If you haven’t already read about it here, Penfold’s first book has been published! Champagne corks have been popping all over Cabril (well, actually it was more like two cups of warm tea with honey). But we’ve been celebrating wildly and we hope you’ll join us.
Papersurfer: Diary of a middle aged surfer – age 38 and a half is written and illustrated entirely by Penfold. If you’ve ever spent an afternoon with this surfer stuck in the moutains of Portugal you’ll know he’s really very funny. I think the book captures his sense of humour brilliantly.
Some surfers are real men. They put their lives on the line every day in search of the ultimate wave. Jaws, Mavericks, Teahupoo – these are the waves that take names. Heaving tons of water pushed by storm and moon to create a thundering wall that only the true hero can ride.
You are not this man.
A portion of proceeds from the book will be going to Sri Lanka with Paddle4relief to help forgotten victims of the 2004 Tsunami. We met Tim Tanton, founder of P4R, on our trip to A-Bay in 2008, and continue to be amazed by his creative dedication and motivation to help.
If you want to help Tim make a difference in Sri Lanka and if you want to make Penfold’s day (and yours), please buy the book. If you really want to make everyone’s day, read the book and review it on your blog. It’s available here in print or electronic copy from Lulu.com.
Thanks for your support and happy reading!
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PS: Muito obrigada to daisyfae, Daddy P, SCWInk, Stinkypaw, KPX, and surftwin for their comments on Tango Bravo’s Day Off. And special thanks to everyone who voted for AtomicdogmA.com on bab.la’s Top 100 International Exchange and Experience Blogs 2010. I limped in at a respectable rank of 47 …
By Tango
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Posted in Read
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Tagged book, charity, diary, funny, humor, humour, learn to surf, middle aged, p4r, paddle4relief, papersurfer, sri lanka, surf, tsunami
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Yesterday marked the anniversary of Tango arriving on this earth (also known as Lincoln’s Birthday). With the exception of last year’s big one, the event is generally regarded as a low-key celebration. Penfold, in his intuitively loverly ways, celebrated the day with me exploring things and places I love.
O fadista by Punk Jazz on Flickr
Eating our tostas mistas and sipping wine in the afternoon, we drank in the sights and sounds of my favourite café in the city. Not a coffee bar where people line up for ages to order non-fat skinny foamless mochaccinos in paper cups and breakfast sandwiches à la McMuffin. This place is so much more than that. It’s a place where students philosophize, where waiters wear red vests and walk carefully to avoid china crashing onto the marble floor, where men earnestly wear chunky-framed glasses and black turtlenecks, a place where they sing Fado in the February evening. Café Santa Cruz is a slow trip back in time, a glimpse into the historical Portugal I adore.
Obrigadinha Penfold, for a perfect day.
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PS: And muito obrigada to Alice, Daddy P, daisyfae, Stinkypaw, Penfold and surftwin for their comments on Penfold & Tango: Um Ano em Cabril.
Many of you already know the story of Penfold & Tango (you can read most of it from Tango’s perspective starting from about here). If you remember, it began as Operation Beige-Free.
When Penfold asked me to live with him in the hills of Central Portugal and I agreed, most everyone I knew thought I was crazy. And most everyone was worried and concerned but quietly excited for what a ridiculous adventure this could be.
So far the adventure has been amazing in wonderful and unexpected ways. At the risk of being smooshy, we decided to put together a collection of photographs to remember our first year in Cabril.
Um Ano em Cabril
It’s called Um Ano em Cabril (A Year in Cabril) and it’s available as a series of blank cards at tangoNovemberbravo.com. Let us know what you think!
I do hope djbeat will be happy to see a smattering of beige …
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PS: Muito obrigada to Daddy P and daisyfae for their votes and comments on Vote for Tango.
I have no idea how it happened but AtomicdogmA.com has been nominated for IX10 (The Top 100 International Exchange and Experience Blogs 2010) brought to you by the good folks at bab.la and Lexiophiles. (How do you say w00t in Portuguese?)
We’ve been looking for the top 100 blogs that presents us with the joys, difficulties and adventures of living abroad. What it is like to spend a year, a semester or any time at all studying or working in a foreign country? What are the pros and cons? Is it worth trying?
Well if you’ve been following this blog at all, you’ll know that living abroad comes with completely random joys, difficulties and adventures. Some are worth writing about, some are not (some day I’ll know which is which).
Is it worth trying? Hell, yes!
Voting for IX10 goes from Feb 1st to Feb 14th and you can cast your vote here. Judging from the tally results so far, I need as many votes as I can get!
Vote for Pedro Tango.
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PS: Muito obrigada to Daddy P, daisyfae, Priscilla and Penfold for their comments on 1 Hour of Play.
If Plato were alive today he could add matchmaking mogul to his list of achievements.
Put aside his important philosophical dialogues, his studies of logic, mathematics and rhetoric. Never mind his intense musings with teacher Socrates or his stern lectures to student Aristotle. Plato knew something far more valuable. He supplied us with a basic truth about humankind.
“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.”
