Wizz! Crack! Bang!

Lions, Jelly Beans, Candles, Purple Spektrums, Silver Spinners, Crackle Cones, Saxons and lots of paraffin, methanol and petroleum jelly were among the ingredients to six days of hard work for 2x45mins of sexy showtime! The five day starter consisted mostly of gaffer tape, cable ties, fire blankets, glass fibre rope (itchy, itchy) and litres of sun screen.

So this is what Sal does for a living: fireworks. It is clearly a lot of work for something that's over in a matter of minutes. It is also a field of work where there's no post-editing: Exciting.

The show is called Full Circle and is the collaboration between a Slovenian folk rock band, Terra Folk, and the british fireworks company, The World Famous. It has been touring since early 2008 and visits mostly festivals and the like. It's been to Portugal, France, Italy, as well as exciting places in the UK such as Stockton-on-Tees and Milton Keynes.

This time it was part of Festival dos Oceanos 2010 Lisboa, a two week festival around Lisbon, with concerts (a Lauryn Hill who had a slow start but made up with some classic tunes towards the end, tonnes of Fado and a rubbish Estelle), museums, exhibitions and cultural events all free of charge. Tonight is our last night here and we're going to watch the Porto based fireworks company, Luso, do a display to mark the end of the festival.

Since Sally working and Carl volunteering for the show, which ended on Sunday, we've cruised along the beaches of Costa da Caparica, across the river from Lisbon, for a few days to detox and regain some sleep. In comparison to the beaches and resorts around Cascais and Estoril, this is where the portugese people themselves seem to go, so it was a different pulse and a huge price cut in camping. The surf has, unfortunately, been close to nothing though, but we're confident it'll get better further down the coast, which is where we're heading next. Fingers crossed!

Setúbal, then lots of country side and, apparently, empty beaches all to ourselves and, then, finally, Algarve and through to southern Spain and then north and Barca and then we don't know, but it'll be fine.

Lots of love