29th July FONTE DOS CLERIGOS

The birds woke me (the ones I’m trying to photograph) a flock of them was swooping around the camper van; but even though I rushed out I still didn’t manage to get any photos, I could see them really clearly but my camera didn’t react quickly enough for them to still be in shot as the photos were taken – result lots of photos of sky!

Brett finished his footings for the little sitting room today; we’re extending the building by a few feet. The next job is clearing out the studio and gym and digging out the studio floor in preparation for concreting. We bought a joint cement mixer the other week, with Mark (there’s no point in us both buying a new one, we’re not likely to need it at the same time); he’s using it at the moment and we’ll have it in a week or two when we’re ready to do all our floors.

We had a walk over to Gary’s to check on Betty; she seems fine, she looks funny wearing her ‘lampshade’. Gary doesn’t like her having to wear it; I hope he keeps it on her long enough for her wound to heal.

The rain and clouds have been replaced with blue skies and sunshine; so it was back to watering today – the French beans are looking quite bushy; hopefully they’ll start flowering soon.

Another lovely sunset tonight.

Sunset and mountains



Tomorrow we’re going into Castelo Branco to pick up our well water analysis results; we’ve got an appointment with our solicitor, to pick up the deeds for the quinta and in the evening we’re going to the campsite, to have a barbeque with Mark and Glen.

28th July FONTE DOS CLERIGOS

The day started well; as we were watering the vegetable seedlings I was doing a bit of weeding and I found some fennel growing, I had nearly given up watering them as they have taken an awfully long time to germinate.

We went into Idanha a Nova to buy some food; the supermarket was seething with hippies and security guards still and we think their prices have been inflated (probably to pay for the security guards!).

Then the day deteriorated big time; I dropped my Kindle into a bucket of water! The Kindle froze; we took the back off and dried it out. Then it rebooted itself and came up with a message “battery empty” and despite charging it the message remains and the Kindle is frozen. It’s not the fact that it’s an expensive toy; it’s the fact that it’s my only source of distraction. We brought a few paperbacks, but I’ve read most of them and we can’t get the internet on the computer at the quinta (and it doesn’t hold it’s charge very well anyway). It’s not even as if we can go out any buy a whole load of books as I don’t understand Portuguese. Brett says I can get the latest Kindle (I think it’s called the Kindle Fire) but that won’t be until we come back to Britain; he says I can share his Kindle, but that’s not fair on him. So I’m really unhappy today, to put it mildly. Evenings are going to really drag, once it gets dark there’s nothing to do and I don’t want to go to bed at 9.30 p.m. every night.

We went for an exploratory walk; we saw Mr Luis, he pointed out a quinta that was sold this week to a South African man (he’s not moving here until September). We continued on the track past Gary’s track; there are so many little tracks leading off, worked parcels of land, deserted quintas, shacks and buildings (some with dogs on chains). We cut through Gary’s to come home as it was starting to rain.

And then the day got even worse; to start off with my Kindle hadn’t miraculously healed itself while we were gone (we’d left it to charge, but it hadn’t)! And then the rain really got going, and the wind started and it wrecked our gazebos!!! It was far too windy to save them; the guy ropes just tore through their tethers and the poles bent and that was the end of our camp. The cooker got drenched and our chairs, loungers and charcoal and now we’re both thoroughly fed up. We have put it up again but it’s nowhere near as stable and another storm will have it down– but as Brett says it’s only got to last for this summer.

On a positive note, I didn’t have to water tonight; but the plants are probably destroyed anyway.

Update on Kindle: We took out the battery and Brett charged it on his Kindle; so it looks like my charger is broken (a bit like the camper van). The only problem now, and I shouldn’t complain because I can now use my Kindle, is that it’s lost all my collections and all my books are displayed individually (not in any order, not even alphabetical).

Gary came around; poor old Betty had to have an operation today, she had blow fly strike (like sheep in Wales get). He had left her at his place, but after he’d been here half an hour she came trotting up the path wearing a ‘lampshade’, bless her. 

27th July FONTE DOS CLERIGOS

I was woken at 6ish by a dog barking; I couldn’t ignore it and go back to sleep (I tried!) as I was worried it might be Betty. I got dressed and went out to investigate; the barking had stopped (typical). I walked down to check on Gary anyway – it was all locked up, he sets out early to cycle long distances, to use the cooler part of the day.

