Well eight or nine, well, that's just fine

The coast-o-meter we use to judge coast line scenery is the Orkney scale; that is, with Orkney scoring a top ten. Using this scale Blackpool comes in at about two and the rocky Algarve coastline reaches seven.

The narrative on the campsites is that this year is the worst winter weather campers have ever experienced. Certainly, those who have been coming to the Spanish and Portuguese southern coasts for the past seven years or so will have enjoyed the drought of recent years. However, average weather conditions suggest that around eight rainy days can be expected in February and so it may be that this year we are having an average February.

The day we planned to walk along the coast from Benagil towards Albufeira started fairly un-promisingly with a heavy thunderstorm. However, we are English walkers and that gives us an optimistic mind-set; we set off in full waterproofs to walk the coastal path and see the spectacular sea stacks and arches. It was a breezy day, but warm and we enjoyed the exhilaration of fresh sea air; by the end of our walk we were in T-shirts, proving once again that it can be worth just going for it.

As one of us has a cold and the other has persistent age-related hot flushes, we decided to bring our core temperatures down with medicinal large ice-creams in a sea front cafe; these hit the spot and really should be available on the NHS.