Possible meal at last?
01 July 2010 | Flores, Azores
Finally, four days later, our heroines arrived on Flores, and so did the cauliflower. It looked great, but smelt pongy, so the jury is still out. Will the girls head for the pub? Will they attack a passing rabbit and barbecue it?
Her's a pic of the old bat preparing the feast!
Note clothes peg on nose.......
Not dinner then....
30 June 2010 | Sao Miguel, Azores
It all started quite innocently, when the Old Bat, Fag-Ash Lil and Lizzie Dripping, also known as Ethel, decided to buy a cauliflower for dinner, the night before flying to Flores, in the Azores, for a three-day break in a self-catering apartment. They had sailed the Old Bat's boat from Porto Santo, north of Madeira, to Santa Maria. They popped into a grocery and chose a nice plump cauliflower. Plans were made for cheese sauce with lardons - fried bacon bits, and all kinds of embellishments.
Then they were invited out to dinner, and the cauliflower sat there waiting for a better day.
The next day they sailed to Sao Miguel, planning to cook the cauliflower for dinner that evening. But life got in the way. The after-sail, pre-prandial beer expanded to two, then three, other yachties happened by and got on the chat, one thing led to another and dinner was ordered in the cafe. And very nice it was too, Arroz de Mariscos, or Seafood Rice. It came in a huge tureen, and resembled nothing more than a delicious soup, rather than the risotto they had anticipated. But they scoffed it, after a local delicacy as a starter - black pudding and pineapple! It was awesome man, all tasty and s**t!
The cauliflower sulked in its plastic bag in the yacht's fridge. It began to mutter to itself - 'They haven't even bought me any lardons yet, when on earth will they eat me now?'
The next morning the Old Bat got up and announced that the cauliflower was going for a ride in a plane.
'This'll be a nice surprise for it', said Ethel. 'But it hasn't got a ticket', objected Fag-Ash Lil.
The Old Bat didn't listen to any of that, and they set off to the airport with a backpack each, a holdall between them, and a plastic bag with the cauliflower. It had already visited two Azorean islands, this would have been its third. But fate was to take a hand!
In the departure lounge at the airport, they waited and waited, till the flight was announced, when they trooped on board the shuttle bus. Then they sat there, and sat there, until finally the instruction came that they were to leave the bus and file back into the terminal. There they sat, Fag-Ash Lil occasionally disappearing for a much-needed gasper, while successive announcements indicated that the plane was delayed for another half-hour, all due to adverse weather conditions in Flores. The Old Bat growled at the plastic bag, and announced that she was going to put it and the cauliflower into her backpack.
Eventually, over two hours after the advertised departure time of the plane, the assembled passengers were informed quietly that the plane had been cancelled, and that they could get accommodation and meals vouchers from the airline office, and the flight would be rescheduled for the crack of dawn on Thursday.
The Old Bat mobilised immediately, and went off to do an impression of a nice-but-dim old English lady at the airline office, while Ethel set off for the baggage reclaim to get the holdall, and Fag-Ash Lil departed for yet another gasper outside the departures entrance of the airport. This division of labour was extremely productive.as, not only did we get two meals vouchers each plus accommodation in an at least four-star hotel (with its own pool, jacuzzi, gym, sauna and turkish steam room), but they were so far ahead of their fellow-passengers that they got a taxi straight away - also free - to said hotel, where they were allocated a double and a single on the first floor! Terrific!
The cauliflower came too.