We will both be called gardeners now.

A small hovel in the hills near Corotelo (our second-nearest bar/cafe)

Frantic activity in the streets of Faro

Portugal
We have been here two weeks now in the south of Portugal Helpxing with a expat Brit couple Derek and Pam. Most of the work we have done has been outside communing with nature! Oh a bit more info you say.... Well pruning olive and fig trees and cutting and slashing bramble and blackberry. There have been some choice words spoken as the thorns go right through my gloves. We have been working about 4 hours a day and then most days go for a long walk around the area. I think we know every cafe and bar in a 10 k radius of the house.

This is the real Algave... We are in the hills surrounded by farm and small villages. Gypsies live in a camp down the road and every dog in the neighborhood tells you when someone is walking past. There is of course many Brits here in the Algave but they mainly live on the coast. We have been to the two towns which are nearby Loule and San Bras. Loule is bigger and boasts a very traditional market and San Bras is smaller and quieter. Both have cobbled streets and narrow lanes with very old houses and churches which we have visited.

This week we spent two days in Faro staying in a very old family run hotel aptly named Hotel Dandy... It was so overly decorated in mid50's and 60's decor that you could hardly move for the plastic flowers , ornaments, paintings and carved furniture. All adds to the ambiance....

In two days we are moving on to Lisbon. We are staying with a Portuguese family helping to renovate an apartment with them.

Oh
best night out was Thursday when we visited a traditional Portugese bar and spent many many happy hours drinking red wine and cherry liquor listening to Fado music. I think we have made friends for life. The soccer was on tv later and thank goodness Portugal beat Romania 2 nil! Chin chin.

Ah the joys of EasyJet! It really is a flying zoo. The early check-in time "to allow for on-time departure", the rush to the gate to be first in the queue and hence get a good seat, the wrestling with huge cabin baggage (to avoid paying £20 for hold baggage). The result is that cabin crew spend 20 minutes trying to fit all the cabin baggage into the overhead lockers so that we leave 20 minutes late. I think it was the most unpleasant flight I have experienced and that would include Bongo-Dongo airlines in Burkina Faso. There are just so many holidaying Brits you can put into a single tin.

Arrived at Faro and joined the "other passports" queue. The one man at immigration meant a slow queue which was luckily thinned by many Brits realising that the UK had actually joined the EU and that they could go in the EU passports queue. Despite being pretty sharpish in exiting the plane, we were the last people through immigration that night, even the cleaners had gone home and the baggage carousels stopped. Pam and Derek had almost given up on us ( they had had a couple of HelpX no-shows before).

We went to dinner in Soa Braz de Alportel to a place called Chicken Luis (Luis do Frango) where we had bread, main course, wine and dessert for 10 Euro each (my kinda place). Home to Pam & Derek's house in the village of Gorjoes about 7km from Sao Braz.

England - London

Our friends Linda & Paul at the FAR end of the long walk at Windsor (4.8km from the gates) And well you may ask "where are your jackets?"