On my way back I came across a very industrious ant colony; they had collected some crescent shaped seeds between 1”- 2” in length and were cooperating in taking them down their hole.

Antz!!

No wonder they're stealing my seeds if they can handle grass seeds this size!

I’ve been desperately trying to take a photo of some strange birds we keep seeing (so far I’ve got lots of photos of sky!); they’re not big, about blackbird size. They are around as individuals in the daytime; but at dawn and dusk they ‘fly’ in noisy flocks. Their flying pattern is distinct; they flap and glide. And their wings are triangular, so their bodies look diamond shaped ( a bit like bats, but with tails) with yellow undersides. They look like flying fish and I really want to identify them (Steph); I have ‘googled’ every combination of my descriptive words, but no luck. I need a book ‘Birds of the Iberian Peninsula’ - maybe there is one (I’ll add it to our list of things to buy when we return to Britain). Brett thinks they could be some type of foreign swift/martin/swallow type bird, from the shape of them but they act like starlings.

Our life at the quinta improved a million percent today!!! Last night Brett and Mark were discussing our lack of fridge and decided to explore the gas locker. They disconnected the built in regulator and this morning Brett connected our Portuguese hose (with regulator attached) and gas bottle – result: we now have a working fridge, cooker and even water heater if we want. We are very, very happy.

We took Glen to identify a plant I had discovered growing in our boundary ditch; he confirmed that it is cannabis – apparently lots of people grow it around here (it’s actually legal to have it in your possession in Portugal as long as it’s for your own use).

While they were down the ditch (Brett and Glen) they realised that the track through the ditch, which we had always assumed was made by wild boar, was manmade (they found sawn and cut branches) and carried on the other side of the ditch through a disused quinta. We thought that perhaps it was a route that the hunters used (unless you apply for an exclusion notice and display it, hunters can come onto your land to hunt – they shoot all the birds and boar). So this morning we went to explore; we were quite relieved when we found sheep dropping. We now think that it was the way onto our quinta that Luis, the shepherd, used when he brought the flock in to graze – so nothing sinister.

Brett dug the footings for our little sitting room, and I planted some herbs – I’m cheating I’m using the pots of culinary herbs from the supermarket.

The fridge has made a HUGE difference to our lives at the quinta we now have cold drinks and glasses.

26th July FONTE DOS CLERIGOS

I didn’t have to water the garden this morning; it rained in the night, in fact we had a thunderstorm. It was all over very quickly; but there was a marked reduction in the temperature today.

The man came to take our water sample; he took one look at our well, full of pond weed and frogs, and shook his head saying it wasn’t drinkable. We think this merely means it doesn’t conform to today’s criteria for drinking water; not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with it. He said we would need to cover the well, pump the water up to a holding tank and treat it with Chlorine – exactly what we don’t want to do. He said we could still use it for cooking and washing; and that was before it was tested. So at this point we thought there was no point in having it tested; but he seemed to think we still should, so we pick the results up on Monday. He also said we shouldn’t drink the water from the village Fontes – everyone drinks the Fonte water, but they probably don’t conform to modern standards either!

We went to Idanha Nova to buy some food for this evening; the Boom Festival starts this weekend, we saw masses of vehicles on their way there (lots of old, painted buses etc). When we got to the supermarket (which is only a little village one) it had security men on the doors and was teeming with hippies.

I spent the afternoon preparing food; I made hummus, as I had no food processor I had to mash the chick peas with a potato masher and fork (so it was rather rustic) and as I couldn’t buy Tahini I used sieved peanut butter – it was ok considering. I made ‘Crepes Suzette’ for pudding; actually I made pancakes which I folded into 6ths (to look pretty) and an orange (from our tree) and butter sauce (no orange liqueur); they were rather tasty if I do say so myself. All the prepping takes so much longer when you haven’t got any space to work in – it was too windy to cook outside (the pancakes).

Mark and Glen arrived at 5.00p.m.; Gary arrived at 7.00p.m. We had a lovely barbeque – Gary even ate some hummus, tortilla chips and a glass of wine, and I fed Betty so now she likes me! Gary and Betty went home and 5 minutes later Betty was back – she stayed for about an hour and then went off.

