Pages

Thursday 26 June 2014

HARVEST HOME ....

14th June
HOT, HOT, HOT ... 36 degrees in the shade!!!
It’s too hot to work; though we are trying to weed the vegetable garden and Brett is finishing off the barbecue, ready for our decking christening party on the 21st June.
The pool is no longer a luxury it’s an essential, I don’t think I could cope without it.
Looby spends all day under the decking, it’s cool under there, it’s her kennel.
The garden is very productive atm; we’re snowed under with courgettes and mangetout, the beans are just starting and soon we’ll have ripe tomatoes – we’re not buying any fruit and veg!
And we have HUGE apricots, they’re as big as peaches, oranges and peaches ripe for eating (the loquats didn’t do well this year).
The fruit on the right is an Apricot, it's HUGE

16th June
Every morning I let the Muscovies out and Mrs Muscovy bustles off to the stream with her brood, she brings them back a couple of times for food and then she comes back for the night around 8.00 – she’s such a good mother.
We went to the bar with Chris & Di to watch the Portugal v Germany match – we arrived 4.30ish and got home after 10.30 (and I don’t even like football)!!!!! It was quite a feat getting the ducks and geese away in the dark whilst ‘slightly’ intoxicated ... we’re back there on Thursday for the England game.

17th June
The barbecue is finished and looking good, and it cost about 100€ less than buying one readymade.
Our chickens are laying well, some days we get 10 eggs; so today I made an egg storage system;
it’s my version of one that Brett designed and made when we lived in Wales, mine is far more ‘rustic’! It means that we don’t have to sort through a bowl of eggs looking for the one with the oldest date, each section takes 21 eggs and I’ve made 3 – by the end of today it was full, 63 eggs ... we had Courgette Frittata for dinner!

18th June
I went to Claire’s today to get some lemons and came away with two bags of lemons and one bag of plums (and I could have had more) – she has so many different types of fruit trees and it’s all fruiting prolifically.
Then this afternoon it was back to the weeding, the vegetable garden is starting to look rather good.

19th June
We decided that we would eat before when went to the bar with Chris and Di (on Monday we didn’t get any dinner), to line our stomachs, so we invited them round to test out the barbecue – we had the most delicious sardines and octopus ever, it was really good and cooked to perfection. Then we went to the bar ...
Oh dear ...
We arrived just before 8 and left at 2.30!!!!!!
Pam & Mark, Josh, Jamie & Vince, Andrew & Baptiste all came to the bar as well, we had a very jolly evening but my goodness we were all so drunk; I blame it all on Chris & Di – they are a bad influence on us!

20th June
Hip, Hop, Happy Birthday Mel!!! XXX
Oooh we both felt so ill today! I had a long list of things to do in preparation for our gathering on Saturday but hardly anything got done. I didn’t get up until 11.00 and I could so easily have gone back to bed, Brett did go back to bed this afternoon.
We had our first ripe tomato today; it was a Tigerella – yummy!            

21st June
Happy Summer Solstice
There was so much left to do for this evening, after doing nothing yesterday; so I just left out a whole bunch, like ‘finish weeding the tomatoes’ ... it didn’t get done, and nobody really gave a toss!
The barbecue was lovely, everyone brought masses of food and drink (so Brett was right - I didn’t need to make so much!). After the excesses of Thursday evening everyone was quite restrained, so it wasn’t a drinkfest! ... but we still didn’t get to bed until after 2.00a.m.
And I’m so proud of our dogs, they were so well behaved (apart from Looby trying to sit on peoples laps!!!). I’m not proud of our geese though; one of them bit Gypsy on the bum (obviously thought she was too small to retaliate) and then they attacked the ducklings, so Jamie (my hero) had to rescue them.

22nd June
The nights are drawing in!
Good old Brett insisted on paper plates and cups yesterday, so there wasn’t too much clearing up. I had chocolate mousse for breakfast – it’s a tradition, homemade chocolate mousse always tastes better the day after the party!
Despite not having hangovers we had a lazy day today, after all we only had about 6 hours sleep. We didn’t have to cook, as there was so much food left over, thanks to the generosity of all our friends.
I made plum chutney, with some of the plums from Claire.
This week I want to make plum jam, peach chutney, green bean chutney and courgette chutney too – I like chutney!
So much food to process!

23rd June
Hoorah, at long last, I’ve planted out my sweet potatoes ... it’s been on my ‘to do’ list for ages. I also, nearly, finished weeding the tomato bed and found the peanuts hiding under all the weeds, until a thunder storm stopped play – I got absolutely soaked walking back to the house ... but we didn’t have to water tonight!
It’s Pam’s birthday on Wednesday, so I spent the evening making her present.

24th June
And this morning I finished her present ... and I want to keep it!

So now I have to make myself one.
Finished weeding the tomatoes, uncovered the peanuts which are flowering like mad.

25th June
Happy Birthday Pam!
Pam hung her mobile up on her decking – it looks good there.
I spent the day being very homesteady ... I made Plum Jam (I even managed to ‘lose’ some courgettes in with it, it was a proper recipe I didn’t make it up!) and Peach Chutney (who would have ever thought I’d have so many peaches that I would need to make chutney with them?).
The flowers at the back are my bolted leeks
Brett strimmered around the boundary; so we now have a walkway and a firebreak – of course the shepherd will now turn up to ask to cut the hay.
Brett found an interesting Beetle tonight!




