocolate bar in his pocket had been melted by heat-generating microwaves emitted from a magnetron! The laboratory equipment was the size of a house but by 1976 it had been reduced to a viable commercial size.

And another one worthy of mention as serendipitous is the Post It note. A colleague used some of a weak adhesive produced by 3M scientist Spencer Silver to keep temporary bookmarks in place in his church hymnal. It was 1979.

Are you still wondering whose obituary prompted these scribbles? Well, back in March 1963 in New York, Joāo Gilberto, a Brazilian guitarist, singer and composer who was a pioneer of the music genre of bossa nova in the late 1950s, and Stan Getz, the American jazz saxophonist, sat in a recording studio intent on producing an album. One of the songs they planned to record was Garota de Ipanema (the Girl from Ipanema), about a beautiful teenage girl called Heloisa Pinheiro whom the Brazilian pianist Antōnio Carlos Jobim and lyricist Vinicius de Moraes had admired as they sat at the Veloso bar on Rio de Janeiro’s Ipanema Beach.

Ipanema beach on a cloudy day!

Originally written by Moraes in Portuguese the lyrics had been translated into English by Norman Gimbel, who had come up with the wonderful opening lines: “Tall and tanned and young and lovely/the girl from Ipanema goes walking/and when she passes, each one she passes goes, ‘ahhh’”  The album’s producer, Creed Taylor, decided they should record the song with its English lyrics but immediately realised they was a problem; Joāo Gilberto spoke no English and neither did any of the other professional singers in the studio that evening. Creed looked across to the control room and saw Joāo’s wife Astrud. He beckoned her in and asked whether she could sing the lyrics: she volunteered and proceeded to sing “in a dreamily romantic and sensual voice that fitted the song like a glove.”

The single of the song didn’t even have her name on the credits, but the following year,1964, an album entitled ‘Getz/Gilberto’ included a second track of hers and it went on to become a million-seller: ‘Astrud Gilberto made the album a smash hit’. Astrud died on 5^th June 2023 aged 83. Surely a wonderful example of serendipity, the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way,?  

Richard 23^rd June 2023

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 There have recently been accusations that Beatrix Potter ‘stole’ the stories she used to create ‘Peter Rabbit’ from earlier tales known as Brer Rabbit, told by enslaved Africans working on American plantations. I think one thing we can be certain about is that over the centuries stories get retold, translated, adapted and often skewed to suit their new audiences. The story of the Three Princes of Serendip started around 420 ….. only one thousand six hundred and three years ago and not written down for 900 years! You can find the same feature in modern songs, often using tunes familiar to classical music adherents! For example, Leonard Bernstein borrowed a tune from Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto for his song ‘Somewhere’ for the musical West Side Story. Nothing new under the sun!

Note 2 Sagacity. Such a lovely sounding word, one that is rarely used these days, means foresight, discernment or keen perception.

Note 3 I never understanding the fascination people, particularly Europeans, have of blasting little migratory birds out of the sky.

We have stayed in the hotel in Estoril a number of times and have always managed to secure a room with a view over the sea; there are some rooms with an unexceptional view over the roundabout on the land side!! This time we had a room, number 230, right at one end ….. with a connecting door. I wasn’t really sure whether this door would take me to Narnia or whether I should have tried the real wardrobes in the room. Tempting to open it; no doubt faced with a locked door!  Have you ever tried the door already knowing that your friends or colleagues are in room 233 and not next door in 231?

During ‘Covid’ times we had stayed here and been subjected to all sorts of rules and regulations …. ones that we were obviously happy to go along with! One was the lack of a breakfast buffet. I am sure you have stayed in hotels or Bed & Breakfast places where anything you want has been laid out on long tables? Generally they are covered with items like juices, cereals, milks of various types, yoghurts, grilled fish (especially in Norway), hard boiled eggs, all sorts of fruit, ham, cheeses, cold meats, brioche, pain au chocolat, croissant, bread for toasting etc and you watch other guests piling stuff onto their plate, either suggesting they didn’t eat the previous evening, or that they are going to forgo lunch so need to stoke the boiler or that, faced with a lavish spread that they feel they’ve paid for, just need to get their money’s worth. Most are unworried if they have a cough, the snivels, or runny nose and that the odd dribble wouldn’t matter.

