A Messines Christmas and an Armacao de Pera New Year

I'm linking up with The Sunday Post at Caffeinated Reviewer. Pre-scheduling hiccups over Christmas week means this won't actually be published until Monday though. Oops!
And my Month In Books for December will appear tomorrow.

We are now back at Camping Canelas, Armacao de Pera for three nights over New Year before we move on somewhere different on Wednesday. We spent Christmas out in the tranquil rural bliss of Camperstop Messines and the pictures are from the Christmas Day brunch which was a fun get-together for everybody on the campsite. We all brought a plate of food to share and sat around in the sunshine chatting. Dave and I got to try Dutch and Belgian foods including an interesting White Cabbage With Raisins salad which sounded odd to me, but the sweet fruit worked well with the sharpness of lightly pickled cabbage! I contributed two dozen Oatcakes piled with Chilli Lentil Spread - didn't look too exciting, but they all vanished! The other Brits there really went to town and made delicious Banoffee Pie.

We didn't really get organised for Christmas this year so our only hanging 'decorations' on Christmas Eve were actually drying laundry and we hardly had anything in the way of edible treats either! We're making up for that for New Year though. I made another batch of Slow Cooker Chocolate Fudge this afternoon. I suddenly realised a couple of days ago that I'll need vegan fudge (if there's any left) on New Year's Day though because, well, Veganuary! Fortunately when we first arrived in Portugal I spotted Condensed Coconut Milk in a supermarket alongside regular dairy Condensed Milk. I didn't previously know that Condensed Coconut Milk was a Thing. Unfortunately I didn't buy a tin at the time and haven't seen it again since. Grrr! But I wondered if it might be easy to make myself and googled it. Turns out it's so easy that I don't think the method even qualifies for the word recipe!! Guess what I'm experimenting with today?

In bookish news, I am currently reading a review copy of Nigerian novel The Bead Collector by Sefi Atta which is published by fab international publishers Interlink. This is the same company that publishes one of my favourite authors, Mhani Alaoui. They're currently looking for more bloggers to work with so if you're interested, let me know and I'll pass your name across!

Giveaways closing soon
31st Dec: Literary Flits Spotlight Post (for authors who want free book promo)
3rd Jan: My Dream Woman by C H Clepitt ebook
6th Jan: Derrick by Russell ebooks
(All current giveaways here)

On my blogs this week were:

Stephanie Jane
My Top Ten New-to-me Authors of 2018 #Top10of2018
Cover Love: My Favourite 2018 Book Covers #Top10of2018
State Of The ARC - December 2018
Best of the Best: My Favourite Books of the Year #Top10of2018

Literary Flits
Betwixt by Evie Gaughan review + Free Book
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens review
Headstrong by Patrick Link audiobook review
The Broke Vegan Bible by Lauren McCuen review
Secrets Of Islay by Robert Kroeger review
The Book Of Fathers by Miklos Vamos review
The Waves by Virginia Woolf audiobook review

Airing Out
No new campsites this week

¡Happy New Year!

Graffiti street art near Armacao de Pera

I'm linking up with The Sunday Post at Caffeinated Reviewer.

We had eight fab nights at Armacao de Pera with several pleasant dune walks and a couple of cycle rides into the town for supermarket shopping. Food shopping is often a dull chore back in the UK, but for some reason I think it becomes far more entertaining overseas especially if I get to the shops and back under my own steam, and if I am buying food in a different language. There's all sorts of new packs and jars to investigate! We have noticed over the years though that globalisation has meant items are often packaged in exactly the same style regardless of the country we are in. For example a washing-up liquid bottle looks identical in England, France, Spain, Portugal,... On one hand this is good because it's easier to find what we need, but on the other hand much of the excitement of unexpected purchases has gone.

Our walks took us past now-abandoned and graffitied mills and storerooms from the wheat production that apparently used to be a major Algarve industry in the Arab era and beyond. Wheat was planted in between olive and carob trees so farmers could get three crops from the one piece of land. This still happens on a small scale, but I think it must be quite labour intensive to harvest wheat when there isn't room for large combine harvesters to manoeuvre. Probably not economically viable any more.

In bookish news, I read my Christmas Dickens which this year was Great Expectations and I will be blogging my review on Christmas Day. I've also got my review of a suitably chilling Christmas Eve story for you - and links to download it for free.

Giveaways closing soon
I don't have any giveaways closing this week, but please join me in congratulating Joanna who won the Unexpected America by Wanjiru Warama ebook giveaway. I hope you enjoy your prize Joanna!
(All current giveaways here)

On my blogs this week were:

Stephanie Jane
2018 Reading Challenges WrapUp
Top 10s of 2018 signup
My new 2019 Reading Challenges

Literary Flits
Derrick by Russell + #Giveaway + Excerpt
A la folie ... pas du tout! by Valerie-Anne Baglietto review
Trespass by Rose Tremain review
My Dream Woman by C H Clepitt review + #Giveaway
Taxi Tales: The Fragrant Lady by Ergun Gunduz graphic novel review
Aya Dane by Mhani Alaoui review + Author Interview
The Passion According To Carmela by Marcos Aguinis review

Airing Out
Campsite - Camping Canelas - Armacao De Pera - Algarve - Portugal

A beautiful beach at Armacao de Pera

Armacao de Pera 

I'm linking up with The Sunday Post at Caffeinated Reviewer.

