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Thursday 23 August 2012

22nd August FONTE DOS CLERIGOS


I managed to twist my ankle yesterday; I just stepped off a path awkwardly, I could feel it slightly yesterday evening, then it throbbed a bit in the night and this morning I was limping – I could hardly navigate the steps in and out of the camper, very annoying.
We started the concreting at 9.00 this morning and worked through until 3.30, with a ½ hour break for lunch; we got half a floor done – it was very hard work, but we have a better system going now. Once I’ve got one lot of concrete mixing in the mixer I fill two buckets with chippings (Brett’s occupied taking off the last lot of mixed concrete), when Brett comes back we tip the fresh mix into his wheelbarrow then HE lifts the chippings into the mixer (then he does one sand while I do half cement) and I finish the mixing while he wheels the last mix away. It’s still hard work but not nearly as bad as yesterday I was really struggling with the chippings and sand. 
Gary came round this afternoon and invited us around to his place for dinner; Brett explained that we weren’t happy eating food from skips, he looked so crestfallen, I felt really mean but of course we went. We gave him some lettuce, courgette, cucumber, tomato, garlic and olive oil so we didn’t have to eat skip food. 
Bless him, he’d tried really hard; he’d made a table out of a roofing sheet and laid it – it looked really inviting. He’d made hummus (I don’t know where he got the chickpeas from but they would have been in a tin/jar if they’d come from a skip!), mixed salad, for pudding he’d picked blackberries and figs (from an abandoned orchard he knows) and we had fonte water to drink. He needs more friends, he craves company; we’ll have him round next week and invite Pam and Mark. I can do guacamole and crudités for a starter and fruit salad for pudding and some salads to accompany the main course, but what to have for the main course? I just can’t think of anything appropriate, basically he doesn’t eat protein (unless it comes from raw fruit and veg)! But then he cheated by using cooked chickpeas, so perhaps I could cheat too and do falafels? 
On Friday we’re going round to Pam and Mark’s they’re going to make pizzas in their bread oven; I’ve never used a bread oven, I’m really excited.

21st August FONTE DOS CLERIGOS


Today we started out cementing.
Today the temperature reached 42°C!!!!!
We spent the morning organising ourselves; clearing out and sweeping the building (to be bedroom, bathroom and larder). Organising water close to the cement mixer; we had to attach a big hose pipe to the spout filling the top tank from the water pump, and pump water uphill to a couple of barrels; it worked but there was seeping water around the base of the spout at the water tank which was rather worrying – we’ll probably do it manually next time, and carry buckets of water to fill the barrels.
We started mixing concrete at 12 noon and worked for two hours; I have to admit I only mixed three lots of concrete but I was absolutely shattered and so, so hot. The mix was two buckets of chippings, one bucket of sand and ½ bucket of cement – I couldn’t physically lift the buckets of chippings or sand, so I had to measure then split the contents between two buckets (it was still bloody heavy). 
First job was constructing a concrete ridge down the centre of the room and levelling it; tomorrow we will fill in one side of the ridge, to the wall, so we should have half a floor (next day we fill in the other side). As this only took two mixes of concrete Brett thought, rather than waste all the setting up, he would start on the studio floor; he wheeled four mixes of concrete, 250 metres (from house to studio), in a wheelbarrow (I couldn’t even push it).
I spent the afternoon trying to cool down! I didn’t feel normal until about 8.00 when it had started to cool down a bit.
We invited Pam and Mark to dinner; they have been so busy organising their place, today they have ordered the plasterboard for their walls and insulation for their ceilings – they are determined to be living in their building by the time winter arrives.
Mark thinks the ‘wasp’ and spider, from yesterday, were a Tarantula wasp and a Tarantula (spider)!!!!!! Scary.
It was a beautiful evening; there was a crescent moon and so many stars – we could only name the Plough and the Milky Way.

20th August FONTE DOS CLERIGOS


Another disturbed night – fireworks in the early hours; and it’s not even as if they’re pretty, they’re just noisy sounding like gunfire and cannons going off. And what about the fire hazard?
Another thing we’re perplexed by is seeing a cavalcade of cars, all with ribbons tied to their aerials, sounding their horns as they drive along; the first time it happened we were driving off of a roundabout and we thought they were hooting at us because we had interrupted a funeral procession (there was a hearse way in front of the cars). But we saw and heard the same thing in Fundao the other day and there was no sign of a hearse.
It’s starting to feel autumnal; the mornings are decidedly chilly, the daytime still has a lot of heat in it, but when the sun isn’t up it’s not nearly so warm as it was – I’m not complaining! I just put on an extra jumper.
I saw this huge wasp thing dragging a very big spider (at least 1½” across) along the ground; Brett took some photos with his ipod, every time he got too close the wasp would drop the spider and attack Brett!
These were BIG!!!
We went into Castelo Branco to buy supplies this afternoon; I downloaded a few articles on making wine from grapes. There were some videos but I didn’t have the software to download them, which was annoying, so I had a sulk. We bought some lovely old fashioned bowls (made in Portugal) from Jumbo 69 cents each, that’s about 55p!

On the way home we stopped at Mark and Glenn’s, to pick up the cement mixer, and they gave us dinner. It was a nice relaxing evening.

Monday 20 August 2012

19th August FONTE DOS CLERIGOS


CONGRATULATIONS to my nephew, Paul, and Melissa on the birth of your beautiful baby daughter, Emily Frost. And congratulations to the proud grandparents Granddad Malc and Granny Steph!!!! I’m a Great-aunt.

