Home, Sweet, Home.

Arrived in Blighty, Her Majesties realm, home to crumpet-stuffers, red coats, pohm's, lobster backs, limey's and wankers. It's good to be back.

Perhaps the thought of Portugal conjures up such things as roasting hot sun, Sangria and sandy beaches. I suppose it does if you are on a lads week away in the Algarve but certainly not when you are in the capitol with plans for family weddings and birthday parties...

Even though my wife and I have been together almost twenty years I hadn't met most of her family and the ones I had met was only for a short period with the usual hello's followed by long periods of extremely loud Portuguese with hugs and kisses and a quick goodbye.

Having almost no family left myself I just felt exhausted meeting all these new faces, remembering foreign names and attempting to memorise each ones family tree.

Even though Portugal is in the West and only a few thousand miles away from here it seemed like I was on a different planet. The culture is so different and I will never get used to it no matter how many times I visit there.

My biggest all time hate is the waiting... Sorry. Waiting for no reason. I'm British. I can wait in queues better than anyone but waiting for the sake of it is too frustrating even for me with my immense amount of patience.

If you ever find yourself in Portugal and someone says dinner is at eight then go and eat something at seven and take a can of beer with you for good measure. They LIE! Dinner is not at eight. Meeting seven hundred people with hugs, kisses and pleasantries are at eight.

In England when you go out, the first thing we all do is hit the bar, order the drinks then check out the menu. In Portugal you wait. Then wait some more. You all sit around a table waiting for Manuel the waiter to turn up and then eventually return with your beer. Then they do it all again for the food... "Espera" is one word I will never forget.

The wedding was lovely as expected. Just like something out of Dallas (the 80's TV programme). I on the other hand, was sick as fuck. ALL day. I saw more of the back of a toilet door than I did the bride and groom, that, and the fact I had a suit and tie on in 28C weather didn't make my day at all.

The only bonus was my wife was a catwalk model for the day. Not bad for an old bird I guess.

My wife, Vitor and the mother-in-law (actually smiling! I must have hurt myself off camera)

The wife did seem to enjoy herself though. I guess it must be hard being away from your family when you are brought up like that.

For the British it is mostly very different.

This was not a holiday or even a break for me. It was exhausting and hard work with way too much waiting and way too much meet and greet.

We had decided to fly back Friday night the day after the wife's birthday and the airport was the same. Family came to see us off and after a good fifteen minutes of goodbyes we finally went on to the gate.

No such luck. Portuguese airports are not what I would call efficient.

Six hundred people in a line, waiting for two security areas. By the time we had got to the front of the queue they were announcing last call over the PA and to add insult to injury the alarm sounded as I went through...

Guess what. They made me wait. Standing there holding my jeans up in my socks for a good ten minutes before someone bothered to pad me down and nod at me. Of course, by the time we had collected all our items from the trays and found the gate it was closed! We had missed the bloody flight.

We are very fortunate of course to have friends, family and somewhere to stay and spoke the language but imagine if that was someone on a city break? I shudder to think what I would have done in that position.

Lucky for us after a brief display of Latina temper a quick phone call and we were being collected again by her Uncle. Next flight. Sunday. Damn Eurovision was on in Lisbon that very weekend.

I envisaged a miserable weekend with lots of family, listening to the wife telling our story over and over again but, the God's smiled up on us and we ended up 200 miles away from Lisbon at her Uncles country estate. It was the most relaxed I had been for a long time and her Aunt and Uncle were fantastic hosts.

Apart from the fair well wait we had to do on the tarmac at Lisbon airport before setting off, the flight was fine. I couldn't wait to see my daughters smiling face sticking out of the car window at Manchester airport and the short drive home, quick cup of tea and my own bed.

Here ends our Portuguese adventure...for the time being.


Now. Back to modding 😀