We've actually been camped up in two places this week: Camperstop Messines at Sao Bartolomeu de Messines and Armacao de Pera, but we're intending to return to Messines for eight nights over Christmas so I'll talk about Armacao de Pera today. It's a seaside town with a gorgeous long sandy beach and our campsite, Camping Canelas, is just a little inland. It's about a 2km walk or cycle along the Ecovia from the campsite to get to the edge of the white painted town with its smattering of cafes and restaurants. So far we've explored on foot in one direction and by bicycle in the other. Sitting with tea at a cafe while gazing out at a sea sunset is bliss!

Away from the town, there's a long wooden boardwalk above the dunes which we cycled this afternoon. It was tricky because, being a sunny Sunday, there were quite a few pedestrians and the boardwalk was only just wide enough for them and wobbly me. Sometimes I really do wish I'd learned to ride a bike as a child rather than having done so as an adult. Dave is a far more fearless cyclist than I am and I know my insistence on slowing right down for anything other than smooth tarmac road surfaces is annoying. He's very patient about it though!

In bookish news, I'm currently reading the new C H Clepitt novella, My Dream Woman. It's feisty diverse urban fantasy with fun characters that I'm enjoying spending time with. My review should appear before Christmas.

Giveaways closing soon
19th Dec: Unexpected America by Wanjiru Warama ebook
20th Dec: $50 Amazon gift card
(All current giveaways here)

On my blogs this week were:

Stephanie Jane
I complete my 2018 Alphabet Soup Challenge!
Stephanie Jane's #Giveaway #Linkup

Literary Flits
Song of Sacrifice by Janell Rhiannon + #Giveaway + Excerpt
Watching Aliens by Elancharan Gunasekaran review + #FreeBook
Rust Is A Form Of Fire by Joe Fiorito review
The Barefoot Woman by Scholastique Mukasonga review
Dickensen Academy by Christine Grabowski spotlight
Ketchup Clouds by Annabel Pitcher audiobook review
Lindisfarne by Terry Tyler review

Airing Out
Campsite - Camperstop Messines - Algarve - Portugal

Christmas lights at Tavira

We took an evening walk into Tavira last week. It's pretty rare for us to go out after dark, but we fancied a curry from one of the several Indian restaurants in the town and we wanted to admire Tavira's Christmas lights when they were all lit up. There's a blue and white theme which is particularly effective and I loved how the lights had been strung around the bandstand, plus the town has done a great job of decorating the old Roman bridge.

My phone hasn't really done the lights justice, but hopefully you get the idea!

Camping with the Portuguese Police!

Tavira 

I'm linking up with The Sunday Post at Caffeinated Reviewer.

That headline caught your eye, didn't it?!
This week we pitched up at Parque de Campismo da PSP which is a largish campsite at Tavira on the Portuguese Algarve. It feels rural with olive and carob trees for shade and terraces that are only vaguely marked into pitches. The campsite is actually owned by the Portuguese police and is only open to police families in the summer, but at this time of year anyone can camp here. The facilities are pretty good and we've enjoyed playing on the outdoor gym each evening! It's not a cheap option (€16.70 per night), but is beautifully peaceful and very handy for walking and cycling into Tavira.

Tavira is a lovely old town - a jewel of the Algarve! We visited here five years ago and it's still great. We cycled out to our previous camping spot - Cabanas - a pretty seasidey village to reminisce.

View from Cabanas 

What I've been particularly looking forward to showing you though is Street Poetry! Instead of the more usual street art, Tavira has placards up at various places displaying the poems of famous Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa. Each poem is printed in Portuguese, Spanish and English so I could guess at the original meaning and then read the English translation to see how close I got! Dave and I are talking about buying a book of Pessoa's poetry which is great because I need a fifth Portuguese author for WorldReads! These are two of my favourites from Tavira: (Click in to the photos to enlarge them)

In bookish news I am currently reading The Light Of The Fireflies by Paul Pen. Is saw this one reviewed on Daniela's Bookiverse blog a while back which reminded me Dave had a borrowable copy on his Amazon account. It's a gripping, but seriously strange story so far.


Giveaways closing soon
5th Dec : Kindle HD Fire and The Lights Of Time book
(All current giveaways here)

On my blogs this week were:

Stephanie Jane
State Of The ARC - November 2018
A Month In Books - November 2018

Literary Flits
The Diary by Vikki Patis review
The Blogger Trailmap by Chivi Frost review + #Giveaway
Death Going Down by Maria Angelica Bosco review
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger review
The Wooden Hill by Jamie Guiney review
The Lights of Time by Paul Ian Cross + #Giveaway + Excerpt
Christmas At Black Cherry Retreat by Angela Britnell review

Airing Out
Campsite - Parque de Campismo da PSP - Tavira - Algarve - Portugal

I will finish with this YouTube that Dave found during the week. Love it!