There's bad news and there's good this week - along with a lot of dog and sky pics. Saturday was bad news. And the irony is that the bad stuff came about because of the good stuff. The good stuff was braving stormy weather to buy a welcome (food & drinks) pack in Loule for members of May's family who were flying in that night to stay in her house.
The gritty details are painful to spell out! While in the car, I handed Barbara my phone to check a message. And when she handed it back, I didn't seat it properly in my shirt pocket, where it habitually resides. As I was wearing both a jacket and a raincoat over the shirt, I didn't notice. That was a mistake, a bad mistake!
It was only an hour later, after stocking up at Lidl, that I became aware of the phone's absence - clapping my hand to my pocket, with a lurching feeling in my tummy. We returned in the pouring rain to the store, where inquiries proved fruitless. I've no doubt that the phone slipped out between my coats as we were scuttling across the car-park - and that somebody found it and thought their lucky day had come.
Back home, Google's Android Device Manager informed me that it was not able to locate the phone. (I suspect that the finder had either turned it off or removed the simcard.) However using this software I was able remotely to both wipe and lock the device - or so it confirmed. Whoever has it should get no joy from it.
OVER THE WALL
Losing one's phone ranks in my universe with disasters like developing a prominent pimple before an important first date (I once did!) or, even worse, living with Donald Trump in the White House. So you can well imagine my distress. To add to my troubles, I had to brave the elements a second time, taking my back-up phone to a rain-soaked Faro to get Vodafone to insert a new sim-card with my old number.All that I can say in my favour is that all my info had been backed up online and synced. I may be a fool but I'm not stupid! Or is it the other way around?
Pause here while I consider the week's other news.
SEE ANYTHING?In my English class we discussed plans by two companies to grow and process cannabis in Portugal for medicinal purposes. Portugal has some strange laws concerning cannabis. It is legal for individuals to be in possession of as much cannabis as they can reasonably consume in ten days. But it's not legal for them to grow it or trade in it. Presumably their only resort is to obtain it (illegally?) on the black market.
DID YOU CALL?
Whatever the case, my pupils are mainly retired folk with little personal interest in getting high, and they weren't too concerned one way or the other.
WHAT IS IT?
While Natasha took over the house on Wednesday, we made a trip to a large pet-food supplier, Tibi, who is based down on the main east-west coastal road. With nine dogs and three cats to support (not to mention the hangers on) we find it expedient to purchase biscuits in 18kg bags.
HAND-FEEDING BARRI!At the same time we bought a small bag of ultra special food, which the supplier assured us, no dog could resist - organic, no artificial ingredients and all that! He spoke truly. Barri, although she continues to enjoy her walks, won't get up to eat and has to be hand-fed crumb by crumb.
GROOMING AFTER A WET WALKFrom Tibi we progressed up the road to Apolonia which, for those who don't know it, is a smart supermarket that caters largely for expats. The store stocks an extensive range of products beloved of northern European visitors. It also offers exceptional service and the security of a guard in the car-park - all at a price.
HAD ENOUGH OF DOGS? SO HAVE WE!The above paragraphs are not really about anything except making room for a couple more pictures.
We have had several social engagements - events on which I always find it hard to report. Jones, on checking my blogs, sometimes remarks that I've said nothing about going to lunch with X or supper with Y. But since X and Y mean nothing to most people, the food was not remarkable and the conversation produced no surprises, I can't see the point. Most of the time we patronise either the Hamburgo or the Chicken Shack, both of them excellent restaurants.
Okay, now for the conclusion of the phone saga.
A couple of days after losing the phone, we returned to Lidl to check whether by any chance it had been handed in. Indeed it had. The phone was produced, along with its soggy leather case and a scrap of paper bearing the name and phone number of the finder. When I turned the phone on, a message appeared on the screen saying that it had been locked by Android Device Manager. According to the shop assistants, someone had brought the phone in the previous day; that's to say some 24 hours after I'd locked it.
My suspicion is that the finder initially planned to keep the phone or sell it. But on discovering that the device was useless, he had decided to hand it in, hoping for a reward. I certainly left him a reward - and later had a call thanking me for it. What matters is that I have my phone back. It's a brilliant HTC model, no longer available except on the second hand market. Joy, according to the New Testament, is finding a lost sheep. These days, I should make that a lost phone.
P.S. Although I used Google's online software to delete my personal info from the phone, in fact it wasn't deleted, maybe because Google couldn't locate it. Dunno!
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