eat my bib

So. Portugal. Well as you can see from the picture, Cathy's house has an AMAZING view (in fact the entire house is amazing). And I will definitely be back there is summer to soak up sun and frolic in the pool. The whole thing just was as restful as I might have hoped. In fact it wasn't really restful at all- poor innocent Aynia had no idea how much energy a sick 1 1/2 year old and precocious 3 1/2 year old can use up. I got to feed kids, change nappies, be a gate, read books, sing to ears that are too young to realise how crap I am at it, blow bubbles, be a human climbing wall and so much more... But I wouldn't have swapped it for anything. If the photo of my and Daisy looks like it was taken in a public toilet, that's because it was. She was sick and didn't like it when Cathy had to palm her off on to me so I was trying her keep her happy/distracted by taking photos of us. As you may gather from the photo, she wasn't buying it. That child is also attached to her dummy in a way that could only make me think of Maggi Simpson, it only came out to eat or drink- so hilarious.

Portugal itself is beautiful. This photo is from a walk I did by some natural springs. It was quite like NZ- in fact a lot of the inland stuff I saw was very like NZ but the coastal areas are totally different. What I loved about Portugal's coast was that you get this totally weird juxtaposition of plants. You get prickly pears and other cacti and then beside that a palm tree and looming behind them all, pine trees. It's all very green and the buildings are white with terracotta tiled roofs and arched doorways and entrances and gave me the wonderful peaceful feeling that I remember from travelling through Greece. Roll on summer!