Possibly it's due to the upcoming weekend, but I've been missing the homeland recently. Or perhaps it's due to hearing about little nephew Milo's trip to the AVIVA, or good work in Irish class. Perhaps it was some recent sanctuary work I carried out of stonewalling, which is a true west of Ireland art. In school I was called Stonewall Jackson the 3rd/4th, (depending if you counted the real one or not), due to the Curran legacy of defensive football skills, and I came into my own here too. I seemed to have the Midas touch of cementing the stones in place at all sorts of obscene angles. Another possibility for my 'saudades da Irlanda' is the weather. It started raining 3 days ago, and only stopped last night. It wasn't the heart-in-the-mouth pounding tropical rain that I'd seen previously, that dries as quickly as it comes. It was rain that seemed to have an attitude of 'Yeah I'm raining now, but I'll be raining later too, so I don't know why you're trying to wait it out'. And as this season begins I'm making plans to go further south. Louco. It's a sharp contrast to the 42° of the interior.
The rain has made the beach nights slightly less enjoyable too. The rain jacket and umbrella stop you getting soaked, but there is very little sleep to be had. One of the nights was especailly difficult when the quad broke down on the beach. A 3-hr push ensued from 3:30 in the morning, inclusive of sandy paths, steep hills etc. And all with a flat front wheel on the big Honda. Sickening. One great night when the rain abated was the night of the full moon. I arrived just as it was rising, and it was almost like daylight. I tried to take some ambience pictures with the long exposure feature on the camera, but they're not great. I would be uploading them now, but I forgot the connector. What I can tell you is I became ecstatically happy for some reason. Once I got down to 'my' beach, Chapadão, I took a moonlit swim, and let the warm southeasterly wind dry me, whilst I surveyed the Atlantic atop a rock. I shouted hello's towards friends and family in Europe and Africa, and it's possible that if they had been looking, they might have seen my smile twinkling all the way from there. Weird experience. I didn't make any grand promises about my future, or have any earth-shattering revelations, but I won't forget that scene. The moon, the shooting stars, the waves crashing at the base of the rock, and a huge smile. Sorry for weirding out, just thought I'd tell ye.
My Portuguese keeps trucking on anyway. One of it's highlights was the fact that I got/am getting a mention in theat old rag, 'Herpetological review', after helping people out with translations. I watch films in Portuguese, and am getting a lot faster with the books, now that I don't need to check my dictionary every 15 words. (I'm currently reading 'A Mesa Voadora', by a Brazilian version of Michael Winner, Luis Fernando Verissimilo, but it's not great to be honest). I feel that if I went and learnt the finer grammatical points, one more vocabulary surge would allow me to not feel guilty about having 'fluent' on my CV. On that note, any advice about 'eu pudesse, eu tivesse etc' Luke? I'm having trouble with that particular conditional Santa Clause.
All well with the group in the house too. We watched my copy of 'Senna' together recently, and the importance of F1 was explained to me. It was just as popular in those days as football, and Prost is absolutely disdained here. He doesn't come off too bad in the movie really. Sport-wise, these days its hard to take your eyes off Neymar of Santos. Wowser. Every kid has the horrible Neymar haircut, but with the way he dribbles and plays, I'm starting to think about it too. Not too much more to tell you really. I'm well, the vegetable patch is in fine fettle, the sun is back out, and the food is still delicious. All that's missing is your news. Everything and anything from everyone, please, but don't worry if you're not arsed, I know from the experience of this blog that it's not easy to trot out a page and a half of crap, off the cuff.
Finally if anyone works out how to watch the videos I've put up, pass it on. There seems to be some trouble with viewing them, and a few of them are pretty good.
Slán go foill.
The rain has made the beach nights slightly less enjoyable too. The rain jacket and umbrella stop you getting soaked, but there is very little sleep to be had. One of the nights was especailly difficult when the quad broke down on the beach. A 3-hr push ensued from 3:30 in the morning, inclusive of sandy paths, steep hills etc. And all with a flat front wheel on the big Honda. Sickening. One great night when the rain abated was the night of the full moon. I arrived just as it was rising, and it was almost like daylight. I tried to take some ambience pictures with the long exposure feature on the camera, but they're not great. I would be uploading them now, but I forgot the connector. What I can tell you is I became ecstatically happy for some reason. Once I got down to 'my' beach, Chapadão, I took a moonlit swim, and let the warm southeasterly wind dry me, whilst I surveyed the Atlantic atop a rock. I shouted hello's towards friends and family in Europe and Africa, and it's possible that if they had been looking, they might have seen my smile twinkling all the way from there. Weird experience. I didn't make any grand promises about my future, or have any earth-shattering revelations, but I won't forget that scene. The moon, the shooting stars, the waves crashing at the base of the rock, and a huge smile. Sorry for weirding out, just thought I'd tell ye.
My Portuguese keeps trucking on anyway. One of it's highlights was the fact that I got/am getting a mention in theat old rag, 'Herpetological review', after helping people out with translations. I watch films in Portuguese, and am getting a lot faster with the books, now that I don't need to check my dictionary every 15 words. (I'm currently reading 'A Mesa Voadora', by a Brazilian version of Michael Winner, Luis Fernando Verissimilo, but it's not great to be honest). I feel that if I went and learnt the finer grammatical points, one more vocabulary surge would allow me to not feel guilty about having 'fluent' on my CV. On that note, any advice about 'eu pudesse, eu tivesse etc' Luke? I'm having trouble with that particular conditional Santa Clause.
All well with the group in the house too. We watched my copy of 'Senna' together recently, and the importance of F1 was explained to me. It was just as popular in those days as football, and Prost is absolutely disdained here. He doesn't come off too bad in the movie really. Sport-wise, these days its hard to take your eyes off Neymar of Santos. Wowser. Every kid has the horrible Neymar haircut, but with the way he dribbles and plays, I'm starting to think about it too. Not too much more to tell you really. I'm well, the vegetable patch is in fine fettle, the sun is back out, and the food is still delicious. All that's missing is your news. Everything and anything from everyone, please, but don't worry if you're not arsed, I know from the experience of this blog that it's not easy to trot out a page and a half of crap, off the cuff.
Finally if anyone works out how to watch the videos I've put up, pass it on. There seems to be some trouble with viewing them, and a few of them are pretty good.
Slán go foill.
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