27th June CASTELO BRANCO

Bloody hell .............. last night we went to bed around 10.30/11.00 p.m.; we were woken, just after midnight, by a knocking at our door. It was Mark asking if we’d seen the fire; we went outside and there was a massive fire a couple of miles away (rather like the mountain burning, March/April time, in Wales). Mark had binoculars and you could see the flames quite clearly – it was all rather scary. Over the next hour or so it spread, but didn’t come our way, thankfully there wasn’t much wind; and then it started moving away. We went back to bed; I, of course, stayed awake until nearly 4.00 a.m., checking on the fire’s progress every few minutes (I wasn’t going to be taken by surprise). By 3.30 it had moved a fair distance and I surmised that it wouldn’t come towards us again as it had burnt a natural fire barrier, so we were safe.

We drove to the quinta and although we could smell smoke we couldn’t see where the fire had been, all day has been very hazy with clouds that look like smoke on the horizon, but still extremely hot.

Today was a lazy day/day off, so we took our loungers with us. There were two frogs in the large tank when we arrived, so one had made it’s way up from the lower tank! We finished filling up the tank; we really need to paint it as, although the water is crystal clear, the grey colour of the concrete render makes it hard to see through (so it doesn’t look particularly inviting!).

Our 'plunge pool'

Yesterday, after half filling the tank, the well had gone down about a metre and a half (it’s 7 metres deep), this morning it was back to it’s original level, which it brilliant, for us; Mark and Glen aren’t using their tank and it’s receding daily.

The track, through the olive grove, between the house and gym/studio, which we've made by driving it daily

At lunchtime I had a bit of a hissy fit; I’d forgotten my fork and that was it. I was tired, hot and not enjoying myself, I’d had enough – we’ve agreed to take a few days off from working. Meantime Brett whittled me a ‘fork’ out of an olive twig, so I was able to eat my lunch – which I hadn’t eaten the day before because I forgot the salad dressing.

After lunch we went for a swim in our pool; it was fabulous, you can actually swim in it (if you don’t mind going round in circles!) it really helped to cool us down. So I’ve decided, I don’t care about cost, we’re going to have a proper pool – I think it’s essential here.

Brett swimming in our pool

Me swimming in our pool

We spent nine hour at the quinta just relaxing and doing a bit of tidying up (Brett dug over another vegetable bed too, while I relaxed!); it was wonderful, I can’t wait for this to become our ‘norm’, it’s the relentless physical work that’s wearing me down.

The camper van was only 39°C when we got back, woohoo!  Apparently tomorrow it starts getting cooler.