Share the Portuguese Love!

I'm currently away on a very long trip to Portugal.   It's particularly lovely being here.   The climate is warm and sunny, and the beaches are to die for.   This is Praia Ribeiro do Cavalo, a lovely wild beach I visited yesterday.  No, it's nowhere near the Algarve, but close to Sesimbra, a fascinating city 40km south of the capital, Lisboa.   This area of Portugal does not seem to attract the droves of British tourists in the same way the Algarve does. 

Having spent so much time at the beach, I've also had a chance to check out the local talent.   

Portuguese men are adorable; they just don't look like English men.  Here is Pedro, a fisherman (apparently) from the village of Fonte da Telha.  He showed me his fishing boat yesterday evening and I spent a good deal of time on my back inspecting his tackle.

 

So I thought for this blog entry that it would be nice to share the love, so I am sending each one of my favourite friends a Portuguese man, especially handpicked and tested by moi.

To Mitzi, ClutterfromtheGutter, I am sending Bruno.  I hope you have lots of fun with him.

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To Miss Scarlet, Wonky-Words, I am sending João.   He wants to teach you gymnastics.

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To Mistress Maddie, A Day with Mistress Borghese, I am sending Filipe.   He is very good with his hands.

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To Jane Hattatt, the Hattatt blog, I am sending Victor... you lucky girl!

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 To 63mago I send you this hunk of a man

   
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To Miss MJ, of the Infomaniac blog, I am sending Rodrigo

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And for Princess of Palais de Steff  I send you Martim, the pool boy.

 

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And for IvyBlack I send Nuno.  

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And, last, but by no means least, to my lawyer, Kathleen in London, I send you Freddie.

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Please note there is no Returns Policy and the package will arrive in 7-10 days (subject to customs clearance) in a plain brown box with no indication of what lies inside.   With regard to the Exchange Policy, there isn't one.   My advice for keeping your Portuguese houseboy would be: do with him what you wish!  My suggestion would be to dress him in a tiny pink posing-pouch and make him dust the top shelf while you lie on the chaise-longue peeling grapes and watching Corrie.

Summer in Portugal

Upon waking from a horrifying, alcohol-induced hallucino-nightmare - in which I had fallen down a rabbit-hole, bumped into a talking rabbit with a pocket-watch, had tea with a table full of hatchet-wielding freaks all with Belladonna's face and escaped from the clutches of the Red Queen - Juan, my handsome Brazilian butler, revived me by sticking his lollipop in my mouth and then explained to me that he had taken me on the private jet to Portugal for a few months' holiday.

Apparently, I had been unconscious for a few days and muttering in my sleep.  Oh well, I did drink the entire drinks cabinet dry!  My liver is now earning a good, long rest under the Portuguese sun.

So we spent gorgeous afternoons on this wonderfully-wild beach on the Troia Peninsula, one hour south of Lisbon, the capital city of Portugal.  It is as gorgeous as it looks: crunchy, white sands; shallow ocean; backed by sand dunes and pine forests, with not a building in sight.

Forget the smelling salts!  My trusty Brazilian butler, Juan, knows too well that
I can be revived from the darkest of depressions by sucking a lollipop.  Must be the sugar.

During our trip to Portugal, we spent time visiting the local area, and one particular site that impressed us was the Romanticist Palácio Nacional da Pena on a hilltop; the palace has a profusion of architectual styles including Neo-Gothic, Neo-Manueline, Neo-Islamic and Neo-Renaissance. 

The eclectic, pastel- red, yellow, orange and ochre of the buildings reminded us of cake decorations, and was stunning in the intense light.  

Lisbon - the second oldest city in Europe, and spread across seven hillsides punctuated by numerous 'miradouros', or viewpoints - is a particularly fascinating city to visit.  The city lives in a Latin fairytale of time-worn manners and traditions, with wooden trams and iron funiculars thundering through its cobbled, almost-Dickensian streets.   Its old neighbourhoods are both gritty and glamorous.  You have the fashionable Baixa, the city's cheerfully decrepit 18th-century downtown, and Alfama, an eighth-century Moorish district and the home of fado, a lifting and haunting opera-style music sung by a lone diva in candle-lit restaurants.  Chiado is a fashion-lover's magnet, with plenty of top-brand clothing shops and great restaurants.

  Portugal’s pastel de nata is a melt-in-the-mouth buttery delight

And here's a shot of Juan, my gorgeous Brazilian butler taking a swim.

So the reason for my three-month absence from the blogosphere is our trip to beautiful Portugal.  I think I've fallen in love with Portugal.  It really is a perfect little country with everything you could want. 

Where have I been for three months?

 
After the Belladonna incident, I felt such inconsolable shame and a crippling social ruin that I turned to the medicine cabinet, also known as the drinks cabinet.  

 

What followed was a ferocious afternoon spent splurging on fishbowls of the most unimaginable and grotesque alcoholic mélanges until pink elephants danced in front of my eyes.   

 

  As much as I love Jasper, my pet goldfish, it was high time he gave up his goldfish bowl and moved to another one so Mummy could make a final fishbowl cocktail of vodka, gin and rum.

Cataplexic after downing a fishbowl of vodka, gin and rum, followed by five Velvet Devil Whiskey Cocktails, three Cherry Brandy Cocktails and fourteen Cuban Mojitos, I hobbled on one leg out into the garden, with a feather boa wrapped around my neck.  The world began to spin and I tripped forward and fell down a rabbit hole... Yes, quite literally, just like Alice!

Glad I hadn't yet soiled my underwear.

The world looked very strange from down there.

Inside the rabbithole it was quite warm and soft.  I edged forward and the earth gave way and I was suddenly falling, very fast, downards.  

When I next opened my eyes, I was lying in a beautiful garden with giant mushrooms for trees and a purple sky.  A white rabbit, the size of a human being, with a pocket watch, hopped by saying "I'm late".  Obviously, not England.

As I turned round, I saw a shocking sight.

 
 Belladonna!

I turned and ran and headed for a castle on the hill.  When I reached the entrance, I ran straight inside to beg for help.  As I collapsed into the banquet hall, an even more bizarre sight presented itself.

It was some bizarre tea party going on, with a green frog, a rabbit with a pocket watch, a talking cat, a mouse with a sword, and, most horrifyingly of all, four Belladonnas, dressed flamboyantly in Elizabethan clothing, sitting at the table.  The Belladonna in the middle, the fattest of them all, was about to pour tea.  The table was laid with the finest china cups and saucers and underfoot were Persian carpets.

And then behind me, there was a creaking noise as a wooden door swung open to reveal a grand hallway of red marble.   At the end, sat what looked like a Queen, with her feet resting on a live pig who was grunting softly.  But the Queen's face was unmistakably Belladonna's.

"Off with her head" shouted Belladonna, gesturing at me.  The walls seemed to close in on me and my last memory is screaming my head off.... 

Some time later, I woke with a stinking hangover.   

The first thing I saw was this.

 I suddenly realised that Juan, my Brazilian butler, was standing over me, completely naked.

"Where am I?  What happened?" I demanded, "Have I fallen through the centre of the Earth and ended up in Narnia?".

"We're on holiday, together" he responded, "in Portugal".

"What? The last I remember was that I was extremely drunk, went out in the garden and fell down a rabbit hole!" I screamed, "Belladonna was there, she was everywhere.  Mad Belladonna's Tea Party!"