Friday 13 June 2014

I'M BACK!!!!

13th June
Wow I haven’t blogged for nearly a month. 
Brett has done some sterling work in this time .....
·         He’s roofed the decking; it still needs the palings around it.
The roof finishes it off nicely and ties it into the house
Olive wood palings

·         But, most importantly, he’s wired the house!!! We have working light switches and sockets – he’s so clever.
·         And we have THREE windows in the house one in the kitchen and one in the bathroom – holes had to be cut for these ... oh the mess!!!!!!! And one to replace the one in the living room. It’s much lighter inside now.
A few other events have taken place ...
·         I’ve travelled to UK and back (obviously)
·         The duck has hatched eight ducklings, sooooo cute!
She's such a good mother, very protective (she even sees off the geese!)
·        AND Helen has been to visit, oh we had such fun ...
We did the usual; visiting Monsanto, Penamacor (Medieval quarter) and taking her out for a typical Portuguese meal, but the most exciting, for me, was our ‘project’ – constructing a chandelier for the living room. We fashioned the support from an old, traditional, crystal chandelier which we completely re structured; the arms now look like Medusa’s hair with wire birds and metal coils hanging from them, plus lots of sparkly crystals – very ‘Steam Punk’! I love it.
It's not finished yet, needs loads more crystals and coils
·         The garden has grown massively, including the weeds!!!! And we are now harvesting courgettes (and giving them away), mangetout, onions, potatoes, lettuce, radish, peas, chard, rocket, carrots, cucumber, garlic and masses of herbs. And very soon we will have runner beans and tomatoes; it’s all very exciting but ... the weeds are relentless, I have two, bindweed and a succulent, which have to be hand weeded as any part of the plant left in the soil will regenerate (nightmare!). And now, it’s hot and the ground is hard and the ants are back, it is impossible to grow anything straight from seed; our neighbour says it’s because the ground is hard, I say it’s the ants stealing the seeds! I can’t grow carrots or spring onions and my sweet corn is very sparse.
·         And the chickens are now laying properly, some days we have as many as 10 eggs!!!



SAD TIMES!!!!

6th May
We try not to go into town too often; because (1) it’s not very exciting and (2) it means we lose a day’s work! But today we had a long list, plus hardly any food in the house, so decided the time had come, got there and half the shops were shut – another public holiday!!! Fortunately Lidl was open, so we got food, and some of the other shops we needed, so it wasn't a completely wasted journey.
Max/Min thermometer (in the shade) registered 31°, but neither of us has braved the pool yet – it’s still icy cold.

7th May
Brett managed to count the Muscovy’s eggs (she was off having a drink), she’s sitting on fifteen! She’s a mean little beast atm (hormones!), she attacks the ducks and geese and she’ll even take on the dogs!
We collected a basket of lemons from Clare – she’s got so many trees heaving with lemons, it’s not fair! I need them for iced tea, mayonnaise, lemon curd and the Moroccan Carrot Dip we had this evening.
Brett has nearly finished the decking by the pool, it’s only 3’ x 8’, but it will make getting in and out of the pool so much easier.

8th May
The decking by the pool is finished and the pool is looking more and more inviting. Unfortunately today we were waiting for a delivery (roofing sheets for house decking) so we didn’t like to get in.
We invited Chris and Di round for drinks, dips (food, not in the pool!) and a ‘catch up’, we haven’t seen them for a while as they have moved out of the quarry (where we saw them every time we drove past) and onto their land (where we can’t see them for the trees). They are such easy people to talk to, we had a lovely evening and they’ve invited us round on Saturday, to play badminton (can you play badminton in sandals?).

9th May
Pam brought her daughter, Naomi, round for coffee; which was great for me as it meant I didn't need to do any work – Brett was strimmering.
The roofing still didn’t arrive – we went in the pool anyway! It was bloody cold to start with but we acclimatized pretty soon, it’s very good at cooling you down.

10th May
Still no roofing and the Builder’s merchant was closed today, so it can’t arrive before Monday.
Brett made the frame for the outside shower (we’re going to cover it with hessian); I worked in the polytunnel (phew it was hot!) and did some weeding (there’s always weeding needs doing).
This afternoon we went in the pool and this evening we went round to Chris & Di’s.
I wore my ‘Wimbledon Whites’, because we were playing badminton and, although they claimed the victory (which in my opinion was debatable ...), I maintain that they put us at a disadvantage by facing us into the setting sun! We had a splendid evening, as always!

11th May
‘Girlie’ shopping trip to CB with Pam, Naomi and Rowan! We all (except Rowan) spent ages (at least 2 hours) in H&M trying on clothes – I bought six tops and a skirt.
On our way home from CB we stopped to buy some of this year’s first cherries, from a vendor at the side of the road. He had the price written down on a piece of paper 10€ a box or 18€ for two boxes, rather a lot we said; so he turned the piece of paper over 10€ a box or 15€ for two boxes!!!!! Still rather expensive (it’s usually 5€ a box) but we bought two boxes anyway (one for me, one for Pam).

12th May
My mother died in the night, it was a complete shock. She was taken into hospital yesterday with stomach pains, which turned out to be a ruptured bowel. The doctor said to get her family in to see her asap (to say ‘goodbye’), but I wasn’t to bother rushing as I wouldn’t make it in time.
I’m feeling rather numb, and don’t know what to do with myself.

13th May
I don’t think I’ll be blogging for a while.