We had another thunderstorm this evening, so I didn’t bother to water again; I have to admit it didn’t rain much, I used it as an excuse as I’m rather bored with this watering lark – I’d be more into it if I had lovely lush plants growing but apart from a few French beans nothing is growing well, I’m convinced (hope) it’s because I’m trying to do it too late in the season and next year I’ll have a spectacular garden – lots of people around here have.

25th July FONTE DOS CLERIGOS

We went into Castelo Branco this morning; we took some marrows I found growing on the courgette plants and left them at the Fonte again; I don’t know how I missed them I pick courgettes daily (that’s why I like to grow yellow courgettes they’re easier to see, and taste good too).

We stopped at the water analysis laboratory and organised our well water testing; Brett conducted the conversation in Portuguese, with a smattering of English thrown in by the staff at the lab – I think the man was using a translation programme on his computer. Anyway he’s going to come out to the farm to collect samples tomorrow and it’ll cost us less than 50€ (they didn’t seem to care how far away we lived they just charge for the tests).

We couldn’t find ant powder; we did find a ‘natural’ ant barrier at 17€ for a small bottle – that would make growing vegetables far too expensive. I’ve emailed the expats who grows vegetables; hopefully we’ll get some useful advice from them.

I spent the afternoon cutting up bottles and making windmills to use as bird scarers. It’s funny you just swop pests when you move country; in Wales we battled the slugs and earwigs, in Portugal its ants and magpies (and whatever is nibbling my seedlings).

Our pool is turning green (with algae); we bought one without a filter (it was the largest pool that was sold without a filter) we wouldn’t have been able to use one anyway as we have no electricity yet. Now we’re going to have to empty it out and refill it (we’ll use the water to irrigate vegetables and trees, it won’t be wasted). How is the water in children’s paddling pools kept clean and clear? Surely chlorine isn’t added to them and I’m sure they’re not emptied and refilled every other day. Or do they go green and slimy over time?

Mark and Glen texted us to say they’re coming to visit on Thursday evening; we’ll have a barbeque, our first visitors!

Rain is forecast for the next couple of days – how exciting is that!!!! We last had rain on the 9^th May.

24th July FONTE DOS CLERIGOS

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Claire!!! XXX

So while I did all our washing (by hand) Brett got back to digging his trench. It wasn’t as hot today, only 33°!! The washing was dry after being on the line for a couple of hours.

I weeded some of the vegetable beds and re-sowed parsley and coriander; I had zero germination from both of these the first time round and this evening, when I was doing my watering, I found out why ................... there were two a colonies of ants (one on the parsley bed and one on the coriander) with two columns of ants each leading to and from the seed beds (to their nest); each ant leaving the seed bed was carrying a seed (even coriander seeds, which were far bigger than the ants) and taking it down a hole in the ground, there were hundreds of the buggers and they kept going until all the seeds were gone!!!! I’ve never had that problem before and apart from ant powder (which I’ve never used) I have no idea what to do about them.

Now I’ve got to catch whatever’s chewing the seedlings; I can’t think that it’s ants as I would see them on the plants. And it isn’t rabbits (or wild boar) as there are no foot prints or droppings, and anyway the chewing is too small; so we’re wondering if it’s a night-time moth/beetle/caterpillar (I’ve spent ages looking in the daytime to no avail), if we were in Wales I would definitely blame slugs (it’s the right kind of damage) but I haven’t seen one here.

Brett spent a couple of hours helping Gary with his building work; he was supposed to be supervising Gary doing it but ended up doing most of the work himself. 

23rd July FONTE DOS CLERIGOS

The beans and cucumbers survived the night! After watering we weeded the carrots, there are quite a few through now so we’re feeling a little more optimistic today.

We went into Fundao to shop; on the way we passed several separate acres of burnt woodland and this afternoon we saw another fire on the horizon. The Bombeiros (volunteer firemen) are very good at putting them out (thank goodness). The weekly outdoor market was taking place (we’ve never been in Fundao at the right time before); it was a big market selling horrible clothes and shoes, poultry, vegetable seedlings (I was tempted!) and fruit trees, some interesting handcrafted wooden trays and troughs, barbeques and stills – it’s legal here to make spirits at home!

We went to Lidls and realised it is actually more expensive than the Portuguese supermarkets; so we’ll only go there for a few items now like tea and yoghurt.

