DOGS!!!!!

8th October

Our genet is getting quite bold, it explores our truck (tearing open any rubbish left in the back overnight); we know it's the genet as it leaves it's footprints all over the truck! It's front paws prints look just like miniature hands.

Tuesday is a weird day, we hang around, then go into Castelo Branco to shop, then on to our Portuguese class but, as often happens, today didn't go as planned. We were literally (in the truck) just about to leave the quinta when we got the call we'd been waiting for - the plasterboard was in the village; so we had to deal with that before we left, so then we were late into town (we'd gone via Mark to drop off the cement mixer too). We hadn't done much of our shopping before it was time for class (there's not enough hours in the day).

The class was just as frustrating as last week, Pastor Allen speaking in Portuguese, us kind of getting the gist of what he was saying (mainly because he was miming as well as speaking!) we've got to say something L.

After doing a bit more shopping we went back to Mark's and from there into his village restaurant for dinner; we had olives & bread, soup, main meal, pudding and wine/beer - with tips it cost 15€ (about £12.75 real money) per person.

9th October

Today's job was putting up the plasterboard for the bathroom and cupboard bed; plasterboarding is a quick job with instant gratification, suddenly everything is coming together. And our living room looks so tall as we now have a wall reaching into the roof, it's 11 foot 2 inches.

This afternoon we went to help Mark take down a tepee, it came down much quicker than it went up!!!

Brett moved the truck so that we could see it from the kitchen and baited the bed with chorizo (we don't know what genets eat!) nailed to a plank, we turned the lights off in the kitchen and waited - not much point really, we couldn't see a thing!!! By the time we went to bed it was still there.

10th October

OK so genets don't eat chorizo!!!

We spent the day crawling around on our knees screwing down the floor of the sleep platform.

11th October

Lots of sweeping, hoovering and dusting today - and that's quite hard on the sleep platform when you can't actually stand up completely straight (it's designed to lay down on, not stand on).

Tomorrow we'll put the mattress up there and then we're ready for our first visitors - Henry and Claire, I'm so, so, so excited!!!

12th October

Nooooooo .......... we woke up to a dull overcast sky, typical; fortunately the forecast said sunny intervals and the batteries charged fine (we must get our extra panels set up soon).

Making the beds on the sleep platform and in the cupboard bed is no fun and quite a challenge. And, as Brett suffers from a dust allergy (how convenient!), it's down to me to do it, both beds have to be climbed onto, to make them, so how then do you lift up the mattress, to tuck the covers in, if you're kneeling on it?

Hen and Claire arrived early eveningJ, it was fantastic to see them (now I want Will and Gill and the kids to visit, then I'll be completely happy).

Goody, Hen and Claire chose to sleep on the sleep platform, so we stayed sleeping in our cupboard!

13th October

We took Hen and Claire to Monsanto today, and climbed right up to the top where there's a castle with fantastic far reaching views (it was a tough climb).

We bought a range cooker (wood burning) last year which has been in shed waiting for a kitchen to live in; today Brett and Hen were on a mission to give us an oven to cook in - the range is now installed outside our house and it works, we had roast potatoes tonight!!!

'Arty' photo by Claire

We'll buy flue bits this week and then we can put it in the kitchen (who cares that the walls need plastering and the floor needs tiling?).

Claire picked some quinces which we cooked and left in a jelly bag overnight; tomorrow we're going to make quince jelly, with the liquid, and quince paste (membrillo) which you eat with sheep's cheese (you'd love it Mel!), with the pulped quinces.

14th October

We took a trip to Fundao market today; it wasn't nearly as lively as in the summer, but it made an interesting visit, we could have bought live chickens, pigeons, turkeys,  ducks and rabbits; I presume they were all for fattening up and eating (not the laying hens!).

We decanted out red wine into 30L water carriers (we found some that we could fit airlocks onto), we filled three, that's 90 litres of red wine plus our share (half) of 225L of white wine AND tomorrow we're going to try to make some perry/cider (a mixture of pears and apples) using the fruit press.

I made the quince jelly while Claire made the membrillo - I got the best job she had to stir hers constantly for 40 minutes!!! They both went a lovely pink colour, very pretty.

 Quince Preserves

15th October

Pam came back from her trip to the UK, we picked her up from CB; so we left Hen and Claire to pick the apples and pears - they filled a 50L drum. We processed the fruit (the same way we made the wine) and (we haven't measured it yet) we think we have about a gallon (pity we haven't got pigs yet, they would have loved the pulp); we've left it in a bucket to start fermenting.

Brett cemented the area where we are going to install the range cooker, while Hen, Claire and I picked more quinces to make into chutney - another pretty pink preserve, the store cupboard (shelf) is looking quite impressive.

Tomorrow we're going to the animal rescue centre to enquire about getting a couple of dogs; we're very excited, but mustn't get our hopes up I don't expect we'll actually be allowed to take any tomorrow.

16th October

WE HAVE DOGS!!!!!!!

