Weather!

The view from our sitting room window is not supposed to look like this in August:-

As I type this, it's now dark and the rain is lashing down and the wind howling round the house. The culprit is the very deep depression right-most on the satellite picture below from the excellent Portuguese Meteorological Institute website (choose "Oceano Atlantico" from the drop-down where it says "Seleccione Área" on the right) which is sitting right on top of the Grupo Occidental (i.e. Flores and Corvo)

Note the three (as yet) smaller depressions out to the west following in its wake.

For those of you who prefer pictorial smiley sun type weather depictions, I can tell you Carol's website of choice is long on big frowning black clouds, zig-zaggy lightening bolts and umbrellas blown inside-out and short on smiley suns for the next few days. 

Is that the sound of hatches being battened down I hear? No - it's a hatch blowing down the street. 

FG on the TV #2

Well we weren't betrayed by EDA this time but by RTP Açores themselves because one page on their website said it was on at 20.45 while another said it was 20.40. I therefore took the precaution of turning on at 20.37 and the programme was already on - Gah!

I think it may be possible to watch it online at some point in the near future via this link which seems to carry the first 19 of the 35 villages in the Azores with less than 500 people. Hopefully, they'll update that soon to carry the remaining 16 including all those on Flores (and Corvo).

It's Fajãzinha tonight. The RTP-A website is being pretty consistent across all pages in saying it's 20.45 but after last night's performance, I shall be taking the precaution of setting the vid to run from 20.25. And if the power doesn't go off at 20.26, then there will probably be another cloudburst which will make the satellite dish go all wonky - there was one of these earlier: they frequently happen in the middle of Holby City which is the BBC's answer to Dr Kildare. Carol watches it, I don't.

Anyway, for those who won't be seeing Fajãzinha on the tellybox later (myself included possibly), here's a library picture of it as they say:-

FG on the TV

Oh dear, an awful long time since I wrote anything on here, in fact since the power cut in the middle of the World Cup Final.

Well my psychic vibes tell me the next power cut (for there hasn't been one since) will be at 20.45 on Monday 23 August because that's when there's a 25 minute programme about Faja Grande on RTP Açores (so don't get too excited as anyone who doesn't live in the Azores won't get to see it.)

Anyway, as part of the celebrations for RTP Açores (which is to the Azores what BBC Scotland is to Scotland) being 35 years old, they're doing a series about the 35 villages in the Azores with fewer than 500 inhabitants.

I wonder which 40 villages they'll celebrate for the 40th anniversary? Or the 45 for the 45th? You probably have to be less than 10 years old and have a gift for geometric progressions verging on the autistic to work that out. Indeed you probably haven't born yet and RTP Açores' plans are on hold pro tem.

But I digress. The TV cameras were here on Wednesday. José Teodosio and his team from the junta laid on a nice display in the village square and the tuna played. Tuna is Portuguese for a string band (which doesn't translate at all well into English)

There was only one slight unpleasantness to mar the general bonhomie - a group of film-makers were innocently going about their business when a traditional basket weaver invaded their space with a traditional basket in the making in a quite unnecessarily intrusive fashion ...

Quite deplorable sort of behaviour and a symptom of the times we live in I'm afraid to say. It didn't spoil the kids' fun though ...

RTP Açores, Monday, 8.45pm, - you'll know when it's on because the lights will go off.

Electricidade dos Açores

The image above is plucked from the website of EDA, Electricidade dos Açores, our electricity supplier. It depicts a contented young couple about to switch on a TV set powered by electricity delivered to the socket by EDA. He is saying "Oh, Maria do Carmo, aren't we lucky to have our electricity supplied by EDA! It means we can watch the final of the World Cup!" And she is saying "Yes, José Manuel, it's a bit of a stroke that they deliver electricity so beautifully because we've no choice but to get it from EDA!"

Yes, well such scenes of blissful contentment might have been typical on other Azorean islands yesterday evening but not on Flores where there was a POWER CUT in the 115th minute of the final. Yes, that's right, the winning goal was scored in the 116th minute. But those heroes at EDA redeemed themselves by restoring the juice in the 123rd minute - right again: the game lasted 122 minutes.

I blame the ref.

 

Power cuts are quite frequent here (about once a month) but they seldom last long (about 10-15 minutes although what they make up for in brevity is often lost in terms of unfortunate timing as witness last night). For those interested (did I just say that?), Flores' electricity is generated by a hydro-electric power station ...

(With apologies to Paul Camilli)

... and when the water runs low, an oil fired generator comes on line ...

 

(With apologies to Isabel & Colin Sharp)

And to back all that up, there are two windmills ...

A new thermic (whatever that means) power station is in the course of being built near Lajes. Can't come soon enough. Let's hope it's fully in commission by the time Euro 2012 kicks off.

Cremoso & Suave

There are two things we do here which we didn't do when we lived in Edinburgh which are (a) eat puddings; and (b) watch Eastenders.

