Portugal 2009 - Day 6

Rainy and cloudy in the morning.

I saw Michael today. He pointed out the front entrance of the hotel to me. “Ah, thanks very much Michael.” I said, “I can tell it must be something like that. What with the hotel on one side of the door and the pavement and cars on the other.”

It seems the holiday fashion for men of a certain age is still those long short trousers or short long trousers – the description depends on how long or short their legs are – but as they stroll along I can’t help thinking they just look like over-grown toddlers out looking for their Mum.

To reach the seafront from the hotel involves a five minute walk across a main road and then a railway line. It’s strange but crossing a busy road where you’re unable to see more than a few hundred yards in each direction while negotiating speeding Portuguese drivers is much less stressful than crossing the railway track where you can see in a dead straight line for two miles to the horizon in each direction. Why should that be?

We always reach the edge of the track, stop and look in both directions. Pauline grabs my arm and we stand there making absolutely sure there’s no train coming as far as the eye can see before stepping quickly onto the line. And the irrational thought that as soon as we reach the middle, the Lisbon Express is going to suddenly appear clattering down the track towards us is always in the back of my mind as I hurry across doing a strange sort of hop, skip and jump to avoid getting my feet stuck in the metal rails. Because if that happens I just know a train will come hurtling out of the emptiness while I’m struggling to get my foot loose. It will. It will. I just know it will.

We saw our first ‘living street statue’ of the holiday today.

Well I say ‘statue’ but that’s a bit of a misnomer really. All it was, was a bloke who looked like he was covered in white-wash wearing a floor length white sheet draped over his shoulders. It was also very windy so this bloke was standing there with his sheet flapping about in the wind looking like some sort of demented ghost. Not exactly someone who could be mistaken for a statue. I’ve seen many statues over the years and I can safely say none of them have been wearing clothes that flap about in the wind. I mean, if you really wanted to be taken seriously as a statue, surely you’d encase yourself in some sort of metal alloy or lead-based paint and stand still for a few hours or weeks wouldn’t you? Not flap about in a sheet trying not to move for, ooh, five minutes? No commitment you see.

We can all stand stock still for a few minutes not moving a muscle can’t we? I can do that. In fact I do, do that – whenever the Jehovah’s Witnesses ring the doorbell. It’s not clever, it’s not funny, it’s not entertainment and it’s certainly not art. And to expect members of the public to pay for the privilege of seeing some lazy-arsed layabout standing still is just ridiculous. Get a proper job statue man! Preferably one with a modicum of movement involved. Try standing still with walking, running, jumping and sitting some time. It’s called having a life.

We made our first visit to the hotel’s rooftop pool this afternoon. It was totally empty. All the poolside beds, tables and umbrellas were neatly stacked up in one corner and what looked like it could be a poolside bar was boarded up and padlocked. That didn’t deter us though. We dragged some beds out and took advantage of the weak sunshine and chilly wind to lie there shivering for a few hours.