It’s the last weekend in May as I begin this post—Memorial Day weekend in America, nothing special over here. I’m going to begin with an editorial announcement. . . right after a couple of pictures.

The first picture is of a plate of seafood Molli got somwhere downtown with her Lucas. The second is of the same plate in its full context. (Including Lucas getting his own closeup of the plate without context.)

The first picture will be the end of the “food-only photo” genre in this blog. Yes, I will make occasional exceptions, but the girls are constantly spamming us with pictures of their food and I am just declaring that genre unworthy of this blog.

The second picture is my suggestion for a better approach to food pix: the context makes it so much richer, and will also help viewers appreciate the full experience that made the photographer think the picture worthy in the first place.

Okay? We’re all agreed? Great.

The next picture is out of chronological order, but it hardly matters: this is one of Didi’s pups, as of May 2024.

Here’s how he looked just a few days before he left us to join his new family:

How quickly they grow up!

As I was saying…

The weather was finally turning as May got started in earnest, but we were still having fires almost every night. So easy to make, so cozy, and so beautiful to watch them burn!

I have learned by hard experience that I cannot ride without gloves in temperatures below 10 degrees Celsius. I did not ride into work without gloves until May this year.

But things were finally looking up!

There’s stuff going on down by the lake. I ought to know what, but frankly the documentation we’re being sent by the kommune and our own neighborhood union is too long and I know I already voted on it anyway, so I guess I’ll just be pleasantly surprised to see what all this turns out to be.

(Those are two different spots, by the way, about 300 meters apart.)

We finally got around to having a Seder this year. It’s been a long time coming. We’d always intended to raise our girls the way Nana and Pop Pop—Mom and Dad—raised Deb and me: including Passover as one of the regular spring holidays. But there were always problems, chief of them being a total inaccessibility of Jewish food. Finally this year it all came together, except for the date.

Matzo meal is not available in Denmark, but matzos are, so I tried to grind some matzos into matzo meal.

The result was a spectacular failure, as you can imagine.

Trine: “Why didn’t you just use the blender?”

Me: “Doh!”

Five minutes later:

And not long after that:

Real beauties, right?

I ended up having to freeze them for a couple of weeks, but they came out perfect and delicious. As you shall see.

But that’s still in the future at this point. All of the above has been April. Now we’re finally getting real spring weather: it’s finally May 1 and we get our temperature of 20!

Look how happy it made Didi:

Can you not see her smile?

The forest was erupting in green.

Spring weather is grand and glorious, but it also means yardwork.

Here’s the back alley on April 28:

I spent an hour or two a day out there for about a week, and here it is on May 5:

Reverse view:

I also got the undergrowth beneath the cherry laurel in the backyard:

But we cheated: those “after” photos are May 5.

Here’s my morning bike ride on May 2:

The whole week had been gorgeous like that, so we decided that on Saturday the 4th we’d take a little trip up to Rørvig—Maddie couldn’t make it (work), but Mormor could.

Rørvig

We had been hoping to make it up to the ferry in Hundested for a particular departure—the 12:25, I think. We gave ourselves a decent amount of time, but for a number of reasons (looking at you, Trine—with love, with love!), we lost our cushion of time and by the time we had reached northern Sjælland we realized we weren’t going to make the 12:25 and would just have to wait for the 12:55.

Except just as we were getting into Hundested, we noticed it was 12:22. Was it possible? Could we? Would we?

As we arrived at the port we could see the ferry was still there. The parking lot was empty and there was no queue. I drove straight to the drive-thru ticket office: the guy just said, “go, go, you can still make it, pay on the boat!”

We drove as quickly as we could onto the ferry. I parked the car. We all exhaled. I cut the engine, pulled up the emergency brake, and felt myself unclench.

We weren’t even all out of the car before the ferry was underway!

But, uh, where’d all that glorious summer weather go?

The world was gray on gray.

Also: I was there:

In days of yore, or in the beforetimes, or back in the day, or however you want to say it, the girls spent many a summer afteroon fishing for crabs with their Mormor on the pier at Rørvig.