The bloody birds (bee eaters) had me up at 6.15 a.m.! and I’m not even trying to photograph them anymore, they move too quickly for my camera to react. Now I’m outside with binoculars trying to get a proper view of one; I’ve seen their colouring in books, but I want to see it for real. Anyway by the time I got outside (in just a tea-shirt) they’d gone out of view (of course I could still hear them taunting me, they have a very distinct call); but I did get to see a close up of a Hoopoe which seemed to be putting it’s bill down the ant nests along the track, if they eat ants they’re my kind of birds! 

We’ve been seeing an awful lot of golden orioles lately; it’s another bird with a distinctive call, it sounds like it’s laughing, maybe it’s related to a kookaburra? There’re masses of birds here which we haven’t been able to identify yet; we have a big bird which soars above the quinta which we think could be a golden eagle and Brett keeps hoping to see vultures which apparently live in this area. 

We had a disturbed night last night; we didn’t get to bed until gone midnight and then we were woken up by fireworks, which lasted for about ½ an hour, between 3.00–3.30 a.m. One of the villages close to ours is having it’s festa this weekend; so I think they must have been coming from there. The fireworks started again around 8.00 a.m. for another hour or so (weird).

Brett spent the day clearing the lavender and broom from along the side of the track coming into the quinta (about a 10’ wide verge); we’re going to plant it up with trees, so we’ll have a tree lined avenue approach to the house. There’re some trees/bushes we want, they grow everywhere and have flowered (pink, purple and white) continuously all summer seemingly without water.

The beans are flowering and I think I found the start of a little bean today. The herbs that I bought from the supermarket and planted out seem to have taken, so I might buy some more this week just to get a few plants established – I do have a lot of herb seedlings now, but they won’t be available to use for quite a while.

Tomorrow we’re off to Castelo Branco, it’s been a week since we were last there (when we first moved in we were travelling back every other day, so we’re getting more organised): we’ll update the blog, pick up supplies, have a drink or two at pavement cafes, visit Mark and Glen to get the cement mixer and have dinner – another relaxed day.

18th August FONTE DOS CLERIGOS


First thing this morning we went to deliver Gary’s card; he wasn’t in, but we made a fuss of Betty, who likes to run in front of you and then roll over onto her back, trying to trip you up.

We have decided that one of the jobs we would like to do, before we leave, is put some gates at our entrance; the Portuguese are paranoid about security. Pam and Mark’s old owner keeps telling them to lock their possessions away when they go out and Joao’s son was asking where we were leaving our belongings while we were in Britain (Joao has offered to store the truck in his barn); which makes us a little anxious too! And when we come back we would like dogs, so gates would stop them from wandering off the quinta. Yesterday Brett started rebuilding the stone wall on the approach to the quinta; he had to manoeuvre some rather large stones which were now on the verge the opposite side of the track. 

I started preparing for our wine making by cleaning the grapes crusher; on Monday I’m going to look up the whole wine making process.

Gary liked his card; he got the bit about the odd shoes and made a point of saying that he got Betty’s meat from the butcher, not out of skips. Anyway the point was he got the joke and was touched that he had a personalised card. 

We had a lovely walk to the restaurant; it’s ¾ mile and takes 20 minutes (Brett would do it faster on his own!). It was still warm, the sun had more or less set, the cicadas were making their noise (singing, chirping, rubbing their legs together?) – it felt like we were on holiday and going out for the evening to eat. The people who own the restaurant were very friendly; Pam was in deep conversation with them (in French) when we arrived and had found out all their history; she’s French and he’s Portuguese, but worked in Paris for many years. The food was basic but plentiful and very cheap again; we had beers while we waited, wine and beer with the meal, soup (we hadn’t ordered it but it was our starter regardless) and main meals plus a side order of salad - 4750 (that’s about £9.50 a head in sterling).

Pam and Mark bought themselves a Portuguese mobile and, as a ‘thank you’ to us for helping them move their furniture yesterday, they bought us one too. This means we can text one another without the messages going via Britain first! It also means we can give a Portuguese number to people who need to contact us over here (like the Mitsubishi man). So now we’re a three phone family!

The walk back home was very dark!

17th August FONTE DOS CLERIGOS


HAPPY BIRTHDAY HENRY! XXXXXXX

Today we helped Pam and Mark collect furniture from an expat couple who are moving back to Britain. We managed to transport three beds, with mattresses, four large wooden chairs, a huge chest of drawers, fridge freezer, cooker, mountain bike, flower pots, carpets and some other odds and ends in the back of our truck, their Landrover and on their Landrover’s roof – it was fantastic the amount we managed to move in one go. It was a rather slow journey back to the village; but we managed it without mishap.

Tomorrow is Gary’s birthday (or it could have been yesterday, he said it was the day after Henry’s, or Henry’s was the day after his); anyway I made him a card.
This was the first draft which I rejected as it looked as if he's fallen into a chest freezer!

This was the one we sent - it was supposed to be a joke.

Our figs are finally ripening and Gary’s right there is enough for us and the birds. When you pick them off the tree this white sappy fluid drips out of the stem; we’ve learnt to break this end off, as when Brett licked it his mouth went numb and blistered (I think it must be like the stuff that comes out of Euphorbia that is an irritant).