On our way back we stopped at one of the village Fontes and filled six 5L bottles with drinking water; Mark has found out where we can get our well water tested locally, but until we’re 100% sure it’s safe we’ll drink this.

It was very hot when we got back to the quinta; so we went in our pool, it’s getting quite warm now; it still manages to cool us down though.

 Brett has decided that he’s going to get back to his trench tomorrow and once that is finished we’ll clear out the studio ready for concreting the floor.

Gary came round .............. he made us laugh; re-telling the story of him crawling around Nick’s quinta, vomiting and being shouted at.

22nd July FONTE DOS CLERIGOS

I’m not happy about my seedlings; something is eating them. To date I have lost all the chicory, bar one, most of my calendula, one or two nasturtiums have ragged leaves, some of the French beans, and a few mangetout. Whatever is doing it is just nibbling at the leaves as they emerge, I think it could be ants; we have an awful lot here. What we don’t have is earthworms; we haven’t seen a single one even though we’ve done masses of digging, perhaps it’s too dry.

The pool was much warmer today, but it still did a good job of cooling us down. We’re a bit worried that it might develop a puncture, as it’s straight onto the bare soil (with stones in); so we’re thinking of getting some sand to put under it, we can level it at the same time.

We haven’t been doing nearly as much work as we were when we were travelling to the quinta from the campsite; but that’s mainly down to the heat, it’s warm by 9.00 in the morning and it doesn’t start to cool down until 8.00 in the evening.

Tonight I planted out the cucumber plants and French beans that I started in trays; hopefully if they are already established they’ll be able to survive whatever is eating the seedlings.

We’re eating our own peaches now – the bloody magpies decided they were ripe and started pecking at them! They’re a little bit harder than I would normally eat them, but they have a lovely sweet flavour.

We've had to prop the branches to stop them from snapping under the weight of all the fruit!

Tonight we went out with a torch, when it was really dark, to see if we could see what was munching on the seedlings, but nothing was obvious.

21st July FONTE DOS CLERIGOS

We started the morning (after watering of course) setting up our new irrigation system; it was all going quite smoothly until we had a telephone call. It was Nick, Gary’s ‘friend’; he said “Can I ask you a massive favour?” that’s always a worrying start to a conversation. He said that Gary was at his quinta with food poisoning, and as he couldn’t drive him home (because his dog had surgery yesterday) could we come and pick him up.

When we got there Gary was lying on the ground (he looked dead); Nick was very brusque “Come on Gary, it’s time to go”, he wasn’t being in the least bit sympathetic. As we were driving back Gary said that he hated Nick and he wasn’t his friend anymore.

He is terribly thin, he eats only fruit and a handful of fat hen a day and then cycles 80k every other day to collect food. Brett tried to talk to him about his diet; he has no protein, fat or calcium in his diet but he won’t listen to our advice.

Back home; the irrigation system is a disappointment, there is still not enough pressure for a spray at the end of a hose – when we come back we’re going to attach a sprinkler systems to the water pump, but meantime we have to make do.

We assembled the pool this afternoon; it didn’t take long to fill it with our super water pump. It’s on a bit of a slope; so we have a deep end and shallow end! We got in .................. it was freezing, after all this is the water we’re using to keep our drinks cold; it definitely lowered our core temperature, it will be much warmer tomorrow  (once the sun gets on it). It is good and will serve it’s purpose for this summer.

Hair washing (for me) is an experience; I use a bucket, with solar heated water (5L water bottles put out in the sun) for washing and conditioning; then the solar shower for rinsing – it works really well, and the water is plenty hot enough.

We checked on Gary; he had made a rapid recovery and says he’s going to cycle to Fundao tomorrow – so we can stop worrying about him!

Another beautiful sunset tonight.

20th July FONTE DOS CLERIGOS

We went into Castelo Branco to buy irrigation equipment (I’m fed up with watering with a leaking watering can!) and to pay the road tax on our truck (due next week, according to the cover note).

We bought 50m of 45mm hose (106€) this should get high pressure water to most of the vegetable garden; so we were on a high .................... then we went to the Mitsubishi showroom – it was shut down!!!! A new Mitsubishi office is in the Renault garage, but the guy we bought the truck from is on holiday.

