Madeira 2024 #12 | My impression of Madeira and Lisbon

Madeira

Madeira didn't convince me to come back so soon. It's a beautiful place and left me marvelled. No question about this! And I speak only for myself here, and this is always a very subjective judgement eventually. My thoughts that make me doubt a (soon) return to Madeira:

  • I'm not an activity holiday person. And Madeira is especially fun if you're active and want to be out and about in nature a lot. Being ill puts an additional damper on that.
  • A car was very worthwhile to be here and there. Driving is generally so-so for me. Madeira's roads - uff, just by being the front-seat passenger, I didn't want to be the driver at all. Just the imagination discouraged me so much that I wouldn't know how to get around Madeira other than being driven. And this is quite restrictive.

Those were my two negative points which obviously carry some weight. Nonetheless, the holiday in Madeira was actually pretty relaxed. As I said, the landscape and scenery - wonderful. And that even includes the roads, especially the motorways. The construction of the roads, with their high stilts and winding roads, must be the fulfilment of every child who has built toy roads on the ground. Roads in the air!

Roads at height

Culinary-wise, you'd find some delights to try there. I remember a tomato soup which is a lot savoury than I remember the one in Germany. It was so good!

The climate was fascinating: within 20 minutes we were able to change from our summer outfits into rainproof autumn outfits. We quickly noticed the change in altitude by the change in temperature. The recommended onion look is absolutely justified here, as long as you move through different altitudes (which happens quickly).

Laurel forest

The towns of Camacha and Calheta were chosen based on possible hiking routes. They didn't offer that much by themselves.

Lisbon

In contrast to Madeira, I would like to see Lisbon again when I get the chance. It's a pretty city, even if some of the corners were dirty. There are dozens of cafés where you can sit and relax, the streets and alleys are romantic and make you want to see more. I saw too little in these 3.5 rainy days to have a final opinion. My first impression is: quite nice there.

Pretty sardine tins lined up nicely

(Click on the image to see it as a whole)

Miscellaneous

One final tip: We flew to Madeira via TAP Air Portugal and most flights go via Lisbon or Porto. Therefore, we decided to stay in Lisbon for a few days. At first we wanted to do it with an open jaw flight, but at that time the only option were more expensive economy seats. However, TAP Air Portugal actually offers multi-day layovers, thus, a normal return flight can be booked and no open jaw flight is necessary. Booking status: end of January 2024.

This is it, the end of the insights into my trip to Madeira and Lisbon. It was a pleasure – obrigada!

~

#1: Intro | #2: São Lourenço | #3: A curtain and learning exposure | #4: The blue of Porto Moniz | #5: Cliff | #6: Green hangings | #7: moody mist | #8: On the roads of Camacha | #9: On the roads of Calheta | #10: The house on the big hill | #11: Colourful row of houses in Lisbon | #12: My impression of Madeira and Lisbon


Camera + lens: Sony alpha 99 + Minolta AF 100 mm Macro f/2.8 (only photo 4/roads at height); iPhone 13 Mini

Coriander germling

I have an update on my coriander today – fascinating observations!

Well, what was peeping out of the ground? A small plant appeared, and the seed was still attached to it. The seed was, so to speak, upended over the two cotyledons. It looked funny.

I took a photo in the morning. At lunchtime I transferred the photos and looked at them and found them to be not quite satisfactory. So I went back to the coriander seed with the camera and wanted to take more photos. But I hadn't reckoned with light and photosynthesis! The little plant had already developed further and the two leaves had now unfolded. Instead of the coriander seed being upended over both leaves, the seed was now only attached to one of the leaves. Hello cotyledons!

But the news doesn't stop there! It took me so long to get round to work on the photos that the first leaf, which is clearly recognizable as coriander, has grown in the meantime.

In the meantime, a few more days have passed and things are looking good. But I haven't tried the coriander leaves yet. Still to come!


