PEI to Portugal

Sat.Sept 23 Steve and Nicola were to arrive home late night from Scotland,so we thought we'd make a hot meal for their return
Well it was stinking hot and we walked all over the village looking for ingredients for a cajun chicken and sausage stew.No small feat as I'm sure there is no Portugese word for cajun or chorizo sausage.But with dogged determination we carried on. Our bags were full when we finally reached the house and OMG, we were locked out!!! This place is huge with 8-10 foot walls.What the hell.Steve has showed Pauli where the hidden key was in the side entrance but we couldn't reach it.A neighbor was hanging out her window and saw our distress, but all she could do was laugh at us.Finally another senior neighbor came along.Well with flapping our arms to make it look like an airplane and mimicking climbing up a ladder the neighbor understood we needed help.She got her husband who grabbed a ladder and put it up against the side entrance toward a balcony. He then proceeded to gesture to Pauli that she should climb up and over this balcony to go down to the side gate and find the spare key and away we go.Well Pauli scrambled up that ladder as fast as a monkey. However,when she reached the top there were very long,sharp spikes pointing straight up to heaven. No doubt to deter the Moors from ambush. Poor Pauli didn't have legs quite long enough and just about lost her "unmentionables " on her brave attempt to rescue our dinner from melting and the doggies from starving. Indeed,it would have been embarrassing to be found sitting outside at 1AM when the owners arrived home..So Pauli finally got "a leg up" and got down to the side gate to unlock the iron gate.But No,no deal.She couldn't find the key.Well the neighbor and her could do nothing but laugh at this point as it looked like Pauli was locked inside the entrance,as,of course, we had locked the side door.
So now the neighbor man goes to get a second ladder.He now puts one ladder up against the side car entrance and pulls the second ladder up and over the "did I mention", the 10 foot iron gate.Now he wants me to go up and over and down the other ladder into the yard. Also there are 2 very large dogs in the yard.Thank God they know my scent or I would have been cat food. So I finally get a key to unlock the main door and guess what. The friggin thing wasn't even locked-its just a bitch to open.So help me God,we drank that night!!! We were temped to break into Steve's sacred whiskey stash.It took us a few laughs to explain all this to Steve and Nicola.Read more