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Neighbors: Insight into Extended Family Life in Portugal

One of the unexpected delights of our move to this house has been getting to know our neighbors – they live over the field to the right of the house – they are the parents of our landlord and the lady of the house supplies our bread – and our pizza dough, and tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, apples, lettuce, onions, garlic, mushrooms and anything else we have use for.

To say they are farmers is to underrate their innate ability to work with the land and belittles the considerable skills and talents they possess throughout the whole family.

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The Hidden Waterfall in Villa Nova Milfontes: Here is the Key to the Gate — Just Follow the Track

There is a hidden waterfall “in” Villa Nova Milfontes – its location is a well-kept secret. It can be accessed in two ways – the first way being a long walk over farmland and, finally, down a steep hillside. Various permissions should be sought before crossing land and you have to be “in the know” as to how to get there.

The second way is to be given a key to a certain gate and be told to “follow the track” which meant we could visit by four-wheel drive car. Our neighbor and landlord has the magical key to the gate and agreed we could visit – they own the land around there. Even then it is not simple as you will find out.

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Living with MRSA: Nearly Ten Years On

I have MRSA – to be specific I have HA-MRSA.  MRSA is a superbug – its full is name methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteria – the HA denotes I contracted it in hospital – if I had contracted it outside of hospital it would be denoted CA-MRSA – community acquired MRSA.

Superbugs are a group of microorganisms that are resistant to at least one or more commonly used antibiotics.  The commonly accepted list of superbugs is as follows:

MRSA  – (Staphylococcus aureus strains resistant to multiple antibiotics) , VRE (Enterococcus species resistant to vancomycin), PRSP (Streptococcus pneumoniae strains resistant to penicillin), ESBLs (Escherichia coli and other Gram-negative bacteria resistant to antibiotics such as cephalosporins and monobactams) and multiple drug-resistant Clostridium difficile.

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What Can Be Done to Help the Syrian People?

There should be no doubt that the situation in Syria is beyond dreadful.  The country is torn apart by an escalating civil war in which chemical weapons have been used on an innocent populace. It has yet to be established which of the warring factions employed these weapons – it is presumed by many that it was government forces.

There is no doubt that they were used.  So who sold them?  Why are chemical weapons allowed to be manufactured and sold – especially to unstable countries?  When you sell a cooker – you know its going to be used for cooking – when you sell  a boat you know it is going to be used for sailing – when you sell a chemical weapon you now it is going to be used to attack, kill, maim and poison people.

It will not help those people who died in Syria last week – but I propose the United Nations grow a set of B*LLS  and ban the manufacture and sale of Chemical weapons and their constituent parts.

The British people spoke loud and clear last week when the government motion to join with the USA in attacking Syria was defeated in the House of Commons.

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Mask City: Venice in Retrospect

When it comes to souvenirs the most famous apart from the obligatory Gondola keyring is the Venetian mask. These are sold in their thousands to tourists from stands and hawkers at every opportunity. I can understand the Venetians fascination with the mask because Venice itself is the ultimate mask.

Venice hides in its lagoon, behind its waterways, it hides behind the faded grandeur of the Grand Canal.

Venice hides behind its Baroque facades and Gothic mansions.

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Venice Grand Finale: The Grand Canal

We clambered on board our ferry keeping in mind that this was the one before last we could catch to reach the airport in time. A huge disappointment as this was a closed ferry with only a small window at the front from which to take pictures from and the rest of the windows were covered in watermarks from the spray caused by other boats.

One advantage though — at this stage we were the only people on the ferry at this time.

Due to this restriction, it really was a flash tour of the Grand Canal — impressions only — having said that it is not possible to walk alongside the Grand Canal and, to my knowledge, there are only two places where you can sit at a restaurant and dine overlooking the water.

Some of the grander hotels have a room with a view and small balconies — heaven knows what their room supplements are! So we were stuck with what we got.

I did manage to capture some of the atmosphere — once again there are some beautifully painted buildings and buildings of amazing proportions and stunning architecture. One cannot help but imagine what Venice was like in its heyday and who created and lived in buildings like this.

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Venice on Foot: The Backstreets

Having girded our stomachs with food and drink — well, ice cream and water — we set off in the general direction given to us by our very helpful gesticulating Italian Policeman.

Our route took us out of the heat and the seething masses of St Mark’s Square and into the shade of the maze of narrow backstreets that exist between and behind the main waterways. It takes some time for your eyes to get used to the lack of light.

Venice is similar to another famous canal city — Amsterdam — where the only way you can build is up! The backstreets are narrow — often one person wide — and I am sure some of them never see the light of day.

As you can see, we are walking in half light — at least on this street we could walk side by side.

One can only imagine the marketing strategies that you would have to employ if you had a business here to get people to your doorstep.

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Venice on Foot: San Marco

If Venice on the canals was chaotic — on land was far worse! We were woefully short on research and needed to find directions to our departure point for the ferry that went up the Grand Canal to the airport. The Italians are hopeless at directions.

The ticket officer for the ferry line we were using sent us in totally the wrong direction. She sent us back into St Marks square — over the narrow canal bridge and into the hordes of tourists which flock here in the summer.

All of my senses were telling me we were going in the wrong direction and Mr P had to agree with me that something was wrong when I fished out our basic map and said we should be going that way not this way.

I took refuge from the heat of the sun under the arches of the Doges Palace while Mr P went off in search of someone who knew their way around and to get us some sensible directions.

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Approaching Venice

We were on a mission — to get the real flavor of Venice in an afternoon. If we liked what we saw, we would come back and spend more time exploring.

Venice has an undeniable reputation for being one of the “must see” cities in Europe — the famous floating city — or the famous sinking city — or should that be stinking? It is a city of water and of gondolas, rich in history and culture and once the trading center of Europe.

Our ferry took us along the north coast of Venice and around to San Marcos, past all the canal outlets and gave us a good view of what Venice was like behind the scenes. Once again we got reasonable seats on the ferry and I was able to take photographs out of the side windows as we motored past. I was surprised to see that there was room for greenery on the main island — this canal looked particularly shady and inviting.

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Murano: Island of Glass

We were up, breakfasted and out of the hotel on schedule. First stop, petrol station to fill up the car before leaving it at the airport. Go to the airport petrol station which is unmanned at that time on a Sunday morning and refusing to take foreign cards of any description — which means cash only. One problem with this — it only takes 20 euro notes — the five euro note slot is blocked — wonder if someone else tried to put their card in it?

We are told of several other petrol stations in the area and make our way to the first, the second, the third — all have the same problem — one petrol groups computers have obviously crashed overnight or are off-line for some reason. There is utter pandemonium as people get more and more frantic trying to fill up their cars — at the end there is a convoy of about 30 cars all trying to do the same thing — all of them with flights to catch.

We fill ours up until it will take no more — pass two and a half Euros credit on the pump to the next guy and make our way to the airport — our valuable time is ticking away. We park the car and run for the ferry terminal. The English woman in a hat is about to take on Venice!

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