Back from the dead brunch...

To quote Mark Twain, rumours of my death are greatly exaggerated :-)

Yes, it's true. Due to the fact I've had a few problems with the old ticker lately. And the episode in Spain (which was not a heart related thing, although nobody knew in the early stages) some folk started to assume that I had popped my clogs!

Sooooo, upon my return to New York last weekend I was joined ny my dear friends for a back from the dead brunch. We met at the Tribeca Grand Hotel which does a splendid brunch buffet.

In the pic, (from the left): Larry Chase, Rebecca Lieb, Kevin Ryan, Rhian Aidala, Kat Bernstam and you-know-who!

And now? It's time for brunch again!

The Algarve, Spain, hospital...

So, having not seen my wife for months, we thought it may be a good idea to get together somewhere and see if we recognize each other. Long story short, with her schedule and mine - New York/Geneva - it was easiest for us to take a break same place as last year, in the Algarve.

So everything was booked very much at the last minute a few weeks back. We found some really nice apartments to stay in as we're both fed up with living in hotels. The apartment had a really nice sea view and was just 200 yards from the beach.

The Algarve has so many nice beaches to choose from.

And just a little further up the coast from where we were staying is a little fishing village called Alvor.

At night it's very pretty around the harbour.

There are lots of great little restaurants serving the freshest catch of the day. Straight from the sea, to the grill, to the plate.

Tatiana loves the traditional blue ceramic tiles you see everywhere in Portugal. So I had to take this shot.

It's not often I take a picture of my dinner. But I had to take a pic of this one. I couldn't resist ordering it. It's a filet mignon, with a...what sort of crust? Believe it or not... Corn Flakes!

It was a wonderful time. But on the way back, I became ill on the plane. So ill, the plane had to make an emergency landing in Spain. So there I was in the back of an ambulance being rushed to the local hospital. Not quite the way I would have wanted to end the holiday. But without going into gory details... I'm here to tell the tale.

Algarve, what a wonderful place!

And now... It's back to New York for me.


Cheers!