Kindness on the island allows him his fresh fish, a kindness he kept extending to me. He fought eviction from Armona, won sitting rights and now he gets by. Years ago, Tó Luís went to prison for three years for stealing 20 escudos – about 10p. His white hair bobbled up in a tiny ponytail, his fingernails long and curled, António – nickname Tó Luís – is one of the people who live on Armona with very little. I soon learned that this was in return for access to running water and turning my nose away when he emptied his toilet bucket out on the turning tide. I became friends with my neighbour, António, who brought me 13 fresh sardines when I arrived. When I arrived on Armona, I stayed in a house on the bay, where the sun blazed as it waned.
Now, the passadeira is spray-painted with arrows reminding pedestrians to socially distance. A small community remains: Portuguese people, many of them older, and foreigners who fell in love with the place and decided to stay. The concrete path – the passadeira – through the heart of the island is filled in summer with people heading to the wooden boardwalk that leads to the vast beach on the Atlantic side, or back to the ferry.īut in winter, there is quiet. In high season, the air hums with holiday sounds: the flap of flip-flops, the shouts of children playing, people splashing in the sea, families eating alfresco on the terraces of the little houses and outside the chalets of Orbitur camping park. In the peak of summer, there are 13 ferries a day, but in winter there are just four.
Three shops sell essentials and alcohol, and there are six restaurants, a cafe and a beach bar. It has no cars, just bicycles and a few quad bikes used to move building materials and take away the rubbish.
#EDU KIDS ARMONA FULL#
The 7.30am grinding of a cement mixer drove me away, to the stillness of a holiday island out of season.Īrmona is one of five barrier islands in the Ria Formosa that protect the mainland from the full force of the Atlantic. A new tenant had booked her space for the following month and so I moved on, to a house I soon discovered was next to some building works – the very thing I had sought refuge from.
In Olhão, I stayed with a British painter, Fiona Gray, and spent days writing in her wondrous plant-filled courtyard, where she captured an image of me frowning and puckering my lips, as I do, over my laptop.
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