We went to the rescue centre in our, three seater, truck - Hen and Claire squashed into the back (one of them illegally!). Then we chose our dogs (which we had already decided shouldn't be too big) and managed to squash them into the cab with us too - the smaller one on Claire's lap and the bigger one on my lap, she was supposed to be in the foot well!

We spent the rest of the afternoon trying to work out their names; we now have:

Tess: medium sized, black and white, the centre reckon she's about 18 month old (she has already had puppies, quite a few litters from the looks of her and I thinks she's a lot older than 18 months), 

Our beautiful Tess

and Looby: about twice the size of Tess (!!!), two tone brown, the centre said she was about a year old and was fully grown - we think she's nearer 6 months (she's very puppyish and has HUGE feet!) and has quite a bit of growing to do (oops).

And lovely Looby

They are both spade, vaccinated and we take them back on Saturday to be chipped and have a booster and they cost us 15€ each.

Already they have their own personalities and, we don't think we're imagining it, Tess is very like Winnie and Looby is like Molly, how weird is that? Tess is quite quiet and laid back, eats slowly and leaves food when she's full, Looby bounces everywhere, eats like she's starved, wolfs her food down then tries to eat Tess's (big fight!!! so now we feed them separately); which is almost identical to when we got Winnie and Molly, if they grow to be as nice as Mol and Win we'll be blessed.

We've got a couple coming to visit us tomorrow who have pigs, they have breed from their sow and had in a Portuguese butcher to slaughter and butcher the off-spring, so we're really looking forward to their visit and asking them lots of questions.

17th October

Yesterday we cut a single duvet in half, for dog beds; Tess took to hers immediately and spent most of the evening curled up on it and then slept soundly on it all night. Looby didn't ever lie on hers and spent all night curled up on the floor outside our cupboard bed, at 6.45 she became quite animated so we decided she might need the toilet (we walked them to the gate and back before bed but she did nothing) so Brett and I got up and went outside with the two dogs, it wasn't light, the dogs disappeared into the gloom but they both responded to their individual names and came back when we called them, ah bless!

Unfortunately the dogs don't recognise boundaries, Brett had to retrieve them from Gary's!! So poor old Looby spent all day tied up, Tess doesn't tend to wander on her own. 

Brett and Henry spent the day making frames for another six solar panels (we'll need them for the winter, and next week when rain is forecast).

Me and Claire had a couple of adventures going to the village shop; it's brilliant they are so nosy and ask you lots of questions, and we try to answer in pigeon Portuguese. Our second session, in the evening, was hilarious; the lady behind the counter is so slow we were in the queue for ages, we were so long Brett thought we had gone to Penamacor - they have no concept of rushing!!!

Rich and Nicky came this afternoon; they are a lovely couple who have lived in Portugal for ten years. They have pigs, goats, chickens, ducks and geese, and they grow lots of vegetables - so completely our type of people.

18th October

OK so Tess does wander off on her own too, so they both spent the day tied up - hopefully this phase shouldn't be for too long. Tess has been very subdued all day, so I'm a bit concerned about her, but it's early days yet, we've only had them a couple of days.

Henry and Claire left today L so I'm sad; it was so, so lovely to have them here.

Brett made the supports for the solar panels which we should be able to wire up in the next couple of days.

19th October

We were woken up at 7a.m. by Tess, paws on bed, tail wagging, licking my face - she's been so much happier today, it's been so nice and such a relief.

The solar panels are now wired into the battery bank, so we have twelve panels and fourteen batteries - bring on the rain!!!!

We took the dogs back to the centre to be chipped; Looby was already chipped (they held a scanner over them both first), so she's been reregistered to us - it makes you wonder about her original owner though. Tess's pet passport has her down as Tessa - Brett forgot her name when he was filling out her registration form!

Tess was car sick, she vomited twice while we were travelling (nice!), fortunately Brett had put a tarpaulin over the seats to protect them from dog hairs.

Debbie and David are arriving tomorrow, we're a little worried about the weather forecast - but hopefully we should have electricity! How exciting, I do hope they have a good holiday with us.

20th October

We were woken by the dogs at 7.30a.m. (Brett hates it, he goes back to bed after their walk), we have to take them out because they both do a complete toilet at this time (and personally I would rather get up early than clear up a mess!). But ....... I don't like Sundays this time of year (Oct - Feb), the hunters are out; we could hear them shooting in the field next to our quinta - we couldn't see them because of the mist (which means they couldn't see us and I worry about stray bullets). They could just have easily been on our land (they were later), hunting is a law unto itself; the hunters seem to be allowed onto your land unless you put up fences, all around the boundary, high enough to keep them out (there are 'no hunting' signs, but they pretend not to have seen them, they'd have to be at ever feasible way onto the quinta to be effective).

I dyed my hair, in honour of our guests, and it didn't work!!! It was cheap, from Home Bargains, and I have a mass of them I bought, when we were back in Wales, as hair dye is expensive here (ho hum!).

