Dear Caixa Geral de Depósitos,

When I have waited almost an hour to get to the desk, and I ask why you don't just open the other cash desk at busy times, PLEASE don't tell me that I have to wait for an hour just to deposit a cheque because "the opening of just one cash desk at a time is a method of working that we have decided to use," when you have twenty or thirty people in the queue, mostly old, because they're the ones who can't bank online, mostly without seats because there are precisely seven seats in the whole bank, with each customer taking twice as long as anyone ever need take at a caixa because a. this is Portugal and that's what people do, making things more complicated than they need, but also, and worse, b. because the person on the caixa, while supposedly dealing with each customer, is available to questions from any Tomás, Ricardo or Henrique* in the queue or amongst his colleagues who might need to know any goddam thing whenever they damn well please and when I ask you why that is, don't you dare suggest that it's "just because." because one of these days one of the people in the queue, one of the many who are sitting there complaining to each other, huffing loudly each time the manager walks past, or a cashier goes for coffee, one of them IS going to get stabby or have a stroke and it will be YOUR fault because YOU caused it.  

And DON'T come back to me and say, "ooh, but we're the national bank, we don't really need to compete with the other banks with service and shit" when you spent SO much money on advertising your supposedly fantastic customer facilities.  Just DON'T.   

I need to go and kick something.   half. morning. wasted.

 Yours sincerely, 

 Me. 

* Tom, Dick or Harry.... obv.   

1. 73% of people with too much time on their hands cause 98% of trouble in the world.  Probably.

2. Books published in Portugal, Spain and France (had lost interest by the time I got to the German and Italian ones, so can't even remember which way round they are)(as opposed to anglophone books...(shouldn't that be angloscript not -phone?)) have their spines printed upside down, so that when you have to lay books on their sides to fit all the damned things in, if you want to be able to read the spine you have to lay it cover side down.  How counterintuitive is THAT? 

3. I think it might be time for an "intervention" with little Mr Bibliophile, and it occurs to me that I could be classed as an "enabler" to an addict (i.e. when I get a phone call from Lisbon... "do you want to come and have lunch in town?" "You mean you want me to bring the car and collect a shedload of books, don't you?" "mmmmmmm", "oh, alright then", etc.)... I think I've been watching too much Dr Phil (I haven't really, I just catch his judgmental moustache when channel flicking because the remote for the telly has left this mortal coil). 

4. The sight of cat nipples makes me feel a little bit icky.  

5. back to lugging.   

(things i have learnt i) 

1. when trying to save time with cooking (while moving etc), it is best not to resort to buying jars of tomato sauces, after the jar I bought the other day was so unutterably disgusting that none of us could eat it.  HOW hard must it be to make tomatoes inedible? It was Gulosa, by the way.  Tomato sauce: MAKE YOUR OWN (tinned tomatoes allowed).

2. with more time to just think inside my head with all this lugging, with less time to just blurt, flail about and scribble, I have come to the terrifying but quite liberating conclusion that I have never got past the age of 10.  That is it.  I am a 10-year-old in an almost 40-year-old's body.  That may have solved very many of my few problems.

3. Life is too short to a. fuck about and not do what you want to, and b. to put up with silly people and bullies, and c. so there, nyeurgh, yah boo sucks.   

4. Just because you spend three weeks lugging, heaving, hefting and carrying, it doesn't necessarily mean that you will ACTUALLY lose any weight.  I thought I'd lost some kilos but I don't think now that I had.  And then I started checking obsessively, and know that I categorically haven't.  People keep reminding me that muscle is heavier than fat, but does it wobble like fat? In my case, YES.

5.  Crap-lugging makes you lose your memory.  I used to remember EVERYTHING.  Now I'm relying on scraps of paper and notes on the back of my hand that get washed off before they've served their purpose.  Is it age or knackeredness? 

(p.s. (as in PRE-script, not POST script) this post is keeping the front page and my demo reel company while I'm so busy and losing all the weight that I put on since Christmas ... I am putting some stuff in the blog, on the imaginary inside of this fantabulous me-zine that is my website, mostly photies, so do click on stuff...you may now read on if you haven't already) 

It's raining again, which is a glorious thing, as it means I don't have to water either of the gardens today AND it might mean that the annual all-schools-in-the-district party is cancelled, an awful pain in the arse of watching other people's children doing some godawful dancing, waiting for hours for one's own children doing some godawful dancing and having to pretend it's fabulous, all run to the usual Portuguese timescale, which dictates, by law, that nothing start until at least an hour later than it should and that it all drags a bit in the middle, meaning that if it's finished by midnight it's a shocker.  