We have so many grapes; kilos and kilos of them (as in hundreds of kilos), there’s no way we can eat them all and, as I hate to waste anything, I’m going to look up wine making with grapes on Google. I’ve been making ‘country wine’ (adding yeast and sugar to prepared fruit/vegetables/flowers and water) for years but I’ve never made proper wine, like you buy in the shops. All the equipment is for sale at the moment; we only have to buy it once, and we can share it with our new friends. We’re already talking about going halves on a fruit press, trailer (for Ute) and tractor; and we split the cost, with the other Mark, on the cement mixer – so we’re managing to halve the cost some of our larger purchases. It’ll be brilliant to have wine from our own vineyards; how cool will that be when we have visitors? We have several varieties of grape; with large and small, black, red and white fruits – so we should be able to make red, rose and white wine and hopefully some sparkling wine too.

We’ve already noticed that the nights are drawing in; we used to sit outside until gone 10.00 now we’re in before 9.00. And in the morning I was getting up around six, now it’s after seven; so our usable part of the day is getting shorter.

16th August FONTE DOS CLERIGOS


We’re picking up the cement mixer on Monday which means that we’ll start on the floors on Tuesday. We’ve had offers of help from Gary and Pam and Mark – they’ve all got to do their own floors and want to learn how to do it! There wasn’t really much work we could do today so we had a bit of a lazy day sitting in the sun reading our kindles.

In the afternoon we visited the couple who live in Sao Miguel de Acha; he’s Dutch, she’s Indian, they have a four year old daughter, and they live in Kenya and work for the UN. They’ve had the house for eighteen months; they didn’t do the work on the house themselves the guy who sold it to them (Alan Henderson, he was the first person to show us properties when we came here) also has a renovation company. It was basic but clean and habitable; they had a new roof, cemented and tiled floor, and rendered walls inside (the house construction was stone). The building was about the same height as the gym and studio and they had a sleep platform above their two bedrooms; so we’re certain we can do similar.

Tomorrow we’re helping Pam and Mark collect the furniture they’ve bought from yet another couple of expats.

15th August FONTE DOS CLERIGOS


We had a ‘dark and stormy night’; just after midnight the wind picked up, we were worried about the gazebos collapsing again, but there was nothing we could do about them. We got up and folded up the outside chairs (one had been blown a few metres out of the gazebo). And then about 3.00 a.m. the rains came; big, ploppy, heavy rain, that lasted for over an hour.

When I went outside with my coffee this morning everything was still wet and the rain had fallen so hard that mud was splattered over everything less than a foot from the ground – i.e. the chairs we’d collapsed, completely covered in mud and wet. I went back inside to drink my coffee! 

After the heavy rain in the night we had the opportunity to check all our roofs; and they all seem quite water tight.

The escarole had picked up overnight; probably all the extra water helped. And all my seeds are coming through now apart from the Rosemary.

We went into Fundao to get supplies; on the way back we stopped at the Fonte in Alpedrinha to fill up our water bottles (7 X 5L).

After lunch we drove to find the short cut to Pam and Mark’s; there was a gate across the route we needed to take so we couldn’t use it. When we went there this evening we measured the distance from us to them, it’s more or less 1½ miles. We were going to cycle to Pam and Mark’s but my battery was completely out of charge, so Brett drove. We ate outside, under their gazebo, watching the sun set.

14th August FONTE DOS CLERIGOS


Today Brett demolished a wine vat in the gym it was built out of blocks and concrete, with metal bar inclusions to make it stronger, and was very solid. The room looks much bigger now.

I gardened today, lots of weeding and planting; I sowed some more herb seeds (until I ran out of compost) and I planted out some Escarole seedlings. I stuck olive twigs in the ground around them, to shade them from the sun and put bottles over them, to stop them being eaten during the night. They’re not looking particularly healthy; I’m hoping they’ll pick up over night.

This afternoon we washed our bikes; we’re going to Pam and Mark’s for dinner tomorrow evening and thought we would cycle there. They live about as far out of the village as us, but the opposite way so they’re probably a mile and a half from us – I don’t mind walking there but I don’t want to walk home when I’m tired and have had a few drinks.

We’re going to meet another expat couple on Thursday; we got in touch via the expat site. They’re Dutch and don’t live in Portugal full time; they last visited at Christmas and this visit they’re only here for two weeks. They’ve invited us to their quinta in Sao Miguel de Acha (about five miles from us); we enjoying seeing other peoples places, sometimes we get ideas for our place.

And on Friday we’re helping Pam and Mark pick up some furniture they’ve bought from another expat couple. We’re certainly meeting the expat community at the moment

13th August FONTE DOS CLERIGOS


Today we bought a generator and so did Pam and Mark. Everyone we’ve talked to, who’s got generators, has given the same advice:

·         Whatever you do don’t buy a cheap Chinese generator, it’s false economy in a few months you’ll need to buy a new one

·         Make sure to buy a generator with a Honda engine (minimum)

·         or buy a Honda manufactured   generator, they’re reliable

 But it’s so tempting to buy the Chinese ones they’re half the price of the ones with the Honda engine, which are half the price of the Honda manufactured ones. In the end we bought one with a Honda engine and Mark and Pam bought a Chinese one! 

