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Got back from Portugal last Thursday and intended to start blogging again on Monday ... fat chance with the power-cuts! Currently in one of our 3-hour rota allocations so taking advantage.
Not very easy working from home this week without regular power ... having to continually locate a power source for my laptop ... I’ve not hand-written so much for years!
Holiday started well, but got screwed up at the end of the first week ... walking back from a restaurant talking to my son and son-in-law whilst my daughter and wife were a few yards behind us. Suddenly heard my wife screaming and realised that a local scumbag had stolen her bag ... son and son-in law tried to catch him but to no avail. He obviously had done this before and had his escape route well planned. Bloody typical that my wallet was in the bag, full of cash ... and my credit cards! ... which I had got out that day ... I rarely carry cash but a lot of the local restaurants did not take credit cards. Also my wife lost her purse with all her cash, both our cameras ... and the bloody villa keys!
Some helpful locals called the police for us, and took us to the police station to make a report ... total waste of time as despite their excellent English they decided that we had to come back in the morning with an official interpreter! They then called an emergency locksmith who took us back to the villa, broke into the villa garden gates and the villa back door, charging us 200 quid for the privilege.
Suffice to say it put a downer on the rest of the holiday and money was at a premium although fortunately I had some backup travellers cheques and my son used his debit card. From what the locksmith told us, this is now a regular occurrence in Vilamoura so be careful ... we also had an intruder in our garden a day or two later who pretended he was a gardener. The people next door told us this is a common thing these days and most villas have experienced problems.
On the plus side we got to see Perry and Karen a couple of times at Floyds, the best Charlton bar in continental Europe! Equally fortunate that on the first visit, it was Karen’s birthday so a good time was had by all.
Provided power cuts are over, will get back to Charlton blogging tomorrow ... all sorts of things appear to be possibly happening ... or not ... over next few days!
Not very easy working from home this week without regular power ... having to continually locate a power source for my laptop ... I’ve not hand-written so much for years!
Holiday started well, but got screwed up at the end of the first week ... walking back from a restaurant talking to my son and son-in-law whilst my daughter and wife were a few yards behind us. Suddenly heard my wife screaming and realised that a local scumbag had stolen her bag ... son and son-in law tried to catch him but to no avail. He obviously had done this before and had his escape route well planned. Bloody typical that my wallet was in the bag, full of cash ... and my credit cards! ... which I had got out that day ... I rarely carry cash but a lot of the local restaurants did not take credit cards. Also my wife lost her purse with all her cash, both our cameras ... and the bloody villa keys!
Some helpful locals called the police for us, and took us to the police station to make a report ... total waste of time as despite their excellent English they decided that we had to come back in the morning with an official interpreter! They then called an emergency locksmith who took us back to the villa, broke into the villa garden gates and the villa back door, charging us 200 quid for the privilege.
Suffice to say it put a downer on the rest of the holiday and money was at a premium although fortunately I had some backup travellers cheques and my son used his debit card. From what the locksmith told us, this is now a regular occurrence in Vilamoura so be careful ... we also had an intruder in our garden a day or two later who pretended he was a gardener. The people next door told us this is a common thing these days and most villas have experienced problems.
On the plus side we got to see Perry and Karen a couple of times at Floyds, the best Charlton bar in continental Europe! Equally fortunate that on the first visit, it was Karen’s birthday so a good time was had by all.
Provided power cuts are over, will get back to Charlton blogging tomorrow ... all sorts of things appear to be possibly happening ... or not ... over next few days!
2 comments:
Welcome back mate. Not sure of you could access the edf website for their rota of when supplies were being restored to various postcodes - it made absolutely no sense at all!
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