We went to the finance office and tried to pay our road tax; the truck is still registered to Mitsubishi, but they said we had until the 28^th August to pay (they didn’t seem to think it was a problem that we didn’t have it registered in our names yet) and I hope we don’t get stopped by the police again as the cover note definitely says we have only 60 days to pay the tax and that is the end of next week (but the finance office said no we had 90 days – I hope they’re right).

We bought a pool; not a big one, only 3m diameter and 76cm high. But it will cool us down and we don’t need to worry about filters and pumps etc (and it was only 34€95 < £28) – it will do until we have electricity and then we can get a proper one.

Our cooling systems are working quite well; the clay pot system has solid butter in it, it was liquid before it went in and the drinks down the well are really quite cold.

We were going to set up our irrigation system and fill our pool, when we got home, but Gary (and Betty) came round – he wants company. Brett went back with him, to help him put a lintel in place.

There was a fabulous sunset tonight; all reds, oranges, and yellows on a turquoise sky – I tried to paint it.

Sunset, our view from 'Camp'

19th July FONTE DOS CLERIGOS

We set up camp; we moved the camper van to the other side of the tree, put up the two gazebo (which we are really impressed with, given the price) and put the olive net over, which wasn’t nearly as big as we had thought. But it’s given us a massive outside space; we’ve furnished it with cooker, tables and chairs, and loungers. We’ve put solar lights by the guy ropes and hurricane lanterns hanging inside gazebos – it looks like we’re on safari in Africa!

Camp!

My vegetables are crap! Nothing is growing well (apart from the beans and peas) I’m hoping it’s because it’s a bit late in the season and everything should be established by now; otherwise I want to come back to Wales!

It’s so HOT!!! Both of us are bad tempered and unhappy today and to top it all our Kindles have a message that we’ve used our 50mb for the month so we can’t access emails; which is wrong because we have two Kindles and they both came up with the message at the same time and as I use the internet much more than Brett it means we’re using the same 50mb, instead of 50mb each – that’s not fair is it?

Ha Ha; Gary came round and asked for help; he had some chicken for Betty and, what was left after her tea, he had put into a black plastic sack and put down his well (too keep cool). Somehow he had managed to drop it, so it was floating 5m down on the surface of his water. We had to go down to fish it out – we managed with a length of nylon rope and a hook (shaped out of re-bar).

18th July FONTE DOS CLERIGOS

Another warm night; I got up early to do my chores (watering) as today was going to be even hotter than yesterday. Yippee, I have nasturtiums coming through.

Today’s task was getting some shade and making our living quarters more comfortable so we went into Castelo Branco and bought a couple of gazebos; just cheap ones 19€99, but they’re 3m square so they should add quite a bit of living space and give some shade to the front of the van. Mr Luis left some olive nets (you put them under the trees when you’re collecting the olives) which are HUGE about 50’ square; we’re going to drape one over the camper and both gazebos to act as a mosquito net and hopefully it will provide some shade too.

Our campsite st the moment

We bought the components for our temporary compost toilet; a solid plastic step and a bucket with a lid. On our way back home we stopped at the campsite to visit Mark & Glen and borrowed Mark‘s jigsaw to cut a round hole in the top of the step. The step becomes the toilet with the bucket under the hole; it works very well, every time you go to the toilet everything is covered with a layer of wet organic matter, at the moment we’re using wet straw (as Mr Luis left a load and we need to get rid of it) in the future we’ll probably use sawdust; it shouldn’t smell, when we visited Leo and Erica they were using a similar construction (not the step, that was Brett’s idea) and there was no odour from there’s. 

While we were with Mark and Glen I charged my mobile; that was something we hadn’t considered when we moved to the farm, I can only recharge my mobiles from mains electricity, all the other gadgets (laptop, Kindles, Ipod etc) can be plugged into the 12v sockets when we travel in the truck, or when we run the camper (to charge the battery so we can use the water pump and lights), which we do for 20 minutes a day, we’ll have to do this until we get a generator.

Mark gave us some sand so we assembled our clay pot ‘fridge’; meantime Brett bought 10m of nylon rope which he threaded through an animal feed sack which is now hanging down the bottom of the well  (7m deep) with bottles of beer in it – I think the well cooler will work best but you can’t keep butter in it (and our butter is liquid so it needs to go somewhere cool).

Walk before bed to check on Gary

Gary says that everywhere is quiet now as the Portuguese travel to the coast during July and August (school holidays) for their summer vacations. The weather is supposed to get cooler over the next couple of days it’s going down to 33°C, that should make it more comfortable.

