19th June CASTELO BRANCO

As we were driving into the village this morning the lady we were talking to on Thursday flagged us down; she asked my name (in Portuguese) and said she had a letter for me – it turns out she’s the post mistress. She’s really friendly and is determined to communicate with us; she told us her daughter is called Sandra (Sandra and Laura are Portuguese names). We are going to find Portuguese classes once we are settled here which should make conversations a lot easier.

Gary was back when we got to the quinta (he returned last night); and thankfully all’s well, nothing else untoward has happened. He’s made a new friend who lives a couple of miles away and he’s stored all his valuables, including his car, with him – so he’s much happier, and more positive.

We’ve had another day of hard slog; we’ve dug out about 2/3rds of the living room floor, so hopefully we should finish it tomorrow. When we first started working on the quinta we were there for about 5 – 6 hours a day, today we did 7 ½ hours; this was mainly because Brett lied to me and told me that the time was an hour earlier than it really was!!

On our way back to the campsite we were stopped by the police; he was very severe, he just said “documentos” and “driving licence” he then took everything off to his car, gave it all back and waved us on.

It’s just like being back at work; we’re up at 7.00, work hard all day, come ‘home’ have dinner, make our packed lunch and we’re in bed by 10.30.