Now we can run a cement mixer and start on our footings and concreting the floors; which is exciting as it means the buildings are getting that much closer to becoming our house, and they’ll look so much more salubrious when they have clean floors. Next job, after the floors, will be to render the walls and then it will start feeling very solid. I’m looking forward to the day when we cut the doors through so that you can gauge the flow of the house and it becomes a homogeneous building rather than individual sheds.

We went to three different places to compare the prices of the generators; the place we were originally going to buy from, the same model, was 90 more expensive than the one we bought (thank goodness we took the time to compare prices!).

It was so nice being in town with Pam and Mark, it’s completely different shopping with a female (they’re interested in different things to men). We had lunch out at the food hall; wraps and chips (cheap and cheerful). And we took them to my favourite shop ‘A Loja do Gato Preto’ (The Shop of the Black Cat); it’s where I bought my pretty glasses. It sells tasteful kitchen paraphernalia, patchwork quilts and cushions, incredible lamps and lights, candles etc and it’s very reasonably priced. Pam thought it was brilliant, Mark said “Great, now our houses are going to look the same” – you had to be there! One of the places we went to (comparing generators), Maxmart, sells the tiles we have chosen for our house – they’d already been there and chosen the same ones.

Another beautiful sunset:
'Spaceship' cloud

The colours were even better in real life!

Monday 13 August 2012

12th August FONTE DOS CLERIGOS


It’s been so much cooler today, and quite windy, which actually makes a nice change. 

Practically all the seeds that we planted at the beginning of the week have now germinated, so we’re feeling much more positive about our garden; if Joao and Ilda can have a productive vegetable garden we should be able to too, we just have to learn to do it the Portuguese way. 

Joao gave us some bean seeds (like yellow flat runner beans) he said they should be planted now, so they went in today; we tried to plant them in troughs so that they would be easy to water. The Portuguese water into channels and have this special tool to open and close sections so that water can be diverted to and away from plants and trees – it’s very impressive to watch. 

Tonight we went to the festa; we arrived at 9.00 there were a few people there, some beer stalls and a large stage. There was a man playing the accordion on a smaller raised plinth. Gradually the crowd increased and at 11.30ish a group came onto the stage. But really there wasn’t much happening; just lots of people socialising; we left around midnight and again it carried on until the early hours.

11th August FONTE DOS CLERIGOS


I finished making the chutney this morning; it ended up quite runny as I didn’t have a preserving pan and it was catching on the bottom of the saucepan, so I stopped reducing it early – but it actually tastes quite good. 

This afternoon we were just about to go out when Joao and Ilda’s son, daughter in law and two grand children turned up; they live in Lincolnshire and speak English. We didn’t chat to them for long, which was a shame, as we already had arrangements to meet Pam, Mark and Nick in a cafe in Aguas, where Nick lives.  They have lived in the UK for ten years and said they wouldn’t want to move back to Portugal, but obviously miss the sunshine and family. It was great to talk to them; we told them how much we appreciated Joao and Ilda’s generosity, so that should get back to them, it’s hard for us to say it to them as our conversation is so limited.  

Nick (Gary’s ex-friend!) imports solar panels etc from China; so we were all meeting up to discuss what we need and how much it’s going to cost for our solar system (we have budgeted £8000 – £10000, it would cost that to get electricity installed anyway, it’s 1000 per pole, poles are 100m apart and the nearest electricity to us is about 800m away). Nick is going to work out the exact price but it looks like we can have 12 panels for the house (which will give more than enough electricity to run everything we would ever need,) plus 4 for the gym/studio, along with appropriate number of batteries, charge controllers and invertors, for less than £5000. So we’re pretty chuffed. 

There were some other British people in the cafe; Joshua and Jamie, who have been living in Aguas for six months and Craig who lives on another farm near Nick. They have polytunnels and are into growing vegetables; they were very friendly and invited us to pop in anytime, they said not to buy any seeds as they had masses which they would share with us. It’s becoming a lovely little community here. 

We then went to see Pam and Mark’s quinta; they have 3 hectares, with 270 olive trees, several fruit trees and a large block building, which will become their house. It was lovely, but I prefer ours (which is just as well). The old owner and his daughter acted as our tour guides; just like Mr Luis they have vegetables growing there and are coming back to tend them, it’s a funny system where you can keep coming back even though you’ve sold up. 

Pam and Mark came back with us, for dinner; we were going to go to the village festival afterwards – we never made it, hopefully tomorrow!

10th August FONTE DOS CLERIGOS


Most mornings I get up an hour or so before Brett; I sit outside drinking coffee, reading, checking emails, editing the blog and enjoying the scenery – it’s ‘my time’, and I really enjoy it. This morning I used some of the time to skin the tomatoes; they’re getting a little bit ripe now and need to be processed, I’m thinking of making some chutney. 

We went into Castelo Branco to do the errands we hadn’t managed on Wednesday – it was a far more relaxed day. At the moment all the hardware shops are selling wine making equipment and fruit presses; we want a fruit press as we have copious amounts of apples (cider) and pears (perry). They also sell stills – I still can’t believe it’s legal to distil your own spirits here. It’s all very tempting and not excessively expensive; the machine we bought for crushing grapes from Mr Luis for 40 retails at 160. 

Hoorah, Pam & Mark have completed today; they must be so relieved, when they texted us this evening they said they were - sitting out under the stars, pinching themselves and drinking wine!

Mark and Glen have moved onto their quinta; we went to visit them on our way home, they looked quite settled, caravan up on blocks, awning erected, kettle boiling. They said it was quite a wrench leaving the campsite. 

