Wow. That was a massive attack of ‘writer’s block!!!!
Let’s go back to November 2019 when we could travel freely and not have to wear a face mask. That was when we loaded our last blog ‘A week in Riga’, it seems like an eternity ago. And with good reason, it’s been two years!
Since that time we served our first lockdown in Portugal, travelled to Germany via Gibraltar, Spain and France for the European summer. We spent a month touring Poland before returning to Portugal earlier this year where we’ve been locked down once again! One would think that lockdown would be an ideal opportunity to catch up on a blog but for reasons I cannot explain, I just couldn’t motivate myself to set aside long walks on the beach and generally doing nothing, to sit in front of a keyboard.
Riga was the last trip we did during our six month long housesit in Germany. We knew it was going to be difficult saying goodbye to our hosts, now friends and the welcoming neighbours that ensured we slotted into life in Hude as well as two non German speaking Australians could do.
It was early in December when we were packing our bags to fly to our next house sit in Pamela, Portugal, just south of the Capital, Lisbon. Having returned our leased car a few months prior we took the train to Hamburg where we would stay for a couple of nights before flying to Lisbon and enjoy the traditional Christmas Markets that are taken very seriously throughout Germany with Hamburg offering one of the best.
Our celebrations drinking gluhwein and eating bratwurst, raclette cheese and many other healthy foods were disrupted by a message from Ryanair to advise us that our flight to Lisbon had been cancelled! Just twelve hours before we were due to fly. Up until that point, we had experienced numerous flights with Ryanair that were faultless. We were beginning to wonder what the negative reputation was all about – we were now learning quickly. There was no explanation, just a blunt text message. We had to arrange another flight quickly as we needed to meet our commitment to our next house sit host. After a stressful web search while seeking refuge from the cold in a bar, we secured a couple of seats on TAP, the Portuguese carrier, at around six times the price of our original flight.
We finally arrived in Lisbon, albeit late as we discovered why Ryanair might had cancelled their flight. The rolling strikes and the ‘yellow vest’ brigade shenanigans in France had been causing major disruptions, this time it was the turn of the air traffic controllers to ‘down tools’ at short notice which meant no one could fly in their airspace. As a result, our TAP flight had to skirt around France by flying towards England, over Cornwall and down along the Atlantic coast to approach Portugal turning what should have been a three and a half hour flight to almost five!
Hamburg Rathaus 
Mmmmmmmm, melted cheese! 
Our modified flight path!
We could only assume Ryanair didn’t want to take the loss of the extended air time and took the decision to just cancel flights affected by the strike.
Our patient host Annette was waiting at the airport to take us to what would be our home for the next two months to look after three well behaved cats while Annette travelled to her native Scotland.
Before Annette left, we spent a few days in Lisbon rediscovering the city we had visited five years prior. It’s a colourful city that has kept its charm. The notable difference was that there was a lot of restoration of many of the old buildings and the addition of some trendy hotels and restaurants. The most memorable was a traditional multi storied bakery that was well known for its excellent ‘Pastel de nata’. You know it’s going to be good when there’s a long line of locals waiting to be served. We also managed some time in Setubal, a nearby port city and wine region with numerous seafood restaurants.
Lisbon Tram 
Which way? 
Pastel De Nata
We had not long started our house sit before I received a call from my sister to say that our ageing mother was not doing so well and would not be with us for much longer. I had said goodbye to my Mother two months earlier during my brief visit to Australia. I knew then that it was most likely the final farewell as we had celebrated her ninety sixth birthday while I was there and she was beginning to become frail. When Linda asked me what I was going to do I said that I wasn’t keen on doing the long haul again as it becomes more and more taxing the older you get and I’m prepared to admit that I’m no spring chicken. “Don’t regret anything” was her advice and she assured me that she could handle the three feline on her own – it wasn’t as though she had to walk feisty dogs or anything! so we hastily organised a flight for me to leave within a couple of days. A further call from my sister to say that mum’s condition was declining rapidly had me on the phone to shift my flight forward. “Tonight?” I repeated while talking to the airline. “Ok that will have to do if it’s my only option” I replied. I could hear Linda gasp in the background. We were supposed to go out for a ‘Christmas Lunch’ the next day as I wouldn’t be there for the festive day. “Well be better go now” I suggested and we drove in the teaming rain to a nearby seafood restaurant that was highly recommended and enjoyed a really nice time before Linda drove me to the airport later that evening. The shitty weather had gotten nastier but we arrived on time, although her traffic affected journey home took almost as long as it did for me to fly to Dubai! And as the flight was late getting away because of the storms, I missed my connecting flight to Melbourne having to stay at a nearby hotel until the next flight.
Early Christmas lunch
Fortunately mum was hanging on and I eventually arrived at Phillip Island where my sister had been caring for her for the last few years. Understandably she wasn’t looking too well but she was aware of my presence which made the whole ordeal worthwhile.
Mum hung around to celebrate Christmas with us and passed peacefully on New Year’s Eve 2019. She always had good Instincts. I think she knew what was in store for 2020!
Our precious last days 
Birthday wine trifle
I returned to Portugal after a whirlwind two weeks that included Christmas, New Years, a funeral and a birthday. It was emotional and exhausting but I had time to reflect on the long flight back and concluded that it was one hundred percent the right thing to do. Linda, on the other hand had a lonely time in what was an unusually cold spell and was kept busy carting wood from the garage and stoking the fire which was the house’s sole source of heating. It was good to be back. Needless to say I was on firewood and cat feeding duty for the remainder of our stay.