Helen and Peter in Portugal

In 2009/10 there was a brief outcry in the UK about the amount of unnecessary road signs on British roads.   The consumer group called Civic Choice submitted information that there were tens of thousands of excess road signs and that too many signs were confusing and distracting.    The AA results of a survey can be found here and the Campaign for Plain English also supported some of the findings. I think this problem has ‘gone global’, well at least ‘gone European’ OK maybe just ‘gone Portuguese’.   There is certainly a road sign disease spreading on the IC8, one of the major highways in Central Portugal.   This disease seems to have reached its peak in the area between the turn off for the IC3 and Castanheira de Pera.   The disease is spreading, the spores of signs scattering along the roadside and new signs growing all the time.   In this short distance, it takes just 10 mins to drive, it has been reported to me that there are a ...

It’s orange and lemon season here in Portugal, so here is a recipe to try out. If you are using oranges just replace them where I have put lemons. Ingredients For the cake Zest of 3 lemons (from your local tree or supermarket, whichever is closer) Squeeze of lemon juice Splash of vanilla extract 6 ounces butter at room temperature (sorry when baking I work in ounces) 6 ounces of light brown sugar 3 medium eggs (from your local hens or supermarket, whichever is closer) 6 ounces self raising flour For the syrup glaze Juice of 3 lemons 4 ounces of white sugar Method Line a loaf tin. Put on oven at 180 degrees. Check out the size of this lemon Cream together (in a food mixer) the butter and sugar, add a squeeze of lemon juice and the vanilla extract.   Finely grate in the zest of 2 or 3 lemons (more zest more zing to the cake, but I wouldn’t use more than 2 orange zests).  Add the eggs one at time and mix together. ...