At least I've worked out how to make the bed on the sleep platform - you work from the top down, all layers at the same time.

We picked Debbie and David up from Fundao station, the train was bang on time and they said the journey was great; we haven't done it, it's on my wish list - trip to Lisbon, they went through lots of little stations with lovely tiling.

We collected water from the fonte at Alpedrinha (just so they could see what a typical day in our life is like, i.e. we were showing off!!!).

We left the dogs in the old chicken shed, they were really good and very pleased to see us back.

Dave let it slip that it was Debbie's birthday tomorrow, she kept that quiet - so we've invited Mark and P&M over tomorrow evening.

21st October

Happy Birthday Debbie!!!!

We were a little worried about our solar, we have six extra panels and the batteries were going down, so we got in touch with Nick; he suggested we take off our extra six panels (as the batteries have been going down since we connected them), but that didn't make any difference, so we turned the inverter off for a while, the batteries went up a little bit.

There was lots of secret texting between me and Pam to organise a present and cake  for Debbie (thank you Pam, we couldn't have done it without you).

Debbie and I spent the morning designing and painting cartoons for the swimming pool mosaic; Debbie cut up paper into 6" squares (to simulate tiles), then stuck groups of them together so that we could paint on the life size designs - we've gone for a mixture of blues and green for the main body of the floor (to go with the painted walls) the subject for the mosaics will be in yellow/orange/red (three feature goldfish, and some little ones plus, in the four corners, a sun, moon and two stars) - I'm getting excited, it's going to be a rather impressive feature.

We had a nice walk down to the river with Debbie, David and the dogs; we met and talked to a local shepherd, he was very friendly.

Debbie's impromptu party was very relaxed and enjoyable: Mark stayed overnight in his truck. It absolutely poured in the night, the rain was very noisy on our roof, which was louder for Debbie and David as they were on the sleep platform; Mark said he felt like he was in a washing machine as the wind was buffeting his cab too.

22nd October

Nick came around and checked out our system he says our system is fine and we're not charging because the weather is lousy, so much for having the extra panels!!!

Tuesday is language class L . We went into Castelo Branco early to look at tiles for the swimming pool mosaic ............. I'm so disappointed the tile man said ceramic tiles are not suitable for a pool, we need (expensive) glass tiles which would cost about 200€ (and he only had them in blue) - so that's not going to happen! We dropped Debbie and David off in town to explore for a couple of hours, while we were at class; it was just as bad as usual (I was already in a sulk!), so we had a word with Pastor Allen and he got all defensive and now we feel mean! We did some shopping in Jumbo then came home and cooked Paella. The dogs were left in the shed again, they were very good - we're so lucky they have really adapted well to living here.

23rd October

Debbie came up with another idea for the pool floor - bottle bottoms; so we (me and Debs) spent the morning having great fun playing with bottles (beer, wine, Worcestershire sauce etc) and our electric tile cutter - it would take an awful lot of bottles to cover the bottom of the pool, but we made some candle holders and vases that were ok - we just need some nicer coloured bottles.

Brett and Dave put the stove on the plinth and knocked a hole through the wall for the flue.

The afternoon was rather wet and no electricity was generated again.

Debbie and David took us out for a meal (thank you Dave's mum!) this evening, unfortunately the (meat on a skewer) restaurant that we wanted to go to was shut so we went into Penamacor to the Pizza restaurant (but we now think the pizza bit was further upstairs as we didn't have the choice of pizza). We had olives and bread to start then main meals (2 x mixed meats, 1 x chicken, 1 x fish) all served with chips, rice and salad, 1L red wine (house), 1 x bottle of beer, 4 x pudding, 3 x coffee and it came to 30€, that's 7.50 each (that's £6.40 real money, ridiculously cheap). It was still raining when we got home and Dave and I had to walk the dogs back from the shed, as we were the only ones who had taken coats out!

24th October

It rained all night, and continued for most of the day - but we decided to go out anyway. We went to Monsanto, unfortunately you couldn't see the views; but we did find a bar where we were treated to lunch (thank you again Dave's mum!), we had hot chocolate (perfect for the wet weather) and a mixed board of meats (3 types of chorizo) and cheeses (goat and sheep) served with bread and honey - very tasty. Debbie says to say that they thought Monsanto was amazing, despite the weather, we'll take them again next time they come.

We had a lull in the rain this afternoon and took the dogs for a walk around the boundary; we hadn't realised that the river we walked to the other day passes really close to our land, it is very impressive at the moment, quite wide and flowing very rapidly.

This evening we went to P&M's for a meal; it was lovely and their house was so cosy, they had lit their wood burning stove and, because they had not used any electricity during the day, we had electric lights!

25th October

Another rainy night and dreary day.

Brett and David designed and built a huge saw horse, while Debbie and I made name tags for the dogs out of copper clay but ....... I was too impatient and we fired the tags before they had completely dried out, Tess's one broke! So now I'm trying to dry out Looby's a bit more before refiring it and Debbie is a going to make her a new one when she gets home.