Mm Links June 2013 Week 1
This is Manx Queenie, welcoming you all to the (sometime) summer month of June which has, I have discovered, five weeks in which you have to suffer words of wisdom from this quarter.
I am currently based in the Algarve (due to fly home shortly) without access to my usual computer or notes, so this week’s spiel will be based on what is around me at the moment – sunshine, brown (or red) skinned holiday makers from all parts of Europe, much laughter and jollity, blue skies, and more sunshine…
Having said that, for the Portuguese themselves life is not so jolly. As the recession bites, so the government cuts more and more services and pay-outs, leaving the old and vulnerable not knowing how much in the way of benefits they are going to get from one week to another. It all looks well to the visitor in the tourist “hot spots”, but go a few miles inland and there is stark poverty where people scratch a living from the hard, dry earth and a few scraggy animals, starvation looking them in the face every day. Lose your spectacles – or your teeth – and unless you have quite a bit of spare cash, there will be none to replace them. It makes me appreciate our NHS system more, despite its being overworked, over-regulated and understaffed.
But there is plenty of humour as well. I and a group of friends were sitting in a pavement café one afternoon, and a hearse drew up, complete with covered coffin in the glass-sided back. As we watched, the driver and his mate got out and went into the café, sitting down and drinking cups of coffee. After all, their passenger wasn’t going to complain at the delay!