November has been a busy & eventful month.

Anne Cummings, from Goal, came out at the beginning of the month . We had had 10days of wind, rain & thunderstorms. The minute Anne appeared the clouds disappeared & the sun came out!! I won,t mention sun shining on the righteous!!

We hired a car so that we could visit places further afield. The highlight of Anne,s visit has to be our trip to Monchique, in the hills. We found this tiny restaurant run by an ancient Debbie Harry lookalike. She was the owner, cook & waitress. The walls & ceiling were covered with Guest,s comments on the food, service etc.
"Debbie", who spoke no English, was obviously a determined lady who cooked what she wanted, regardless of what was ordered!! We had very good soup ,rolls, & omlettes, which we did order. We presented our chicken business card with our comments on, & Debbie hung it in the centre of the room. She was pleased with the chicken as its Portugal,s national emblem.

5 days after Anne,s departure, Rob,s cousin Tim came out. Again the weather was really kind. We did quite a lot of walking around & trying out local restaurants . The fish & bread sales went up while Tim was here!! I have to mention Linda Stewart(Transocean, Aberdeen) as Tim says you,ve been following our blog & Monty,s exploits! Hi.
Monty celebrated his 15th birthday while Tim was here; then 2 days later gave us all a fright. He had a severe stroke & lost the power of his legs & his head was twisted to one side. We took him to the vet, expecting to leave him there, but she said we,d give him a day or two on some tablets which stimulate the brain. A few days later he was a different dog. There,s certainly life in the old dog yet!!

5days after Tim left, Bruce
& Janette, from Tarbert came out. We met them at the airport at 7pm after a day & journey of torrential rain & thunderstorms. The forecast for the week wasn,t that good; but guess what, it changed!! Apart from 1 day when we decided to go to Silves & Alte in the hills, & it poured, the weather was good.
Bruce was taking great delight in phoning his son saying he was standing on the balcony in the sun, & Tarbert was having sleet & galeforce winds .We found some good restaurants & Bruce tucked into the fish.
Christmas came to the Algarve over the weekend. The Christmas lights were switched on. They are really pretty. All the palm trees along the front have small white lights around the trunks & branches. The streets & roundabouts are also decorated.
One thing I had been looking forward to seeing in Portugal were the stalks nesting on the tall chimney pots. The last 2weeks seems to have every chimney pot taken.A
lovely sight.

The tooth saga continued this week. When I visited the dentist to have my permanent crown put in she discovered a longstanding infection in my gum which bone had grown around! It could be left to flare up or I could have an operation to remove it.
Yesterday I had the op.Apart from a bit of swelling & bleeding it was fine. I am looking forward to getting my permanent crown in a couple of weeks.