Mad Manhole Mike

Today has been an incredibly long day, filled with highs and lows, and amazing scenes and... poo filled holes.

After an emotional exchange between my son and I about how often he's been embarrassed by his parents' weirdnesses over the years, he then had occasion to be grateful for that stubborn willingness to be different when his wedding ring went down the sink in the gents toilet of the Estrela gardens where we'd been chatting. No U-bend in the sink, so Mike found the manhole cover outside, and we spent ages trying to flush out the ring, to no avail, Felicity and I in and out of the gents, and the young cleaner trying to help as well. The end of the story is here.

Another highlight of the day was Felicity hearing that she'd been accepted to do a doctorate on the welfare of lobsters. So we celebrated by walking up to the viewing point of Nossa Senhora do Monte (extra of the view of St George's castle from there), and then making it three minutes before the kitchen closed to O Gambuzino, the vegan restaurant she'd chosen to eat at, where we toasted her with Per Se spritzers (Portuguese version of Aperol) before an amazingly creative meal - there were even boiled eggs that looked exactly like eggs, but weren't.

Gratefuls:
- finding Paul's ring
- Felicity being accepted for the doctorate
- surviving the hills we've walked up and down today, not to mention the 101 steps we have to climb to get to our flat