Brett and I had a bit of a disagreement today when I started to cook chutney in the campervan; the temperature was already 45°, but it was too windy to cook outside. I was worried that the tomatoes would go off and have to be thrown away; Brett was worried about the heat we would have to sleep in! We came to a compromise; I boiled up the ingredients (so that they would last the night) and will cook it down tomorrow, outside hopefully if the wind has dropped. I’m having to make the recipe up, as I have no cookery books to hand and the internet isn’t working; the ingredients are tomatoes, onions, garlic, chilli, wine vinegar, sugar and salt. 

We’re feeling rather guilty (and a bit foolish); after harping on and on about not wanting to go to our Portuguese neighbours for food tonight, we turned up at 8.30 and were given food – bags and bags of it - spinach, onions, okra, aubergine, beans and parsley. When they said “come round for food” we assumed that meant a meal (you would, wouldn’t you?) but it was meant literally, to be given vegetables, from their very prolific but not very large vegetable garden – it makes us all the more determined to learn the language. They said when we had finished the vegetables to come back and pick more (more or less “our vegetables are your vegetables”). They really are very generous; it will take us a while to get used to how friendly and straightforward they are, especially after Gary’s experiences. Oh yes, they also said we could use their swimming pool!!!! And it’s not a crappy blow up job like ours, it’s a proper, dug out of the ground, one that you can do laps in.

There’s a festa (festival) in the village this weekend; they’ve been setting up over the last few days, in the same place as the monthly market, which probably means that tomorrow we’ll have to go the narrow way in and out of the village. The music was playing well into the early hours of the morning; we’re planning on going to it tomorrow evening with Pam and Mark (our new ‘best friends’).

Friday 10 August 2012

9th August FONTE DOS CLERIGOS

It was hot yesterday 36° and today was even hotter probably 40°; it makes it very hard to do anything physical; I’m 'glowing' (sweating) just sitting down outside and it’s even worse if I go inside.  

My seeds are growing and they’ve only been in for two days; there’s rocket and cabbage through and others showing signs – so I’m convinced the lack of germination before was down to seeds being stolen. Now all we’ve got to work out is what’s eating the seedlings at night. 

We got some more sand, cement and gravel delivered as the builder’s merchant will be shut for the next fortnight for holidays. This lot is for the studio floor. 

Gary had a builder in today (cutting out holes for windows and doors) so we went down to look at the work this evening; he’d been a Gary’s for nine hours, arriving at 7.00a.m.; he brought his breakfast and lunch with him. Breakfast was washed down with a bottle of beer and lunch with a bottle of wine!! Gary said he worked quite well in the morning but in the afternoon he wasn’t so good. 

Tonight before we went to bed we spent 10 minutes in the truck with the air conditioning on, to try to cool us down – it was lovely (until we had to leave!). It was still 35° in the camper van. 

We’re not really looking forward to tomorrow evening; it’s terrible these are really kind hospitable people and we just feel uncomfortable in their company. And we still don’t know whether or not to take a gift; I’ll feel bad if we don‘t, but they might feel bad if we do.

8th August FONTE DOS CLERIGOS

HAPPY 4TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY William & Gillian.
We’ve had a really crap day; we went into Castelo Branco; we were going to try to pay our road tax and do some shopping. The road tax took 5 ½ hours!!!! 

We went to the dealership where we bought the truck (only the Miitsubishi part has closed), they said Augusto had our vehicle document (V5 equivalent) – hoorah. We went to Augusto (who now works for VW), he gave us the document; we noticed it was in the name of Sandra Maria not Sandra Laura (my second name is Laura) – we ignored that little problem and went to the Fiscal Office anyway (hoping they wouldn’t notice) ....... but we didn’t even get that far as, on their computer, our vehicle is still registered to Mitsubishi, so they wouldn’t let us pay it anyway.  

At this point we had no idea what to do; so we went to Remax (estate agents). They were brilliant, Paulo said “don’t worry, we will sort it”. Antonio (from Remax) went with us to another Fiscal office; it was the same story there (car registered to Mitsubishi on their computer), but then they noticed the name difference (on vehicle document and the fiscal register) so we had to go to the registration office; it got worse, to change the name on the vehicle documents they said we’d have to go to Lisbon!!!), it was becoming a nightmare and we were getting pretty stressed; so we went back to Augusto ....... the short story is that he spoke to his head office and the vehicle document will be reissued in the name of Sandra Laura, the car will then be re-registered on the computer in my name (not Mitsubishi),and they gave us another cover note for 60 more days – it will take a couple of weeks, but hopefully it’s sorted. 

We didn’t feel like having visitors after that but Mark and Glen came and we had a lovely relaxed evening. They’re moving to their quinta (from the campsite) tomorrow.

Wednesday 8 August 2012

7th August FONTE DOS CLERIGOS

Another disturbed night; this time it was fireworks at 5.30 a.m. – what was that all about? Why would anybody be letting off fireworks at that time of the morning, why weren’t they in bed – it was still dark. 

I can’t believe it; my shoes, which are less than a month old and that I paid 35 for, broke today. And, because it’s so dusty here, they look very worn (they’d probably think I was using the receipt of a newer pair of shoes) so I can’t take them back. Brett says he’s going to try sewing them for me – I’m very fed up! 

