This is not a blog about Portuguese tarts. Honest.

I know that you’re all expecting my first blog entry from Portugal to be an ode to the Portuguese tart. So I’m not even going to mention them. Honest. Because there’s more to Lisbon that Portuguese tarts (which are in fact not even called Portuguese tarts. Or custards tarts. Or even just plain tarts. I don’t actually know what they’re called. I spent five minutes in a café on Tuesday trying to communicate with a waiter than I wanted one, saying tart in every way imaginable (rolling my r, sounding like fart, party etc) and eventually resorted to using my hands to demonstrate the approximate size and thickness of said tart. He finally seemed to cotton on to my inept sign language, hurried over to the bar and came back to me with a drinks menu, to which he enthusiastically pointed at and said ‘Gin!’. Even though it was barely noon I could do little else but nod. I had my Portuguese tart for afternoon tea instead, somewhere where I could point directly at it).

Anyway, as I was saying, there’s a lot more to Lisbon than Portuguese tarts. Like strolling the streets and checking out everyone’s jocks and socks hanging from their windows. I find it quite amazing actually, based on my own laundry experiences, that I haven’t yet stumbled across any random undies lying in the street, having made their great escape from three or four storeys above. Lisbon in many ways reminds me of Athens, just a lot less stray cats. From the outside most of the homes look like they should be cordoned off for demolition control, yet inside it’s like something straight out of Vogue Living.

It’s only been twelve months since I last travelled on my own in a non-English speaking country (or a week if you consider the last conversation I had with Paul, who is from Liverpool), but you do tend to forget how hard it can be. The sign language has been coming in quite handy, although I have discovered that I seem to make the same shape (thumbs and forefingers joined together) for everything from Portuguese tarts to wine, nail polish remover (nasty incident on the flight involving pen ink and my favourite pants) and a side plate of salad. No wonder everyone looks so damn confused. However when I try to fumble out a few Portuguese words it only seems to make things worse. Kind of like when I was in Argentina and no matter how hard I tried to order a ham sandwich I just kept getting served a slab of steak the size of my shoe.


As for the writing, well it seems to be coming along quite well, even though I decided last week that I really needed to go back to the drawing board. Quite literally, I started again. Told Maggie Alderson to delete everything she had from me to date, so it was quite fortunate she hadn't read anything yet really. The other lot was just crap, to be honest, and at least I realised that 50,000 words in rather than 100,000 words in, hey? (she says with false chipper smile on her face). I am now 10,000 words in to the new manuscript and much, much happier with it. I am just trying to look on it as all part of the process. And a good excuse to drink wine (to drown sorrows etc). 

Speaking of which, I have found a couple of lovely spots to drink wine in Lisbon. Like Brisbane, Lisbon is quite a hilly city (good for burning off all of those things that I eat one-per-day-of that I’m not talking about), and has some lovely vantage points where some enterprising people have set up bars to serve hard working aspiring writers at the end of a hard days slog. Here’s the view from one such bar where I have taken to walking each afternoon to have my evening’s tonic, read my book, and try not to get scared by all the pigeons.