But somewhere over the centuries we got confused. We began to analyze our illogical behaviours, our irrational desires for chick flicks and chocolate. We went to great lengths to find good research, sometimes going as far as Mars or Venus. We developed complicated online surveys to quantify and locate our perfect soulmates. We invented speed dating, blind dating, pub dating and lunch dating. Essentially we took all the fun out of what should be the most spontaneous wonder; we made finding human connection the ultimate goal.
uma hora do jogo ~ one hour of play
This week’s chick<8000clicks>chick is all about capturing that one hour of play. I’m grooving to the tunes of DJ Penfold in Disco@Cabril on the left while djbeat is in Vancouver listening to sweet tones of ‘The Big Hungry Bear’ on the right.
Plato knew that play dates aren’t just for kids.
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PS: Obrigadinha to Daddy P, djbeat, 70steen, daisyfae, Penfold, Sue, St Jude, KPX, Emma and Priscilla for their comments on It’s Not Quite a Jaguar.
I’ve never been without a car since I was 16 years old. Living without my own form of transportation was unthinkable; driving represented freedom and independence. A transportation snob through and through, I experienced public transit when necessary but never by choice. I’ve always been happiest behind the wheel, whether for a short drive or for a marathon road trip.
Then I moved to Portugal. Sem rodas. And I’ve been without my own form of transportation ever since. I’ve learned to live without the convenience of my own wheels, to rely on others for rides, to experience immobilization and to genuinely appreciate the freedom I no longer had.
Citroën Love
After months of research I learned about the outrageously slow rate of depreciation and unfairly sky-high import duty for automobiles in Portugal. I made spreadsheets and charts and finally, after excruciating analysis and indecision, I did it. Earlier this week I brought home my new (to me) car. It is tiny, unglamorous, overpriced and even a little bit ugly.
I’ve never loved a car quite so much.
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PS: Muito obrigada to Penfold, daisyfae, Alice, Jen, djbeat, and KPX for their comments on Blue Monday 2010.
Today is allegedly the most depressing day of the year.
where W = weather, d = debt, T = time since Christmas, Q = time since failing our new year’s resolutions, M = low motivational levels and Na = the feeling of a need to take action (D is not defined).
Factors contributing to segunda-feira azul in Cabril are as follows:
- my fingers are like bratwurst sausages from rheumatoid arthritis brought on by too much knitting (once considered impossible since I have not progressed beyond the maturity of a 20-year-old);
- we still have no telephone line after three weeks;
- the sky is still grey;
- the ground is still mucky; and
- Penfold’s sinus cavities are still mucky.
But enough is enough! We are breaking our state of hibernation!
Penfold has just begun to tackle the barn roof, making way for a rush of productivity and progress. It’s time to get back to work, to achieve a few goals, to finally get this year started!
Goodbye gloomy days of winter, this may be Blue Monday but I see nothing but blue skies ahead …
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PS: Obrigada to DaddyP, daisyfae, Sue, Stinkypaw, St Jude, surftwin, Penfold and KPX for their comments on Hibernation.
Britain is covered in snow and the rest of Europe is preoccupied with weather warnings. Thanks to Santa Bravo we now have accurate indoor/outdoor temperature readings, barometric pressure forecasts, historical min/max records, humidity measurements and current lunar phases. Our weather data comes to us with Germanic speed and precision and we always know when to put another sweater (or three) on.
Yesterday morning it snowed (I use the term “snow” lightly) and by afternoon the blowing sleet was horizontal. For the second time this year we’ve lost our telephone and ADSL connection. As Dancing on Ice disappoints and our satellite signal wavers there is only one thing left to do.
Hibernate until spring.
hibernação ~ hibernation
This week’s theme for chick<8000clicks>chick couldn’t be more appropriate. Penfold just put another log on the fire and we’re making our way through Christmas presents on the left while djbeat is nursing her Vancouver hibernation hangover on the right.
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PS: Muito obrigada to Alice, Sue, daisyfae, surftwin, Stinkypaw, Shannon, Emma and Somnambulist for their warm and encouraging comments on Marmite Socks.
It’s raining. I’m knitting. It’s pouring. I’m knitting.
The sky is grey and the ground is sopping wet. The Christmas decorations have come down and the holiday festivities have come to a screeching halt. A momentous decade ended and we slipped into 2010 with a small but slushy thud.
This is winter in Central Portugal and even though I know that the season is mercifully short here, the cold and wet blanket that has covered Cabril makes it difficult to get motivated. But sales are growing (woohoo!) and so I continue to knit. And knit.
And knit.
A post-Christmas custom order rush is keeping me unusually busy and I’m grateful for each and every beige, chestnut, grey and taupe order. But I needed some colour, some vibrancy, a break from winter’s earthy tones and the grey skies.
So I made these.
People will either love them or hate them. Kind of like Marmite.
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PS: Obrigada to daisyfae, Stinkypaw, DaddyP, surf-starved Penfold, and KPX for their comments on Ano Novo!
A new day, a new month, a new year … a new decade.
A bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Penfold woke me up with Rabbit Rabbit this morning so we’re off to a good start.
Feliz Ano Novo to all my readers and subscribers from 49 different countries. May 2010 be filled with love, peace, health and laughter for us all. And maybe just a little bit of extra cash.
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PS: Muito obrigada to everyone who left comments here in 2009. I do love hearing from each and everyone – be sure to say hello in 2010!
