What a day

[JanB]

After many discussions, between Grumpy and myself, we left here at 9.00 ish. I thought it best to leave early, but he who is older won the day

Petrol and cashpoint in Ourique and off we go to Beja. From our house, takes about an hour. Parked where we normally do, thinking it was a long ish walk to the IMT office. Nada - 5 minutes stroll. I put 2. 65€ for 4 hours parking, hoping that would be long enough. The licence cost 30€ each.

Found it, no problem Take a ticket. We were number 33 and 34 and the current number was 13 Spoke to one bloke who said they were taking about 15 minutes to process the English, less time for the Portuguese.

Strolled around Beja for an hour, had a coffee, back to the office.

Spent a pleasant hour chatting to various English bods - all from the Algarve Faro IMT is so busy, they start queuing at 6.00 am and if you're there about 10.00am, forget it

Our tickets showed we were there at 10.39 and we left at 2.37pm

There was a huuuuuge discussion, with lots of arm waving by the Portuguese who were so fed up waiting. But as the girls said, it's done by time. At 1.00pm, they were still processing people who had arrived at 10.00am. The bloke making all the racket had arrived at 11.00am. That shut him up

A very pleasant young lady did the process for us and took my photo twice as it was rubbish (it still is )

We have a piece of paper to day we've applied for a Portuguese licence, which is valid for 2 months. If we haven't received it by then, we have to go back and get another piece of paper

Off we go to Bricomarche, bought a mirror and other stuff, then to Lidl and spent a fortune

Back to Pingo - no water

Pit stop at the bar

Got home, opened the gate to see the moron next door, watching us, hands on hips, then wife comes out to have a look too

Shopping put away, we sat outside with a beer and moron decided to strim, right by the fence, peering over at us - that man is weird

Grumpy hurt a toe this morning and has been rather grumpy all day. Although he has improved since he's had a couple of beers

[TheOstrich]

As you say, Jan, what a crazy day!

Glad Mr. Grumpy's demeanour has improved!

[JanB]

He's now been fed and has a glass of wine, much happier

Molly, meanwhile, is sulking

This time of year, she tends to go out about 5.00 in the morning, comes back in when we get up, has something to eat and goes to bed. Until about 12.00 ish.

This morning, she was woken up and chucked out at 9.00

I don't leave food out for her, too many ants, wasps etc and there are plenty of lizards, voles, mice for her to eat.

She stalked around the house, howling Sat on various window cills, on the new bed - very rare - had a lot of fussing, but has now gone outside.

I did buy her some treats from Lidl, which she loves, and she's already had two and would, no doubt, eat as many as she could

[saundra]

Gosh Jan you must have the patience of a saint all that waiting tomorrow is another day have a lyin tomorrow