Portugal is a fine country. Great beaches, great people, great food, great wine. I've been going for most of my life, but I'm still a long way from being a local. I do my best though. An obrigado here, a bom dia there, and every year I convince myself I'm inching closer to honorary status.
I'm not. The real test is the restaurants.
There's one we've been going to for over 20 years. I know the faces, they know mine, and yet every visit starts exactly the same. Warm, polite, and as if we've never met before.
A bit of context before we get to the good bit. Medronho is the local spirit from the Algarve, and describing it as an acquired taste is generous. It's fruit brandy, apparently, with all the subtlety of a flamethrower. The locals will tell you it's medicinal. I suspect they're just enjoying watching tourists cough up a lung.
Years ago, when the complimentary drink came round at the end of the meal, everyone else asked for port. I asked for Medronho. Not because I liked it, I didn't. I ordered it because it was different, and I figured if I was going to be remembered it probably wasn't going to be over a glass of tawny. So for twenty-odd years I've willingly drunk what can only be described as neat alcohol in a shot glass.
Then last summer the waiter brought the bill over and asked whether I'd like a drink from the bar. Yes please, I said. A Medronho.
Before I'd even finished the sentence he smiled, reached behind his back and produced a shot he'd already poured. "Of course you will."
It made me laugh far more than it probably should have, because that's what relationships actually look like. Not the big moments, not clever marketing, not trying too hard to impress. Just lots of small interactions that quietly stack up until one day someone smiles before you've finished your sentence.
It's no different in clinic. I don't want to be remembered as the physio who fixed one shoulder one Tuesday. I want to be the person someone thinks of when their back goes, when their son twists an ankle playing football, when their mum's knee starts giving her grief or when a mate says do you know a good physio.
Trust is rarely built in one appointment. More often it's built one small, almost forgettable interaction at a time. Apparently, sometimes with a shot of Medronho.