For example, here’s Molli in 2007:

And here she is 17 years later:

Flashback again:

Same two adorable blonde heads in both of the two preceding photos. . . and damn near the same exact location.

They grow up so fast!

We had a great lunch at the seafood buffet place. Stuffed ourselves silly on really excellent seafood of which there are no photographs!

After lunch we wandered through the little outdoor market.

And of course we got some ice cream. It was very cool, as you can tell by what we’re wearing, but Rørvig without ice cream is like a movie without popcorn.

Fun fact: Rørvig is the town closest to Denmark’s exact geographic midpoint:

Trine wanted to see the old family summer house—sold off long, long ago. We drove there after our ice creams, and imagine our astonishment:

It’s for sale! The summer house of Trine’s golden childhood memories is on the market!

We were in no position to buy it, of course, but because it was for sale we had an opportunity to walk around it, and even inside it. Trine and Mormor were glowing as they point out the significance of every length of timber, every corner of the property. “And Onkle Klaus built that wall, there,” “That’s where Mette and I jumped rope,” and so on.

I did say it was May 4—that’s Liberation Eve, and we still remember to burn a candle in the window.

Passover

And May 5, Liberation Day, was also. . . Passover!

Kammer Nagan Passover, anyway.

I am so damn proud of us for finally making it happen. Now that we know it can be done, it will be done every year forever more.

General Interest

We’re starting the second week of May now, and the weather is really picking up. Not only is it mostly warm, it’s also finally mostly dry. See how the “drowned bench” is finally emerging from the waters!

And Hareskov is ever greener, and so much nicer with a forest floor that’s dry and dusty instead of soggy, squishy, and muddy.

(Although I think the bitch prefers Hareskov when it’s muddy.)

May 11—a Saturday—and Mormor sends us a picture of the charming lad who served her and Jørgen some ice cream at Tivoli.

That’s Maddie’s Lucas.

Meanwhile, I’d attacked the inner plants on our western border and was damn proud of how the yard was shaping up for the summer, so these are sort of “how the yard should look in May” pics for the permanent record. (The outside hedges woudn’t be touched for another few weeks. Our landscaping scene from the street has a look of straight-up hillbilly neglect.)

Also for the permanent record, and possible year-in-review trivia: May 11 was the first day of the year when all the cushions made it out onto the terrace furniture.

I didn’t know which of these two Didi pics I liked better, so I included both of them.

The commutes were getting very nice by now: no gloves—and no jacket!

I’ve been passing those horses 4-6 times a week from April to October for years, and I always say hey, and they have still never greeted me back.

First sign of summery weather: when we can leave the living room door open and Didi can come and go as she pleases but chooses to keep herself in the shade.

Come on, she’s effing adorable:

And still cuts a pretty fine figure for an old lady of 10! (May 11 was her 10th birthday.)

Portugal

And finally it’s May 15! Time for Trine, Molli, and me to head down to Portugal. (Maddie couldn’t join us because of exams.)

We’d been keeping an eye on the weather forecasts for weeks hoping we could enjoy some searing sun down in the Algarve. But as Denmark had been warming, the southern Iberian peninsula had been cooling. By the time we finally departed, the forecasts for Loulé and Værløse were about the same.

But what the hell: vacation is vacation!

Trine visited Morfar’s new house back in February, but this was Molli’s and my first visit.

We all love Blue, but dayum, that dog barked so much it made us grateful to come home to Didi—whose own general barkiness drives us all crazy.

Morfar took us out to dinner every night we were there. I’ll never remember the names of the places, so I’ll give them stupid made up names.

Here we are in the parking lot of The One With the View on the Hill Halfway to Continente:

I know I said no food pixs, but this was just a really weird dish that I ordered:

It was described as traditional regional peasant food: alheira sausage, I think, mashed with potatoes. I tried it because the waiter said he’d grown up in that region and it was his favorite thing on the menu, and probably the most traditional thing on it, too.

The texture was a little weird, as he’d forewarned me (haggisy), but it was tasty enough that I’d eat it again.

The property around Morfar’s house doesn’t have as many olive trees, but there were citrus fruit trees.