Then Covid came along and everyone was recalling that graphic UK government NHS campaign aimed at reducing the spread of influenza, where someone in a crowded lift sneezed and, switching to slow motion for maximum effect, the green coloured vapour spread across the occupants, across the walls and across the handrail – and of course if you put your hand anywhere in a lift, it is on the handrail or on the buttons!

You certainly didn’t want anyone near the breakfast buffet. It disappeared and actually I sort of hoped it was gone forever, as it’s never an example of good food hygiene. But now it’s back and why can’t people put the spoons provided for you to have a dollop of scrambled egg, or slices of bacon or a couple of sausages or a spoonful of tomatoes or a hash brown back properly? It’s as if say ‘I’ve got mine …. and I subconsciously couldn’t care about the others!’  

The scanning of the Dinner menu has stayed as an improvement to a physical one – but I like to leaf backwards and forwards, looking at this potential main and, if I had that. would I have a pudding and, if so, what that might that be or should I have a starter and a main and forgo the sweet offerings and feel good about it but then know that when the time comes my heart will overrule my head and that Tiramisu or Crème Brûlée will just have to be ordered!

Between the hotel and the sea lay the pool.

Diogo, Miguel and Bernardo spent their days walking from the pool bar/café to the customers and back. Every item of food came from the hotel’s main kitchen so there was a 30 minutes delay and it required Diogo, Miguel or Bernardo to go and collect it. Cocktails and drinks were always available. And I get cross: “Another towel? No problem!” “Thank you and would you mind moving the sunbed for me as I am so weak/helpless/entitled and that’s your job anyway?” Simple observations!

Hotel pools are a magnet for guests, some like Mr & Mrs Brown from Huddersfield, both pale and overweight; then there was Giles Davis from Dubai posing by the pool for a selfie or 10, uploading them to his social media accounts and having loud  conversations with distant chums; Mr & Mrs Benson from Atlanta and their offspring, who think they are entitled to do what they want and not a care about the others around the pool; Ms Samantha Boyes, obviously an Influencer (note capital I), and maybe the first time I have consciously seen one of this new breed of human, taking care with her selection of clothes, make-up etc.

The International Fitness Summit took place in Lisbon and some of the attendees were staying at the hotel – the swimming pool their opportunity for selfies and posturing in their speedos, miniscule bikinis and with their obligatory tattoos. Mind you they were nothing like the Russians in Sicily.

In PC 134 (The Largest Mediterranean Island October 2018) I wrote: “Any ‘group’ is bound to dominate a small place but these people had no respect for others, demonstrating a lack of understating of acceptable behaviour; and because there were 8 of them they became a real nuisance. Their second morning they occupied more than 50% of the sun deck (tut! tut!) and plugged their USB into a loudspeaker; there was nothing quiet about this Russian playlist!! One of the men was a real comedian, or so he thought, as after everything he said he screamed with laughter and his chums joined in too; a nightmare if you’re trying to concentrate on a story!! After a couple of hours I asked the pneumatic blonde whether she could turn her loudspeaker off. She turned questioningly to this head of family. He rose up to his full 1.9m height, his belly extending way over his trunks: “Wot? You no like music?”  

Back in Estoril the hotel lies along the shoreline, separated from the sea itself by the Cascais – Lisbon railway and the pedestrian/cyclist promenade (actually this should only be for walking although if you use it as a verb, you can of course drive/cycle/ride/walk providing you are doing whatever you’re doing to be seen by others!)

Monte Estoril station

To get to the promenade you pass the station of Monte Estoril and walk through a pedestrian underpass. The curve of the railway track here is such that as the train departs for end-of-the-line Cascais the wheels create a banshee loud enough to wake any sunbed snoozer!

          I never did open the connecting door.

Richard 16^th June 2023

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk