We have an issue.  There is a creature at the back of our oven.  Or maybe inside.  It is of the rodent variety and is causing us anxiety.  We had one a few weeks ago and the dogs went berserk each night it ventured out, smashing about in the kitchen in frustration at all hours.  We eventually found its corpse out in the yard and Bindi looking particularly smug as she pranced around.

And now we have another.  This one is more subtle to the point where the dogs don’t even notice it is there.  We are supposed to have a cat who is more suited to dealing with this problem but he simply doesn’t give a toss.  He only comes home in the morning, complaining loudly for his breakfast and then he buggers off again, lounging on the cars and enticing lonely older women into giving him attention and food because he is so neglected.   Thus far there are four other women in our small neighbourhood who have confessed to being taken in by the little sod.

We will have to deal with our unwelcome visitor; he has already eaten a rather nice cauliflower cheese that I made.   And then it shat in it.   Thanks.

But, before that, we have to deal with getting all of the documents ready for our new jobs in Madrid in August.  Good lord, there are so many.  Being foreigners working in a foreign country, working with children and having travelled over three different continents leads to a trail of paperwork and permissions and pedantic authentications that we know are necessary but are bloody annoying.    

We will, barring some unknown barrier, be moving to Madrid this summer to start jobs in the same school.  Sonalee in English and me as some kind of general science and maths cover.    Another school.  Another city.  Kind of another country as we haven’t actually worked in Spain as yet – not properly anyway since this time last year I was technically working virtually for a Portuguese school.  It all gets very complicated with visas and tax and stuff.  And your social media targeted advertisements  that come in four different languages.

Before that, we have a month left here to enjoy.  And enjoy we will.  The summer brings out the very best of Lisbon.  The beaches become packed with the flesh of the big, the small, the young, the old, the tight, the loose, the white and the every shade of dark.  Lisbon is about the beaches in the summer.  There is a transition from the empty sands to the profusion of bikinis and budgie smugglers that is nothing we have experienced before.

And it is glorious.  No one cares!  The packed trains full of beach-goers and their surfboards is something to behold each weekend.   There is a carnival feel about where we live on the coastal fringes of the city where there is an unwritten rule that anything goes just for a few months of the year. 

Some memories have already been made of this place, of course.  Some of them come from my regular attendance at the football stadium of Estoril, twenty minutes by train from here.  I am a supporter of Estoril Praia of the Portuguese premier league who will never win the big trophies.  It has been a highlight, I will not deny it.  Here I am, in a new country, a new city, a follower of lesser football teams and I find myself happily  engulfed by a few hundred fellow strangers as we shout and scream for our team to get that most important of things, a goal.  How surreal.  How baffling.  How odd to have tears at the end of the final game of the season. 

And it extends into my working days.  Coaching a group of 13 year old lads who are convinced we will win the Lisbon International Schools tournament because,  just because,  we are bloody good.  Coaching because it just seems the logical thing to do.   Because you love it.   We win our group handsomely, of course because we really are that good.  We get to the final in the heat of a Lisbon, well, heatwave.  It was a wave of heat.  You know, a heat…

Anyway, it was fucking hot.  Go a goal down at their place surrounded by their rabid fans.  They go nuts. My lads stay solid and do what I tell them – move the ball quickly.  We get an equalizer which deflates their entire school who are watching.  Literally the last minute and I am thinking of who could take our penalties when Vasco, my utterly amazing young, slight, fearless, pasty-looking and dynamic centre back hoofs it from his own half towards their goal with their outstanding ‘keeper helpless this time as the ball dips fractionally under his crossbar.  It was exactly like this.

Cue pandemonium.  We have won.  Deservedly but luckily so.  I am ecstatic, my intern-asssistant coach incredulous,  the boys delirious.  This is what it is all about.  Nothing else matters.  We are Kings of the World just for a moment in time.  Vasco, my unassuming and wide-eyed star is crushed by his crazy team-mates who cannot believe what we have seen.   They think it is normal, I know it is anything but.  It is an incredible end to another incredible episode in my coaching life that I have loved. 

And I do so love it.  I know I am lucky to be able to do this.  I am lucky that I have another PE department who trust me to do what I promised on the label; to be as good as them.   Schools have asked me to be a good teacher of many different subjects and I have done so but let us not muck about here, what is most important in my career?  A bloody good football team, of course. This is what I get excited about, nervous about, give up my time for, scheme about and bore Sonalee with. 

But she gets it.  Sonalee knows how much it means to me and to her former colleagues that Andy and I have battled against back in Sri Lanka. 

Sri Lanka.  Oh man, what a mess.  It is so depressing reading and watching what is happening there at the moment.   We worry about our friends that we left behind.  We worry for the people that we knew there; the people who drove us, cleaned for us, helped us in our classrooms, helped street dogs and talked to us in their shops.  We both get quite angry about what is happening to Sri Lanka and how it has all come about thanks to one family of utter scumbags.

What to do?  You can’t sustain that anger for too long as it will envelop you.   Sonalee has been sending various amounts of money there to various people and to various organisations to alleviate the worst of the crisis for them and that is all we can pretty much do.

Talking of idiotic drivers who need a bloody good slap – that is what we were on about? – the Portuguese of Lisbon are still striving to become even more self-entitled than the Moroccans.  It has to be seen to be believed.  They genuinely do not see why they have to stop at a roundabout or what the problem is driving whilst texting.  It does not surprise me that the police have guns. 

Sonalee is enjoying being back with the dogs and has a new appreciation for not working in a crap school miles away from those that she loves –  I may or may not feature in that list.  With only four weeks of the academic year left, we are reminded that there are so many things that we need to do here before we leave; nice things like going to a Brazilian themed festival or visiting Jesus on his hill that overlooks the city.  Nice things like playing on the beach with four happy dogs.  Nice things like walking around the beautiful beaches of Sintra. 

I think it is fair to say that this year has been like a brief love affair in its intensity and one that has come to a natural end.   Being together (for all bar eight weeks) after the year apart prior to our Lisbon adventure has been an integral part of our love for this city.  And we do love it. It is no surprise that thousands of others also love it.  There is a lot to love.

Is it perfect?  Don’t be ridiculous; of course it isn’t.  But it is vibrant.  It is colourful and full of flavour.  It has the beaches that draw you in to make you contemplate your place in life amidst the backdrop of the Atlantic Ocean.  

We will miss it. 

Ayubowan,

Hasta Luego, inshallah

Ciao

Paul

We are going to a music festival!  Duran Duran are headlining!  And Aha!   And we will be hearing from these guys with this topical number.   And, of course, this brilliant one.