The Word Cloud

This might seem a rather strange title for a blog to the uninitiated so I will do the courtesy of explaining. In fact, this seems to be almost a nice one, I say almost because I have developed intermittent toothache and had to enrol with a new dentist who I am seeing tomorrow, he or she is a Portuguese. OK, you would be forgiven for saying 'what is so remarkable about that?' A very understandable statement of course

The fact is from 1977-1980, I had the good fortune and privilege of accompanying my parents to Portugal as my father was about to start a diplomatic appointment at the British Embassy in Lisbon,as a Naval and Air Attache.  I cannot deny it was a wonderful and sometimes challenging experience. A lot of the challenge I hasten to say was that I developed a peptic ulcer. Some of this was due to a slight over abundance of cheaper wine and the rest is private which I would rather not divulge. The consequence was that this was not an isolated incident and culminated in a hiatus hernia,to say nothing of the fact, unbeknown to me, I was also manufacturing gall stones which eventually had to be removed with the gall bladder in 1984, four years after our return.

The point I am trying to convey is since our experience in Portugal and its people, we have discovered that there is a growing number in East Anglia, the most noted being in Thetford but there is also a small contingent in Sudbury, ten mines from where I live. Apart from the dentist being Portuguese ,I observed on one occasion, a sign in Borehamgate Precinct, a sign in three languages, one of them being Portuguese, Cuidado in reference to a wet floor, which means beware. I am no linguist so by and large while I was out there, I picked up the language ad hoc with odd words. Also on our return, as with Portugal, one could pick up ready cooked Frango or chickens to you and I, something we ate often while out there.  It is now over thirty years - my how time flies as the expression goes or tempes fugit yet we still find Portuguese associations, giving both Mum and I, lovely tugs of nostgalgia and that wonderful fuzzy feeling that we never really left. I also found a new friend who runs Writer's Circles for the whole of UK whose antecedents came from Russia yet settled in Portugal. See what you mean, it follows us around beautifully, ensuring that experience endureth for ever.Long may it do so