I spent the day re-sowing vegetable and herb seeds; this time into containers. They are up on a table, the legs of which are in cut off bottles filled with water – hopefully this should stop the ants from stealing the seeds. 

Brett has put bent re-bar in his footings; when filled with concrete they should be very strong. He constructed a magpie trap this afternoon; which he has baited with egg shells (displayed to look whole in an egg box). The magpies are becoming a real pest; they eat all our fruit before it ripens, which means that we have to pick it unripe (or lose it). 

Pam and Mark were hoping to complete today; but apparently their solicitor and Remax are involved in some kind of power struggle so it didn’t happen, we don’t have the details. We’ve invited them round for dinner on Thursday evening. 

Joao, Ilda and their grandson, Johny, turned up this evening; they stayed for about an hour and a half. It’s really awkward trying to converse with them, most of the time we don’t understand what they’re trying to say and vice versa. They came bearing gifts; pounds and pounds of of tomatoes (they are very generous) and a huge bunch of parsley (salsa in Portuguese); at first they gave us the top few tomatoes (about 2-3lbs), and we thought that was what they were giving us, but then they gave us the rest –we didn’t understood the significance of the first offering.
What are we going to do with all these tomatoes?
We showed them our vegetable garden; Joao exclaimed and started digging holes between our plants, initially he said we had rats!!! but it turned out (with sign language and a dictionary) that we have a mole – he spent ages digging along it’s tunnel and telling us how to deal with it. Next he told us it was rabbits eating our seedlings – even I know it’s not, the bite sizes are far too small. As they left they invited us for dinner tomorrow evening; we declined as we have Mark, Glen and Nick coming. So how about Thursday? No, we have Pam and Mark coming. So we’re going to them Friday between 8.00 – 9.00 (they eat very late) and we’re not looking forward to it at all; it’ll be really embarrassing not being able to have a proper conversation and another thing is we don’t know whether to take gifts, in the guide book it says the Portuguese don’t do that. 

Our social life is going a bit crazy at the moment.

6th August FONTE DOS CLERIGOS

I woke up in the night, I was so cold I had to get an extra duvet; it was only 17°C! It’s hot in the daytime and drops at night. 

We have ants in the camper van; they are very keen on bread, it has to be hung up to stop them getting into it. We had seen people, in Portugal, killing the ants and thought “how cruel”; huh, now I’m just wiping them off surfaces with a damp cloth just like everybody else! They get everywhere; all fresh food has to be double wrapped (or hung up), they’re even in the fridge, somehow they manage to squeeze through the seals. And another thing they do, in the middle of the night, is walk across your face! 

I’m so proud of Brett: we went to the builder’s merchant today to order the sand, gravel and cement to start concreting our floors. He conducted the whole conversation in Portuguese and got it delivered to the quinta this afternoon. It’s been one of those things that have been hanging over our heads; would we be able to source materials, order them and get them delivered? So that anxiety is gone – because we can.

 I can’t believe how worried we were about our access to the quinta; the delivery lorry came a couple of times, this afternoon, with no problems at all. 

I realised today that I quite enjoy wash days; probably because the rinsing procedure also acts as a cooling method, as I manage to get rather soaked during the process. It’s all much easier now we have gas again as we can use the water heater rather than boiling numerous kettles. Fortunately I adopted the ‘non iron look’ years ago; so I don’t worry that my clothes are creased. All we lack is a mangle; Brett has to do the wringing out for me as I’m rubbish at it, I blame my thumb. I am somewhat worried that my clothes won’t last though; they are getting a bit ‘moth eaten’ and I can’t envisage buying anything new in Portugal, I really mourn the lack of internet shopping here. 

Brett is partial to a cold beer in the evening; a really cold beer, he puts a bottle of beer, and the mugs, in the freezer and then we have ‘slush puppy’ beer – it’s very refreshing.
Another sensational sunset tonight


5th August FONTE DOS CLERIGOS

We went to visit the expats, Mark and Di, at 1.30 p.m.; they were much younger than I had expected with a three year old son (Rowan). They have been living in Portugal for six years and make a living breeding lizards. They have fifteen different types; they have all the adult breeding parent lizards in separate pens, they collect their eggs (digging them up out of the soil), they’re incubated (in an incubator, obviously) and then they have pens of baby lizards – it all looks like something out of ‘Jurassic Park’. They also breed tortoise and, no, it isn’t illegal, so long as you’re breeding from ones that have been bred in captivity. They said they are very busy with their business and don’t invite all and sundry to visit them; they implied that we had come across as worth meeting when we introduced ourselves on the expat forum, we didn’t leave until gone six. 

They confirmed everything we had suspected ourselves about our vegetable gardening; it was the ants that were stealing my seeds (hence the poor germination), it was too late in the season to start growing anyway and that we should sow in trays then plant on. One interesting vegetable they were growing was sweet potato – I’ve never tried that, they said it was very successful and explained how to cultivate the plants (it’s quite complicated, so I’ll probably research it properly before I have a go). They have also grown asparagus and rhubarb from seeds; both are growing very well (in fact the asparagus bed is only 2 or 3 years old and they’ve had to give away loads of crowns as they had far too much for their consumption) – I’ve come away enthused and energized, there’s hope for our garden yet! They also have contacts for Muscovy ducks and milking sheep; all in all a very worthwhile visit. Oh yes they also said the birds were bee eaters and they said our big lime green caterpillar, with blue spots, was an Emperor moth caterpillar, they’re very big, can be up to 15cms across, the biggest moth in Europe. 

