With apologies to Nick Park and Wallace & Gromit for nicking the title, but it just seemed rather an appropriate description for yesterday.
First things first, it was little Madeline's birthday and she has now reached the ripe old age of 12. We brought her cards out here and a few small pressies, PLUS arranged for the hotel to make her a birthday cake which meant that all the staff and other diners sang "Happy Birthday" to her at dinner time, much to her embarassment!
What has that to do with trousers? Absolutely nothing. However, with the forecast from now until we go home to be rain, thunderstorms and a bit more rain, what we have unfortunately discovered is that we have all brought several pairs of the wrong trousers, i.e. shorts and swimmers, when what we actually need are jeans, preferably accompanied by fleeces and Duffle coats.
The morning went as per forecast, with non-stop rain and so after lunch we decided to take a trip to the nearest major resort, Vilamoura. The hotel runs a bus from here to (via the main town of Quarteira) which we could catch at 13:40, returning at 17:40. We figured there would be some shops we could wander round and have a drink or two in a bar. We donned the clothes we came out in basically, which were the warmest things we had, although Izzy had decided NOT to pack anything waterproof, despite being told to several times. She was totally confident that the weather forecast had got it wrong and appeared in shorts, t-shirt and light cardigan, so we just had to accept that she'd get cold and wet, wouldn't she? After all, it's the only way they learn.
It had just stopped raining as we boarded the bus and Vilamoura is only 10 minutes away. Amazingly, somewhere en route, the clouds lifted and we arrived to bright blue sky and blazing sunshine, quite the best weather we have had, with the temperature getting up to the mid 20's. And we're there in fleeces, jeans, body warmers, raincoats... except Izzy. "Told you so - ha ha!" and on this occasion she had been right. Don't you just hate it when that happens?
Anmyway, Vilamoura has the most amazing Marina with some rather luxurious yachts and is surrounded by shops, restaurants and bars. Some of the shops were lovely, specialist ones but on the front there were several designer outlets, Lacoste, Boss, Gant... you get the picture. Clearly I wasn't alone in not wanting to shell out over 100 Euros for a polo shirt as I didnt see anyone in these shops all afternoon. How do they survive?
The weather stayed beautiful and when we got back to the hotel, some of the other guests had told us how warm it had been around the pool and several were sporting tans. Typical.
Tomorrow is forecast for a mixture of sunshine and showers. We'll see. This weather is almost as unpredictable as in England!
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