Something Fishy

Since moving here we´ve settled into a wonderful weekend routine. We´re lucky enough to live just a couple of blocks from the beach on the Cabo Branco bay so Saturday and Sunday mornings are spent enjoying family strolls down on the sea front. There are moments when our toes are crunching gently into the sand, the palms swaying to the rhythm of our stride and the sun peeking over the cliffs when I can quite honestly say there is nowhere I´d rather be.... However you can rely on the dog and two children (and quite often the husband) to shatter the idyll with relative ease.

This week´s culprit was my eldest son who seems to have developed a penchant for close encounters with Brazilian puffer fish. We´ve only ever come across two on the beach but rather than admiring them from afar he just insists on getting stuck right in. Last time round said fish was in fact discovered by our (giant) labrador pup who dug up a particularly puffy, recently deceased specimen from the sand at low tide, had a quick munch, thought better of it and promptly turned to lick away the horrid taste right across my eldest´s bemused face. It took several days, even more showers and much brushing of teeth before the puffer smell gave up the ghost and departed his poor fishy chops.

This time round we only became aware of the (even more dead) puffer´s existence when the poor lad trod on its rack of completely exposed, protruding spikes. We plucked one chunky spine after another from the line along his swollen foot, all the while reassuring him that he was fine whilst discussing urgently in hushed voices whether a puffer fish puncture was as lethal as a puffer fish meal with the puff still in place. We hot-footed it home where some swift googling turned up a surprising number of threads under "I trod on a dead puffer fish, am I going to die?" but thankfully the resounding answer was no, puffer fish are only poisonous if injested. Rather than be put off though, my son is now desperate to play Russian routlette with a puffer fish at our next Japanese meal. But I think we´ll leave that risk for someone else to take.