Puddings first: it started with the World Cup. For important games (which we deemed to be England and Portugal games then, once they'd been put out, well, every game), Carol has a Magnum ice lolly and I have a packet of football crisps - that's a big packet of Lays' Ready Salted. (Don't concern yourself because on the back of every packet of Lays' crisps there's a guide to healthy eating which explains how big packets of Lays' crisps can be a vital part of that. So my - and Lays' - conscience is quite clear.)

But that's the wafer thin mint end of the pudding wedge from which it's a short step to Creme Caramel which in Portuguese is called Pudim Flan

Pudim is simply the Portuguese for pudding and it's pronounced "pudeem". The plural is pudins which is pronounced "pudeengsh" and which I just like saying. (I also just like saying "Bastian Schweinsteiger", "Duke of Medina-Sidonio" (admiral of the Spanish Armada) and "flash grill").

So having developed a nasty little recreational pudim flan habit, I realised I must be pretty far down the road to perdition when I 'fessed up to Carol that I'd been glancing in the freezer at Arlindo's supermercado in Fazenda to see if he stocked Carte d'Or vanilla flavour. He didn't. He had every other flavour of Carte d'Or ice cream (including pecan pie whatever that is - sounds quite revolting) but not vanilla which is the only acceptable flavour of ice cream. So there was nothing for it but to slum it with plain Ola Original vanilla.

It's also a jolly sight cheaper than Carte d'Or and Carol worked out that you can get about a cubic metre of it for the price of a Magnum which, all in all, makes Ola Original my kind of pudim.

There's a minor logistic issue about how you transport a small iceshelf of ice cream from Fazenda to Faja Grande in a vehicle which this time last year was acting as a mobile tomato sun drier (drive quickly) but what I find most risible about Ola Original is the slogan on the tub Cremoso & Suave. It's simply the Portuguese for "creamy and smoothe", of course, but to (British) English speakers, cremoso connotes shaving foam and Peter Wyngarde was "suave"

Nice with caramel sauce, though (Ola Original vanilla ice cream, not Peter Wyngarde)

 

We ate this while watching Eastenders tonight. We get Eastenders about 4-5 weeks late (i.e. the Christmas cliffhanger is always in early February). Where we're at is that Samantha and Ronnie's mother (Makepeace out of Dempsey & Makepeace) has wangled her way in and I think they're bringing her in to replace Peggy Windsor who's getting written out. Lucas seems to be murdering prostitutes but my attention may have wandered by then ... 

                                          

Cremoso out of Cremoso & Suave

Meldrew Moment

In the 1990s the BBC ran a very successful sitcom called "One Foot in the Grave" about the trials and tribulations of a grumpy pensioner called Victor Meldrew (who was Scottish for some reason although it was set in the middlest of middle England). Victor's catchphrase when something disastrous - like having a Citroen 2CV dumped in the skip he'd hired - happened was "I don't BELIEVE it!"



Well I had a "Meldrew Moment" today. Let me explain.

When we came to live in Portugal four years ago, the rate of exchange between the Pound Sterling and the Euro was about 1.45 Euros per Pound. This is important as a large percentage of our income continues to be in sterling and has to be periodically converted into Euros for frittering away on Flores on such extravagances as bread, electricity etc.

Come the recession in 2008, the pound slumped and for the best part of the last two years has been bobbing around the 1.05-1.10€/£ mark. Now I never try and "play the market" and I only move £ into € when we need to on the basis that you will inevitably win some and lose some. Except inevitably, I always seem to lose more than I win and if you want to know the dates on which I have moved £ over to € recently, then all you need to do is look at a graph of £/€ performance and pick the low points.

Last time was on 20 May - see what I mean?

Anyway, recently, the pound has been rising a bit towards the giddy heights of 1.20€ and yesterday even got to 1.21€. So I decided to break my normal rule and move some £ over into € even though we didn't need to, this on the basis that I just couldn't imagine the pound getting any higher given its recent performance.

And what happened today? That's right - it moved higher to €1.22!

"I don't BELIEVE it!"

 Still, Italy getting slung out the World Cup was a consolation. (Mustn't be too hubristic (Ooh! "hubristic"! Suits you, sir! Ooh!) as Portugal need to be careful not to be gubbed by too many goals by Brazil tomorrow to be sure of going through.)

Azulejos

In haste at half time between Germany and Australia, one of the biggest talking points of Dois Mil e Dez so far has been the vuluv ..., vezuluj ..., veluve ..., vevulejas ...?

I'm not joking, I just cannot my tongue round the word for these horns Africans blow at football matches which, when you're watching the games on the tellybox, sound like you've got a bluebottle buzzing in the window and everyone (except Africans and the manufacturers of vuzulu-whatsnames, presumably) is complaining about.

The only word anywhere near it I can bring to mind is azulejo which is the Portuguese word for a ceramic wall tile.

It's vevuzulu ... no, veluzeja. Definitely vulu-something ...