D

After yesterday's cloudy with some Sun and blog free day (a stroll to Fuseta with Harald, lunch there and train return), today feels more like the Algarve as advertised ... cloudless all day, though the breeze still cool ... first task is the market for fresh vegetables, then an idea for a walk to the Island, via the ferry ... forestalled by a full boat, then finding a seat at Quatro Aguas congenial, what with people watching interspersed with Bill Bryson's amusing Notes from a Small Island, the longer walk is postponed and lunch prepared at the hostel ... where last night's young room mates Kai from Germany and Gianluca from Italy, Erasmus students on Easter break from their studies in Lisbon, check out ... heading for Lagos in search of surf ... Anna from France also moving on, up to Loule for a walk towards Monchique and maybe the Portuguese Caminho later ... Didier, retired French economist, still here and convinced that the world financial system is ready to crash anytime ...

Afternoon walk rather longer, to Barril Beach via Santa Luzia, and a view of the sea ... not easily available along this Eastern stretch of the Algarve and maybe a blessing in retaining some local authenticity and keeping the horrors of mass tourism further west at awful Albufeira at bay ...

The D in the title, by the way, refers to the almost palpable boost from the Sun today, Vitamin D deficiency being identified as a public health problem in shady climates ... modern indoor lifestyles also contributing ... maybe the migration so far north was an evolutionary error ... 

Another D is Dina, from Holland, keen to settle in a warmer climate, looking for community ... a common endeavour and more difficult than it needs to be ...

Meanwhile, Maritsa and her daughter Alma arrive from Seville, escaping from the rather over the top Easter Week celebrations ... part of a large exodus to the rather more secular Algarve apparently ...