UPDATE: my enthusiasm for Ericeira took a nose dive once I found out that there is a camp ground right in town.  I loathe campers, as a type; abhor their vagabond RVs; their eyesore tents; and steer clear of any once pristine areas that attract this form of tourist rabble.  They make a lot of noise, especially at night, are violent if called out on their rowdy behavior, and leave smelly garbage behind, such as soiled TP in the bushes.  I would never move to a place that looks like the homeless-infested sections of LA, so I guess that kind of eliminates Ericeira, or any of the many MANY other towns in Portugal that allow camping in town or nearby.  I feel the same about tourists who wear chunky birkenstocks sandals, which have been known to render me apoplectic — but that is another story altogether  Maybe I should go this summer to Flathead Lake in Montana instead.

++++

One of the great things about stairs is that they require you to expend energy which leads to losing weight.

This is what happened during the past 12 days, when I was over with my wife in Westchester to sell my late Mum’s house, a house that has 3 sets of really steep stairs.

This inherited asset had become a burden of late;  let me put it this way:  it is a bad idea to own a house that sits 10,000 miles away from where you permanently reside.  Now that the place is sold, I don’t have to worry about what can go wrong with that house, or pay its substantial carrying costs.

What a relief!

In all honesty, I can’t believe we did it.  The sale of this place was so convoluted that I thought it would never sell at an acceptable price.  But it did, finally.

And now my wife and I can book our September flights to Portugal’s Silver Coast, where I hope to spend most of next summer. (Maybe… maybe not: Poretugal’s camping problem is a total buzz kill.)

Of all the towns along that beautiful coastline, Ericeiria seems particularly compelling — despite its endless windiness.

Ericeiria also has an interesting history involved a hermit who pretended to be a dead king, is close enough to Lisbon and Marfa for quick visits, is apparently pleasant even in summer, and has a relaxing yet active vibe due to it being a surfer’s paradise that has not (yet) turned into some ruined tourist magnet.

I look forward to visiting it with my wife, about four months from now, and not just Ericeiria, but all the other charming little towns along Portugal’s enticing Silver Coast, someplace where we might start, begining next year, to spend our summers (no more than three months, alas, due to Schengen cuntiness), while wintering in Florida (unless of course either Trump or DeSantis are elected Prez, in which case we will go the full D7 route), someplace that is maybe a little further inland, protected from the Atlantic’s wind, fog, drizzle, and dampness.

Meanwhile today I will be going to pick up my beloved German Shepherd dog.

She has had a ball at the farm down while we were up in NY.  I hope she won’t mind leaving the very active lifetyle she enjoyed there, and be disappointed in suddenly having a more sedentrary life style — at least until my right knee heals from its MCL tear.

Meanwhile, I am now well under 250 lbs, and with each passing day my numbers are dropping further away from the Type 2 danger zone.

Soon (I hope) I will be able to fit in normal sized jeans.

Yeah to that!