And then there's the other tiny thing... that we've finally fixed a move-by date and I have seven weeks to move me, the kids, a bit of furniture, several trillion pairs of knickers and socks, a writer clamped to his desk desperately trying to finish one book before the next one starts and his twenty or thirty thousand strong collection of dusty old books, at the same time as getting the plans sorted for the new place... which we may be knocking down and starting from scratch (if you're confused, SO AM I...this will entail moving in for now, waiting for licences and permissions and crap to go ahead, then move out while it's being built or whatevered), added to which I have a book to illustrate by the end of the summer, it's all gone a bit OMFG! around here.  What I'm trying to say is that a. it may go quiet around here and b. this may very well be kept un-quiet around here with a litany of moving (house) stories, builder stories, how I lost it and set light to the books stories, that kind of thing.  I intend to document it all, from moving in, moving out, designing, planning, building and moving in again, in text, video and photo so that I can remember it in the end, and then sell it as one of those up-their-own-arses "how I built the dream in Provence/Tuscany/Malaga" type books that some people just lap up like milk out of Kevin McCloud's saucer.  (L + D... I can't persuade 'im indoors of the benefit of getting Grand Designs to cover this one... actually, I'm not sure of the benefits either... if it goes badly then one is left looking like an arse and if it goes well, people keep coming to see it (I've been reading the comment boxes in the Grand Designs site, what a bunch of loonies!  "I went to the house, but the lady wouldn't let me inside to see it".  LORKS!) 

It's only 4 km up the road, but still going to be a bit of a process.   

Now, one more thing while I'm at it.  Google is a marvellous thing, we'll mostly agree on that.  But it does get people HERE under the wrong impression.  Every day I get several dozen visits to this little blog-home of mine via searches such as "Ingleses em Portugal" "Vida moderna em Portugal" "Estrangeiros Portugal" etc. all of which lead people to various articles of mine that are being less than generous to this country, instead of to posts that suggest that I MIGHT JUST BE TAKING THE PISS, although everything is based in truth.  Every few days I either get a comment left or an email that then says "who the fuck are you?" or "get out of my country!" or "I don't live there any more, but how dare you say bad things about Portugal?!" or even "We know where you live".  Right.  Listen.  I'm going to say these following things only once more because, if you have paid attention above you'd know, I am too damn busy to keep deleting the shit. I am going to attach so much bloody meta data to this post that google will just see it first even if you google "are there ants on Mars and are they green?"  Ready? And forgive me if I sound a bit pissy and a bit goddam arrogant.  But, damn it, I have earned the right to.  So bloody there. 

1. In October 2009, I will have lived in this country for ten years.  I speak fluent Portuguese, shockingly so for a Briton.  I live my life in Portuguese, I watch Portuguese television, I read Portuguese newspapers.  I occasionally write in Portuguese and I get words wrong and I get jumped on for it.  My kids go to Portuguese schools.  I remain resolutely British, but I live my life HERE, with my Portuguese friends and my Portuguese family.  I'm a Briton, I'm British.  I'm NOT a Brit.  I hate that word, it's so Daily Mail.

2. My husband is Portuguese and is quite a clever bloke and agrees with virtually everything I say about Portugal (except he loves eating fish brains), as do most of my Portuguese friends, although they are allowed one disagree per week, if they behave.

3. Portugal IS a beautiful country, but it DOES have many faults and is badly looked after by many Portuguese people.

4. The "Portuguese way of life" is a strange myth invented by the British and the Germans and the Dutch who all come here in search of it, but that's their problem.  It's just warmer, the fish is fresher and the beer is cheaper.  Most other things, like working, laundry, washing-up, traffic jams, in-laws, sore feet, etc., are pretty similar, so get over it, you forrins. 

5. Everyone has an opinion about the British.  Everyone in the world.  We are universally despised.  If you are a Briton and didn't know that, then you're an idiot.  I have heard so much shit spouted at me about the British and Britain over the last ten years that is utter drivel or sometimes true, but mostly from people who've never even set a foot past the Portugal-Spain border.  I've also heard the same drivel the other way round.  And that's why I write this shit.

6. If you don't have a sense of humour, a sense of humility, a sense of the ironic or a sense of being a bit silly and letting it all hang out, please just don't come here.  Just leave.  You won't like it here.  I barely even talk about Portugal any more, I've said pretty much all I have to say on the matter, the culture shock has left the system, although I'm still proud of what I've written and it stays where it is.  

I think that is all I have to say right now.  Yes.  If you have something to say, please do, but do it in the spirit of this light and fluffy nuthole that is this blog.  There's the guestbook or the comment boxes.   

Right.  I have knickers to pack.  

Lots of love.

Me.   

I made a reel of the last 16 livin' draws, for auto-peddling purposes.