Camera + lens: Sony alpha 99 + Minolta AF 100mm Macro f/2.8

My repair date: 3.66 pieces

In March I announced my repair date (by the way, the date was postponed several times 😆). I wanted to make things cosy for my repair date, including the documentation work. On the one hand, this meant that the atmosphere for the repair date itself should be relaxed, on the other hand, taking the photos shouldn't feel toooo much like work. Based on this, I drew up a checklist of things I could prepare so that I could concentrate on the repairs on the day of doing the repairs. Preparation included preparing something for my ears (podcast list), something for thirst (a pot of tea) and something for hunger (pretzel sticks). The clothes had already been picked out in advance, so I knew which broken parts awaited me and was all the more excited. And then, on one of the many May bank holidays, the time had come!

Yield: 3.66 pieces repaired.

Details of the yield follows now. Click on the photos to enlarge them.

Piece 1: black skirt

The seam connecting the zip and the skirt came went to pieces. To prevent it from getting worse, I wanted to sew the zip back on properly. I did this with the so-called slip stitch (also called mattress stitch, ladder stitch; a great stitch because the thread "disappears" and the seam is therefore "invisible"). It went very quickly, max. 10 minutes.

Before, outside.
Before, inside.
After, outside.
After, inside.

Piece 2: dusky pink top with flower print

I had a tear in the seam on the right-hand side where the front and back are joined. 1 cm x 0.5 cm. I don't like these areas at all because the proximity to the seam always overwhelms me. I had actually already started the repair during a repair workshop at Fashion Revolution Week in April (organized by Fashion Revolution Germany / Frankfurt) and had used the weaving method.

I continued darning during my repair date. I am so happy about the colour similarity. In this case it was not darning thread I used, but embroidery thread (1 of 6 threads) and I had the thread from the repertoire of the workshop leader (Ekaterina Haak, whom I have mentioned elsewhere). The darned area is actually visible but if it's the right angle, the darned area blends in well with the garment.

Before.
WIP.
WIP (almost done).
After.
After (well hidden).

Piece 3: grey sports shorts

That was the most exciting repair of the day.

The trousers have a waistband cord but actually, there are two cords sewn into the centre in the back. The right-sided ripped somewhere in the middle. To make the trousers somehow usable again, I had used some yarn to lengthen the right-sided waistband. It looked too odd to me and ended up in the as-long-as-you-look-like-this-I-don't-wear-you pile.

For the repair, I rummaged around to see if I had anything that looked similar to the cord and found an old shoelace, half of which had been torn off as well. Ideal!

So I took off the yarn (pink) and then sewed the two loose ends of the cords (waistband cord on trousers and shoelaces) together with lots of stitches. Then I cut off the loose, frayed ends and melted them with a lighter. This left the ends clean and minimized the likelihood of it coming undone again. The join disappears into the waistband anyway + I have a two-coloured waistband cord now. Pretty cool 😀

Before.
Before, connecting point.
WIP, sewing on the new cord.
After, connecting point (working side).
After, connecting point (working side).
After, connecting point (clean side).
After.

Piece 4: black tank top

The top had three small holes on the back. To close these, I tried scotch darning for the first time. It's so much fun! You can work your way and see how the hole gets smaller and smaller.

Even though it is black yarn, you can still see the darned area quite well. This was not invisible mending. I wonder if it would have looked more invisible with the weaving method? In retrospect, I thought it would have been funnier in colour.

I only managed 2 of 3 holes that day, that's where this 0.66 comes from 😀

The third hole was darned by me in the morning a few days later. On the day of my repair date, I found one hole on the front side (this destroys all my calculation for the yield) ... this hole was darned in the meantime, too 😁

Before, back side.
Before, back side, hole 2 and 3.
WIP (hole 1 ... one hole = loads small holes ...)
After, back side.
Nachher, Rückseite, Loch 1.
After, back side, hole 2 (open) and hole 3 (darned).

As always, I am amazed about how long a repair takes compared to how long a garment is spurned because of its flaw. In the extreme case, it is 10 minutes versus X years. A bit crazy!

Will I learn from this awareness and tackle the repairs more quickly in the future?
Me: 🤷🏻‍♀️

This post is part of the series <Mein stopfendes Leben>.