It’s 6.45pm and I’m staring out the window a the flags in the breeze. It’s funny how the heat changes your day. Normally I am starving for my dinner by this time but here I can’t think of eating or cooking. (Full disclaimer I had an ice cream at 4.30) It does leave a big gap in the day where I can get things done, like writing or waiting for the goats. That was my job today to wait for the goats to turn up and get photos for the blog. They never turned up. And you can’t really miss them, their bells announce their arrival. I’ve been doing bookkeeping while I wait. The breeze is amazing by the way, exactly what we need as there’s only a sliver of shade.

I saw a graph recently of the times the different nations of Europe eat dinner and I could not understand why the Spanish and Portuguese eat so late (the graph said 9.30 to 10pm.) I understand now. We had been eating at 6 or 7pm but now we are embracing the late dinner. We are also embracing the little siesta. We have not yet embraced the rising with the sun but I am still hopeful.

Soon we turn for home. I mean we start the journey back to Ireland. But which route? West along the Atlantic coast of Portugal? Or east to the Mediterranean coast of Spain? Both have their advantages and disadvantages. One is known and the other is unknown… to us. One is probably cooler (in degrees) than the other but who knows? One has plenty of motorhome stops and the other… might have also.

We are taking the unknown route. Of course we are. We want to see something new, we want to stay open to the possibilities. We are taking a chance and hoping it’ll be alright.

Like the day we drove in to meet our friends in Albufeira and we couldn’t find a parking spot and the stress was high. But of course we did find a parking spot and the stress went away when we sat drinking coffee and reminiscing.

And that lady on the zebra crossing probably didn’t even notice the noise of every dish in the cupboards sliding towards their end when we braked suddenly. Of course she thought it was me because I was sitting on the driver’s side. Maybe one of us should be looking at the road while the other is looking for parking?