Sunday Supplement - YMCA

Think of this as being like the supplement that accompanies your Sunday newspaper, with  more in-depth features and articles.

I am famously a poor tourist.  I have no interest in looking at 'stuff' and get my travel pleasure from encounters and situations that widen my understanding of the culture of the countries I visit.  Our little 20 minute stop for lunch today gave me more pleasure than hours of trudging round looking at castles.

We had struck out on a proper lunch and just needed a cold drink and a chocolate bar to get us through the last 20 miles so we stopped in a little cafe.  It was a busy spot entirely frequented by locals and a fascinating glimpse into Portuguese village life.  

Sitting on the throne. actually a cheap plastic chair, was Mamma.  Mamma sat, legs splayed, with her wrinkly stockings piled up on her shoes, smiling benignly (and somewhat toothlessly) at seven thousand grubby kids who tore up and down screaming and shouting. As a special extra flourish she was sporting a set of inflatable devil horns.....no idea!

Next to her was a man who was probably a farm worker judging by the heavily bandaged fingers on one hand.  He was a man who hadn't read, or had decided to ignore, the smoking health warnings.  I suppose when you live in imminent danger of losing an arm in a threshing machine a little light lung cancer is no biggie. 

Then there was the youngish guy who was quite smartly dressed but clearly a sandwich or two short of a picnic.  He had spectacularly bowed legs and is presumably allowed to wear his best clothes since he won't be any use rounding up the pigs.

Next came the guy who was supposed to be tending the bar but stood around drinking more beer than he was serving.  We thought he had just a walk-on part in the play but oh no.  It turned out he had a starring role once the travelling shoe salesman arrived.  Sit tight, I'm getting there.

At some point one of the adults decided to entertain the kids by giving them a bluetooth speaker in the shape of a Porsche.  Naturally they started pumping out the watts with some lovely Portuguese music which made our ears bleed.  Then, and I'm guessing a bit because it was all in foreign, a big argument erupted as to whether Porsche was better than Ferrari.  This seemed a more serious argument than the circumstances required.

All fascinating stuff....but then the shoe guy arrives.  A youngish lad wearing a fluorescent lime designer top strolls in with a big plastic bag, pulls out a shoe and invites the barman to admire it.  Naturally we assumed he would be told to f%^k off but no.  Shoe spiv grabs a plastic chair and sits the barman down then kneels at his feet to help him try on the shoe.  I've seen this done in Clarkes but never a cafe.  When none of the shoes in his plastic bag seemed to please the barman he sloped of to the boot of his Audi where alternate shoes were extracted.  Long story short...no sale on the shoes but he did sell him 3 pairs of socks for a fiver.

Our beers were 50 cents.  Where else can you get cabaret like this for that money.  If we didn't have 20 miles to do I could have sat there all afternoon.

PS.  Sometimes you have to think beyond the song title and think about the artist* to get the connection.

PPS. *a very loose use of the word artist

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