Murder most mysterious

Weisie took me to Portugal for my birthday.

After a painless flight into the Algarve, we took a bus from Faro to Albufeira where Weisie had arranged an awesome apartment-style hotel room. We had a living room, dining room, kitchen and bedroom and spent four wonderful nights drinking local wine and making home-cooked food.




Albufeira was "Little Liverpool"; every drinking establishment (of which there were many) had large-screen TVs showing all the latest football action. Every English tourist (of which there were many) spent the best part of their holiday sitting in a pub over a pint watching the footy.




On the morning of my birthday, we strolled along Albufeira’s windy beach and clambered over the limestone rocks. We played in waves, climbed in caves, picked at fossils and generally had good, clean fun. Actually, we ended up sodden and covered in mud...




For lunch, we had spicy, BBQ peri peri chicken, bread and olives. Although lunch was magnificent, the grand finale was yet to come. Weisie planned to take us to Lagos the following day for another special lunch. We had (more) wine and a sumptuous meal in a seafood restaurant with a view of the harbour. It was heaven.




The Algarve has clearly been influenced by many cultures, including the Arabs whose legacy includes some of the cuisine, beautifully painted wall tiles and unusual place names. In spite of an Islamic heritage, Christmas was eagerly anticipated when we were there. One town we visited, Loule, had piped Christmas carols and richly decorated streets. They even had an inflatable Santa climbing the castle wall.

We spent our final day in Faro, waiting for the airport bus. We dragged our shared wheelie bag across cobbled streets into town (we should have brought backpacks Weisie!) and took lunch. Afterwards, we headed for a lonely corner outside the town walls to catch some final rays of sun before heading back to wintry Yorkshire. As we lay there, Weisie noticed a bullet casing on the ground - then another. Before long, she had a pocket full of them and together we began to reconstruct what must have happened only days before. After I examined a nearby car bearing what looked like bullet holes, our playful sleuthing faded into real concern at what appeared to be something quite sinister. We followed a trail of dry blood until we noticed a couple of men following us so we made a quick exit, with wheelie bag in tow bouncing down the road!