Gary brought us some figs that he’d picked from an abandoned orchard they were much juicier (tastier) than the ones we’ve been eating off our trees – probably because we’re picking them before they’re properly ripe to beat the magpies to them! 

Mark, Glen and Nick are coming over for dinner on Wednesday – and now we have a proper social life.

4th August FONTE DOS CLERIGOS

We went into Castelo Branco to buy supplies and update the blog. As we drove the people were leaving the Boom Festival, all their cars were covered in a thick layer of red mud; they could hardly see through their windscreens. 

We called in at the campsite and said “Hello” to Glen (Mark was at the house); Nick was back – he’s been away for a month. 

WE HAVE NEW FRIENDS!!!!!!
We had a call on our mobile; it was our new (to be) neighbours (Mark & Pam), we arranged to meet them at El Club at 7.00 p.m.  El Club was lively (it’s only a cafe, not a club, despite the name); everyone was friendly (even the owner smiled!) and Pam and Mark were easy to spot – the only people sitting in the sunshine (the Portuguese tend to keep in the shade given the choice).

Mark and Pam were supposed to complete last Thursday; but it all went horribly wrong. First their car broke down in France, then Remax (estate agent) and their solicitor fell out (so much so that they had a phone call from the estate agent to say they were cancelling the sale and they only relented on the condition that their solicitor was not involved), so now they’re hoping to complete on Tuesday. After a drink at the cafe we invited them to our quinta for wine and beer; we ended up having a barbeque and they camped here overnight, sleeping in a tent on top of their Landrover, we didn’t get to bed until gone midnight (late for us). It was a good evening. 

 They are a lovely normal couple; Mark was a head teacher, he’s taught all over the world including Africa, where their daughter was born. And Pam is arty; she does papier mache and quilting, to name but a few of her skills (she’s even got her sewing machine with her in the back of the Landrover) – we’ll get on well. She did do a ‘proper job’ too, but I was more interested in the arty stuff! And it was so nice talking to another female; I’ve been surrounded by men for the last three months.  

Pam and Mark have spent the last year working around Europe (a bit like WOOFING but not organic) and house sitting; now they’re thinking of setting up eco camping (in tepees) on their quinta here. We haven’t seen their quinta yet; we’ll probably go there on Tuesday, after they’ve completed, to celebrate. Mark is a naturalist/ornithologist, he takes wonderful photos of wildlife; and he has identified the birds as bee eaters, I would never have guessed that. He had a bird book with him and the gliding shape is right, but I’ve never really seen the top of them, which in bee eaters is really colourful, this explains why I keep going on about the yellow on them. 

Tomorrow we’re meeting another expat couple (the gardening ones), who’ve invited us round to visit, and the Dutch couple we exchanged messages with re Portuguese language classes are over for a couple of weeks, from tomorrow, and they want to meet up; suddenly we’re getting quite a social life.




Saturday 4 August 2012

The next two posts are out of sequence (End of July)

30th July FONTE DOS CLERIGOS
We collected our water analysis results; we don’t have ecoli or any other risky bacteria in our well, we do have a harmless strain of coliform bacteria, found in soil, which means that surface water is getting into the well. The water can be treated easily (with a small amount of chlorine or with ultra violet light) and then it will be completely safe to drink, or we can just boil it for a few minutes.
We picked up our deeds from the solicitor; apparently she received them a week after we bought the quinta, but something happened to her phone so she lost our phone number and was waiting for us to get in touch with her!
We still can’t sort out the truck documents; the Mitsubishi showroom is shut down, the guy we dealt with is away (perhaps on holiday, nobody seems to know/care) and the truck is still registered to Mitsubishi. One man did take pity on us and made a phone call, and then faxed through our details to  the car sales head office, they said he would be phoned back; we waited 30 minutes, no call back – he’s taken our mobile number and says he will be back in touch (I’m not holding my breath). It’s all very frustrating, meantime the cover note for the road tax has run out; I think we’re driving illegally, Brett has taken the word of the finance people and thinks we’re ok until 26th August (they said we had 90 days to pay – the cover note says 60 days).
The expats we contacted (via the expat forum), to ask for advice on vegetable growing and pests in Portugal, got back in touch and we have been invited to go to visit them – I’m really excited about that, I might get some answers to my problems, rather than just guessing.
We had an enjoyable evening with Mark and Glen; while we were there we used the campsite electricity to charge both the mobiles, computer and Kindle – we only wish we’d thought to bring towels and we could have had showers too!
31st July FONTE DOS GLERIGOS
HAPPY BIRTHDAY Steve!
While Brett dug footings for our living room (so that we can build a wall where the double garage doors are) I weeded using a kitchen fork!!! It actually worked quite well. We have this weed, I have no idea what it is, if it’s dug up any part left in or on the ground will regenerate; I left a pile on the surface expecting them to dry out and die in the sun, next day they had rooted along the stems and had fresh growth – so now as I weed I have to collect every piece of plant as I go, it’s very time consuming.
It got very windy again today, we feared for our gazebos but they survived; but the peaches on our little prolific tree started to fall off so I picked what were left (23), we have quite a few other peach trees but this one was more advanced than the others. Our grapes by the house are turning black; they’re not a big grape (probably for wine making), but they are very tasty.
I’m feeling rather guilty about Gary; he had some ‘jewels’ that he found in a skip; he was convinced he’s actually found diamonds – I felt really mean telling him it was only costume jewellery.
 He’s taken Betty’s ‘lampshade’ off; I knew he would, he said it was irritating her and she couldn’t sleep with it on. I’m trying to convince him that he has to take her back to the vet to have her stitches taken out – he wants to do it himself.
I phoned the expats; the man, Mark, sounds very nice. We’re going to visit them over the weekend, I can’t wait.

