I was on holiday in Benalmadena in the early 80s and went down with what I can only describe as a flu-like illness. My ex-missus went to the pharmacy and attempted to describe my symptoms and came away with a bottle of bright yellow liquid. I knocked back a couple of gobfulls and then spent the next five hours sweating like a pig. I managed to fall alseep at dawn and when I woke at about lunchtime, felt as right as rain and thought I could fight the world.

When we got back home I gave the bottle to a mate who was an analytical chemist. He phoned me a couple of days later enquiring just where I'd bought it and whether I'd brought it back through customs. Apparently the main ingredient was laudanum and I could've been nicked for drug smuggling. Unfortunately he destroyed what was left.

Branwell Bronte must have been as fit as a fiddle then - if you've ever been to Haworth you can almost see him walking the fifty yards down the lane from their house, past the pub where he drank himself to death and across the road to the apothacary where he bought his laudanum by the barrowload, what a life...

Not entirely clear why anyone would want to go abroad in these austere times.

I'm going to Portugal for a few days on Wednesday, I'll let you know.

Beware.

Of what ?

I'm tagging along with a developer friend who is looking at some land on The Algarve for his next project, I'm not allowed to ask who their client is but lets just say that he only designs one villa a year for the sort of people who don't have to ask "How much", should be interesting with a bum like me in tow.

Taxi drivers.

Earthquakes.

Civil unrest.

Being asked for a bailout.....

Being kidnapped.

Nah,

This is The Algarve, I'll be lucky to speak to anyone who doesn't use English as their first language.


On a slightly related issue my eldest is currently in Rhodes and boy how that end fo the Med has changed - when I went to rhodes in the late 70s you would be imprisoned and probably executed as a spy if you took a boat across the short stretch of water to Turkey, if you even mentioned Turkey you'd be imprisoned and if you had a Turkish immigration stamp on your passport you'd be put back on the first plane to England, you wouldn't even set foot in Greece.

Last Friday she took an organised tour ferry to Turkey from Rhodes harbour, bought a load of knock-off "designer" handbags and Ugg boots - that was the only reason they'd booked the holiday

Northumberland.
Yorkshire Coast.
Portugal.

All in the space of few posts on this thread.
Wonderful, all of 'em.

To the Northumberland bit, I'd add that Berwick on Tweed, although it's what you might call "quiet" and maybe even slightly depressed in the economic sense and not blessed with ultra-fine dining, is nonetheless a good-looking place and a great base for exploring.
(Tip Fog on the Tyne[/i out of your brain every time you see the signs for Lindisfarne.

Covered all of that in the blog last week

I'll be back down to South Devon for early September again. Staying in the same cottage (cos they allow dogs and give us new-laid eggs), catching and eating some fine fish & prawns, digging queen cockles and razor clams and buying crabs and scallops straight off the boat. I reckon the only meat I eat down there is the bacon for my breakfast.

As a kid i used to holiday in Anglesey, it was great, we'd go down to Red Wharf Bay when the tide was out and try and catch Sand Eels for bait, loved it, sometimes find a nice big crab and put it in a bucket. Then we'd go to Penmon point near the Puffin Island and go fishing all day, boil up the crab on a camp fire to keep us going, even though i am the age i am i'll miss the old fella for that.

That's a relief.