Journalled on Saturday, 27 July 2024 | Flamengo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: 28 degrees, hot and sunny with a clear blue sky.

It is Saturday, and the temperature is very pleasant, reaching the low to mid-20s during the day and dropping to the mid to late teens at night.

It has not rained in a couple of weeks, and it is rarely windy.

Rio is usually windier in the middle seasons. The truth is, we often know it is going to rain in Rio, or that stormy weather is on the way with the wind. It gets unusually windy before, and then you know rain is on the way.

Today has been a slow day. I wanted to post two blog posts, but my blog has been down since last night. I don’t know what has happened. I haven’t called or sent Alex a message. If it is serious, he would have called or informed me, but so far, nothing. I will give him until Monday, and if there is no news, I will contact him.

What was different today was that we went out for lunch. Yasmin, Nalva and I do not often go out, as going to a decent restaurant in Rio nowadays is a small luxury. Food is very expensive.

I knew that Nalva had bought fish for tomorrow, so I thought we could go to a restaurant, avoid her complaining, and try to keep the peace. I was thinking of one of the two restaurants at the other end of Rua Marques de Abrantes, one of the main roads in Flamengo, which is just next to our building.

As we were walking up Flamengo, about 10 minutes in, halfway up, we passed a per-kilo restaurant we used to go to a lot when we were married, and I would take Yasmin there a lot when Nalva was working.

I had taken Yasmin once after we had separated, but it was not the same as before. We stopped in front, and I asked them if they thought it was interesting and asked Nalva to have a look at the food counter. She came back and said the food looked good, so we went in.

We found a table, and I told Nova to ask him to go and choose their food while I waited.

They came back with a lot of picanha, Brazilian steak that looked good. I then went and got some salad and a lot of steak, and we ate. I drank a beer, Yasmin matte Brazilian iced tea, and Nalva sparkling mineral water.

The food was better than the last time I had been there. They had redeemed themselves a little. I paid R$150 for the three of us, no starters, dessert, just main course and drinks, which is about £22. I think that’s comparatively cheap for English standards.

On the way home, Yasmin asked if we could have dessert at the Portuguese baker’s, so we stopped off there, and we all had dessert. Small cakes made from mil folhas, which is flaky pastry in English, came to another R$40, bringing the total to about R$200 for three for lunch, which is a little less than £30. I thought it wasn’t so bad, considering we ate steak.

We got home, rested, and in the evening we ate homemade nachos that Nalva had prepared, paired with a very good bottle of cheap wine. It was a simple but very pleasant day.