Spinning Today - What Are You Listening To Right Now? (Part 4)

[Pigmy Pony]

Arrived while I was away. A much nicer welcome home than a brown lawn and the cat glaring at me as if to say where the f__ have you been.

[Dom66]

[Barry]

Arrived while I was away. A much nicer welcome home than a brown lawn and the cat glaring at me as if to say where the f__ have you been.

Good purchase there Steve!

(And to add to the cat's enquiry, where have you been? Somewhere nice I trust. But wherever it was you were missed.)

[Pigmy Pony]

Good purchase there Steve!

(And to add to the cat's enquiry, where have you been? Somewhere nice I trust. But wherever it was you were missed.)

Thanks Barry. Cape Verde, Sal specifically. Had 11 days of doing bugger all, got through six books and ate more than we should have. But the food was so good, and as much wine and beers as you could handle. Though I wasn't greedy with the booze

Formerly a Portuguese colony, they gained independence in 1975. The official language is Portuguese, though the most commonly-used language was Creole. The locals, and especially the hotel staff, were just great - attentive, polite, and always smiling. Handsome men and beautiful women, who certainly lived up to their "no stress" motto. We really enjoyed our stay there, just a shame the mosquitoes made mincemeat of our legs.

[Barry]

Wow! Cape Verde has been on my "bucket list" for some time now. Did you take any photos to make me jealous?

[Pigmy Pony]

I did take a few photos (with my phone), but nothing that would make you jealous... probably the opposite really, as they are largely of the 'critters', a lifelong fascination of mine. Including a praying mantis, an elephant hawk moth caterpillar, a couple of blinded sphinx moths, and geckos climbing anything climbable

Most of Sal resembles a lunar landscape, and hardly what you'd call beautiful. But the beaches are superb, not crowded, and there is a 'vibe' to the place, it has been described as the "European Caribbean" and I get that.

The only 'fly in the ointment' (almost literally) has to be the mosquitoes. And we weren't the only ones suffering. But maybe Anita made more noise about it than everyone else, and the hotel gave us mosquito killer sprays, offered us a room upgrade which was really something special, with its duplex design with bedroom on a mezzanine overlooking the ocean and private jacuzzi. But we turned it down as we really liked our own 'swim up' room

Besides which I know there are folk who are professional complainers and routinely moan in order to get something for nothing, and I didn't want to be that person. But they did give us a free meal and drinks at the local 'Mediterranean' restaurant, and let us keep the room right up to departure time. I think the tour operators (Tui) are probably trying to avoid negative and damaging reviews. But we wouldn't have done that anyway.

But we know that if and when we return it will be during the winter months (it's only about 15 degrees north of the equator, so weather is pretty much the same all year round), and we'll go armed with a shitload of the best mozzie repellent money can buy!

[Barry]

Don't worry about the photos. When I'm in "parts foreign" I take all sorts of strange photos, sometimes of insects, but whatever takes my fancy to remind me of the trip.

My great uncle was a keen lepidopterist and has a rather dull moth named after him. (I don't know it's name but will probably end with dammerensis).
As a small child I was given a mounted butterfly (which he may have caught himself). It is Chrysiridia Madagascariensis; a colourful butterfly, about 3 to 4" in size. I had forgotten about it, but when I visited Madagascar some thirty years later, whilst trekking through the swiddens I was amazed to see a whole flurry of these butterflies flying about.

[rmcin626]

It’s been a wee while since I played this

[Barry]

It’s been a wee while since I played this

Excellent LP.

[rmcin626]

Excellent LP.

It certainly is Barry, not played since I had made some changes to my set up, always a good test record