And a couple of carob trees.

Here are some pictures from the terrace on the rooftop:

This was our first full day there. It was not only cool and gray: it actually even rained.

The weather was so lousy we went to the mall and bought ourselves clothes and stuff to leave in Portugal so that on future trips we won’t have to pack very much at all. And had a KFC lunch.

But it did clear up later in the day: Morfar let Trine and me use his bedroom for the week, and here’s the view from bed.

I could live like that.

Well, I mean, I did live like that for a few days. I mean I could live that for a lot of days.

I went into Loulé for a haircut only to be told it was appointment only: so I set an appointment for the next day and just kind of wandered around a little.

That little solo trip into Loulé, and another the next day when I got my haircut, was the only time I ventured to any of the usual haunts. We made no group trips into Loulé or Faro—no pics of the eyeglass man, this time!—and we didn’t make it out to Lagos, or so Splash & Slide, or even to Villa Mora for ice cream. We hung around the house by day and went out to dinner at night and that was about it.

Glorious.

While lying there sunning myself, I felt like I was being watched.

I was:

And that funny little guy in the bottom right isn’t the only one: there are a couple of similar rock-people around the property. No idea why, but there they are. It’s like Retarded Stonehenge.

Here’s the last picture of the rat’s nest I so badly wanted shorn off my head:

That night we had a couple of little beers (and light snacks) at The Little Restaurant off the Main Road to Almancil, Near Piri Piri. We had them outside. Morfar’s friend Vincent, an Irishman whose been in the Algarve for about 20 years, joined us.

After our little beers we took an insanely narrow, twisting, winding, hilly “shortcut” to The Restaurant We’d Driven by A Million Times Before Without Noticing, which was, if I remember, owned by an expat couple from Mozambique (or Angola?)—or maybe it was just the Pop half of the Mom and Pop restaurant who was from Mozambique (or Angola). I don’t have any pictures from that restaurant, but everything about it—food, wine, atmosphere, service—was fantastic, and Vincent was a wonderfully garrulous dining companion.

The weather was much nicer the next day.

That night we went to The Place in Almancil Just a LIttle Way Up the Main Road From the Café Where We Took the Girls for Ice Cream When They Were Little. It fronts as a butcher shop, but then opens into a very nice restaurant.

And yes, I know, no food pics, but we all four ordered the exact same thing: ribeyes that were cooked to perfection. So this single picture covers all four of us:

… and should serve as a good reminder next time we’re down there and want a good steak.

The wine didn’t suck, either.

Actually it was really good, so, note to self, if you ever have a chance to buy some, do.

The next was May 18: Morfar’s birthday! (Also Hannah’s, happy birthday to you, too, Hannah!)

And it was a beautiful day.

(Too many pool pics? Sorry. It’s just so gorgeous when you’re there, but I can see how it might be boring just looking at pictures.)

We did a lot of reading down there: can’t remember what Trine was reading, but I enjoyed John Irving’s A Widow for One Year. I’d been kind of slogging through it at home, reading for about five minutes in bed each night before my eyes got heavy and I fell asleep: finally having a chance to read it while awake and alert, and for long stretches at a time, I actually enjoyed a lot. It’s been a long time since I got to do so much uninterrupted reading. I need to make more time for it in regular life.

For his birthday dinner, Gert took us to That French Place in Santa Bárbara de Nexé.

No food pics (you’re welcome!), even though the food was fantastic, but we all thought it was interesting the way our ice cream desserts were served. We got little single-serving jars, fitted into little wooden coasters.

Here’s how downtown Santa Bárbara de Néxe looks on a rockin’ Saturday night:

In one direction, anyway. But we’d parked in the other direction.

We did some last minute shopping on Sunday, and Molli noticed something funny about the snails: they were alive!

Seriously.

Four euros for a kilo of live snails? Hard pass, thanks.

Speaking of weird little critters, an Iberian wall lizard made its way into the house on Sunday.

It chose poorly, given that Morfar has a dog and two cats.

I called Blue over, she came right over to it, gave it a sniff, and wandered away.

Hopper was less sanguine.

