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The Life of Brian.

It has been a long time since I have had the time or inclination to sit down and write.
My mother finally succumbed to the cancer she had been fighting for the last 2 years and began to decline rapidly in early December, numerous admissions to hospital and doctors visits culminated in her admission to Saint Gemmas Hospice, Leeds, where she died on the 7th of March 2008.

The huge sense of loss and grief were somewhat tempered by a feeling of relief that at last it was all over both for her and for the family who had spent four months awaiting the inevitable. The funeral service though heartbreaking was quite beautiful and it was enormously gratifying that about 150 people turned up to pay their respects and wish her a last farewell.
We had promised ourselves that when it was all over we would flee to our holiday home in Santa Luzia at the earliest opportunity and let the magic of our little Portuguese paradise ease all the stress, pain and tension but the formalities of probate etc. meant we were unable to escape until early April.
Thus we arrived with friends Barry and Netta on the 4th of April at a now completely no smoking Faro airport.
I never really believed that the Portuguese would swallow this nanny state stuff and embrace the smoking ban but early indications are that they have, most bars, restaurants etc are now non smoking and people are begrudgingly complying, however that is what happened in Spain for a few months and now you can have a cigarette with your drink just about anywhere there and I strongly suspect the Portuguese will follow suit.
Arriving at the house in the early evening we quickly realised that the aftermath of my roof repairs in November was going to take a lot of erasing and a massive cleaning operation was launched there and then. This major operation was to continue on and off throughout the entire 9 days we stayed.
Now I have been promising myself for the last seven years that one day I would do some fishing from the pier and, during a visit to the local Aldi to stock up on cleaning materials, I took the opportunity to abrogate all responsibility and immerse myself in the special offers section, particularly the fishing tackle sets.
We came away laden with bleach, brushes, scourers, sprays, powders and a 39 euro fishing tackle combo.
The weather on Friday and Saturday was excellent, clear skies, a hot sun and a cool refreshing breeze so on Sunday afternoon I ventured down to the quay and set

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