3rd August FONTE DOS CLERIGOS

I’ve become a twitcher!!! Brett’s right I am obsessed with the bloody birds. I decided to have a lie in this morning; however when they came over at 6.15 a.m. my body reacted to their cries, as if I had heard my alarm clock go off, and I was out of bed saying “shit, shit, shit” as I struggled into my tea shirt (which was inside out) before I realised what I was doing (it really was an automatic response and completely out of my control). And I still didn’t get a decent picture of them! They definitely have yellow under their wings and today Brett observed that they have yellow on top too.
Not a good picture but it shows the yellow under wing
And this shows it's triangular shape
I’ve had a headache for the last couple of days; probably something to do with the heat etc so I’ve been taking it a bit easy (good excuse!). Brett however has continued to dig out the studio floor and it’s now it’s ready for concreting. The studio/gym is a very sound building and would make a lovely little house (if we didn’t already have the other bigger buildings).
Gary invited us to the village cafe for a drink this afternoon; we went to the second cafe (Cafe Central).
Back to the birds! .................... this evening as they were flying over when Brett realised that there were about a hundred landed in our olive grove; unfortunately as we walked (well Brett running, me walking) towards them they flew off, away from us, so we still don’t have a good photo (even Brett is getting into it now!).

2nd August FONTE DOS CLERIGOS

Breakfast: Our own orange juice, grapes and peaches
On our way out of the village this morning the post lady flagged us down to say we had mail; it was our water analysis results. So this proves we can get mail; where are our car documents?
We drove into Fundao to get supplies; we can only keep enough food in the van for three days at a time, which is a pain – fresh produce goes off very quickly in the heat, especially lettuce which becomes a soggy brown mess!
We bought some tomato jam; we keep seeing it on the shelves and thought might be like a chutney (which the Portuguese don’t seem to do); well if I’d been doing a ‘taste test’ I’d have thought it was strawberry jam – it was surprisingly delicious in a weird kind of way. I made a lovely salad dressing with it using chillies and lime juice.
We’re being really careful with our Kindle internet access; this afternoon Brett logged onto the expat forum (it uses a lot of data so we don’t log in very often). We had a message from a couple who are moving into our village (they should be signing their documents today) how exciting is that? I so hope they are normal! Their message said that they want to set up an ‘eco luxury campsite’; we have no idea what that is but we’re guessing yurts. Anyway hopefully we’ll meet them soon and find out.
This evening the swifts gave us a fabulous air display; they we swooping and diving right overhead and between us, we could hear the “whoosh” of the air being pushed out of the way by their bodies as they passed us, it was absolutely magical.
Brett managed to get a photo with his Ipod



1st August FONTE DOS CLERIGOS

Hoorah, WE HAVE INTERNET BACK ON OUR KINDLES!!!!!! Now we’ve got to learn to ration it; we’ve got to use it a 1/3 less (as we didn’t have it for 11 days). I still can’t understand how we both ran out at the same time; Brett uses his far less than me, but Amazon assures us that it’s not a joint account, we get separate usage for each Kindle– I still don’t believe them, it’s too much of a coincidence. We went to bed, we both had usage; I woke up, turned on my Kindle to check emails and got a message saying I’d used up my 50mbs for the month; I turned on Brett’s Kindle to check emails and the same message came up – explain that Amazon!
The birds woke me at 6.00 a.m. so I now have more pictures of sky!! Stephanie says they could be spotless starling; the description sounds right, but these definitely have yellow under their wings (maybe I’ve discovered a new species, ‘Sandra’s starlings’?); Brett says I’m getting a bit obsessive about them, every time I hear them I leap up and grab my camera.
It was cold this morning (low 20s), I had to have a cooked breakfast (scrambled egg) to warm me up – we must be getting acclimatized, back in Wales I’d have been saying “let’s go to the seaside”!.
Ha Ha, Amazon phoned back and did manage to explain how our Kindle’s internet access had both been turned off at the same time; apparently it isn’t monitored daily and when they checked it twelve days ago, after we went to bed, Brett had used 61mbs and I had used 133mbs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (So I got my money’s worth). So now I’m really going to have to ration it. Unfortunately there’s no way to keep a check on usage through the month, until it’s turned off.
We had one of those days today that you don’t enjoy at the time but get a feeling of satisfaction once it’s done; we cleared out the studio and gym sheds. First we took out a truckful of old bits of wood (now neatly stacked on our wood piles). Then we gathered together another truckful of rubbish to take to the skips. And after lunch we swept the gym (it already has a concrete floor), ½ a wheel barrowful of dirt and dust. Then finally we broke up (well Brett broke it up) and removed a skim (1” -  4” at it’s thickest, but it was blown, so no good) of concrete from 1/3 of the studio floor (the rest is dirt and animal matter, tomorrow’s job is digging it out). It was very dirty work; we wore masks but still managed to breathe a lot of dust in.
We found a field of sunflowers outside the studio/gym (poor things have survived without any water)