Possibly the greatest True Life Nature Adventure picture I have ever taken:

No geckos were hurt in the filming of this video (the hurting came after):

Sunday afternoon I got a little cabin fever. I needed to move, so I took a walk around “the block.” Basically a 3-4 kilometer hike.

Passing on foot, I felt compelled to get a closeup on That Bump You Have to Avoid Just Over the Crest of that Hill with the House With the Four Rectangles.

I had not avoided it the first time we drove by it, despite Morfar’s repeated warnings that a bad bump was coming up. It’s the kind of bump you only fail to avoid once.

But as you can see in the next photo, even in bright daylight and just 5-10 meters away, it doesn’t really jump out at you:

(It’s that bit of cracked pavement just below the pole on the right.)

I took a lot of pictures on my walk, but most of them are stupid.

I like the aesthetics of this one:

And this one’s kind of representative of the kind of terrain and scenery for most of the walk.

I came across this lovely little fixer-upper:

So here’s a closeup with the real estate number.

I think it’s bold to put a “for sale” sign on a front door that’s not even mounted into a door frame.

Maybe “Las Bota” is Portuguese for “The Balls!”

Or maybe “The Shit!”

But why keep guessing when I’ve got Google Translate open in another tab?

Ha ha. Perfect!

Not long after I passed that “cozy ranch, needs some TLC” offering, I heard a bad sound in brush beside me. . .

It’s not a very good picture, but I give myself a lot of credit for taking it given that every instinct in my body was screaming run!

The visible part of that snake was at least a meter long, and god knows how much more of it was trailing behind beneath the brush.

Question for men: what you rather encounter in the Portuguese brush: a snake, or a woman?

(It’s an internet meme variant. This was the month of the “Women: would you rather encounter a man or a bear in the woods?” meme.)

If I can run with that meme for a moment, I’ll tell you: I’d rather encounter a snake, because at least I know it’s not going to ask me to kill any spiders.

(Makes about as much sense as the responses of the women who’d rather encounter a bear than a man.)

Here’s the only shot I have of the house from the street:

It actually has a name: Case Verde, which is Portuguese for “Morfar’s House.”

Here’s our rental SUV. At least, they call it an SUV. I don’t know what’s wrong with Europe: it’s more like a SUM: a Sports Utility Midget.

For the permanent record: The Stuff Greg Has in Portugal:

Our last night we had planned to go to a restaurant across the street from The Place in Almancil Just a LIttle Way Up the Main Road From the Café Where We Took the Girls for Ice Cream When They Were Little, but it turned out to be closed. So instead we went to the place where we’d had our little beers with Vincent: you know, The Little Restaurant off the Main Road to Almancil, Near Piri Piri.

And look: I was there too!

Twice!

Sad note: the service was horrible. Horrible. And we made the mistake of ordering appetizers, which although very good were also very voluminous, so none of us could finish our entrées. Which wasn’t such a bad thing since none of our entrées were particularly good.

Win some, lose some. C’est la vie, as they say in France. (It means, “Shut the hell up and quit complaining, you entitled twit.”)

Last evening: pre-nostalgia, and a panic that I maybe didn’t have enough pictures of the house or property.

Last pic from Casa Verde:

A couple of hours later, and we’re homeward bound.

See that marina there, center left? That’s Villa Mora.

Here’s a zoomed-in crop:

This blog has so, so many pictures of our family meandering around the edges of that marina: it’s nice to see it from the sky like that.

Monday evening and we’re home.

And right back into the routine.

Two days in a row of gorgeously warm mornings!

Caramel Day

Friday, May 24, was Maddie’s karamel dag—one of the closing days of 9th grade, in which the matriculating 9th graders wear costumes and through out kilos (yes, literally kilos, and every kilo is a couple of pounds) of caramels to their underclassmen.

Here’s Maddie in her costume that morning:

I think the costume was “Love Child of Lady Gaga and the Construction Guy from the Village People.”

Didi was baffled.

Hard to pull off “thug life selfie” when you’re dressed like one of Liberace’s candelabras, but maybe that’s a generational thing. You look fabulous as always, sweet Maddie.