View of sunset from camp

17th July FONTE DOS CLERIGOS

I slept a little better last night, although it was very hot for the first part of the night - 41° in the van, and of course now we don’t have the luxury of a fan.

We decided yesterday that our first job this morning was moving the camper; when we parked it up on Sunday it was in the shade but by the afternoon and throughout the evening it was in direct sunlight. So it’s now parked the other side of the same tree which means it will get the sun first thing and should be in shade by afternoon/evening and hopefully this means it will be cooler by the time we go to bed.

Our cool box and frozen food idea didn’t work; everything was thawed by this morning! All our drinks are warm and even the ‘cold’ water in the van comes out of the tap warm – the water in my hose pipe yesterday afternoon was actually steaming. We haven’t tried our cooling system with the clay pots and sand as we haven’t got any sand yet.

By the time the van was set up in it’s new position it was incredibly hot – far too hot to do any more physical work; so we lay on the loungers and read ............................... again!

It was hotter today than yesterday, but by bedtime the van was only 35° so moving it seems to have helped.

16th July FONTE DOS CLERIGOS

Ha Ha, bloody cicadas kept me awake most of the night! No bird noises (or barking dogs) though, so it must have been the lights at the campsite that made the birds sing all night.

I had finished my watering by 8.00 a.m. The second lot of radishes are coming through, and some carrots and flat beans; so I’m a little reassured that I’ll be able to grow vegetables now.

Our first job was an absolute stinker; cleaning out the big shed with the concrete floor (which will become our bedroom, bathroom and larder). On Friday I had cleared the beams of 30 years of cobwebs, which were black as they used to have a fire in the corner of the room which must have filled the whole space with smoke. I used an old broom and a stick – it was a bit like making candyfloss at the funfair (the technique not the end product). Brett brushed down the walls and then we both swept the floor (wearing masks!) we brushed up a whole wheelbarrow load of dust and grime. It was a filthy job but the shed looks far more salubrious now. We want to render the walls and put 4”-6” of concrete on the floor (to level it off and make a sound base for tiling) before we leave; then when we come back (after selling the camper) we’ll live in there while we make the house habitable.

Then Brett carried on digging his trench; while I replanted all the vegetable seeds that hadn’t germinated, this time putting them in seed trays and covering with polythene bags to retain the moisture – I hope this works.

Gary turned up carrying two buckets; he was on his way to the builder’s merchant to get some sand.  He invited us to the cafe for a house warming drink (he wanted to go at 12.15; we suggested 4.00 so we could get some work done first).

By afternoon it was very hot so we relaxed on our loungers and read until it was time to get ready to meet Gary; Brett had a solar shower (it works quite well), I had a wash out of the bucket as the water in the shower was too hot! We had a pleasant drink in the cafe. 

Our nearest supermarket is 20 minutes away; which is about the same distance we had to travel in Wales, unfortunately there isn’t a Siop Laria close by to here, in fact we’ve yet to find a food shop of any type in the village. We bought food for three days; two lots of frozen food in the hope that it would stay frozen in the cool box over night (and perhaps cool our drinks at the same time).

After dinner we went for a walk; Gary had said the quinta at the bottom of our vegetable garden was up for sale (so we were being nosy). This quinta (and Gary’s) is not accessed from our track; we had to walk back towards the village for about a mile and then turn off. It was a lovely walk though we never did find the farm for sale as there is a maze of tracks and paths leading to small plots of land and quintas; we were just walking randomly making up the route as we went. After walking for another mile or so it was starting to get quite dark and our way back was the way we’d come, we’d been walking for over a hour (the track doesn’t intersect our track); so we looked for Gary’s quinta (which fortunately we found) and took a short cut home. Next time we go for a walk we won’t leave so late.

15th July FONTE DOS CLERIGOS

After all the deliberating and worrying we drove down the track pretty easily. I drove the camper van as far as the village, while Brett drove the truck (from the campsite); then we parked the camper and drove to the quinta (in the truck), parked up the truck and walked back to the camper – it was hot. Brett drove while I walked in front of the camper, walking backwards, and guiding him through any tight spots (I rode between bottle necks, I’m not stupid). The bit between the building and the stone wall, by Luis’s olive grove was easy; we didn’t need to go through his land. The only tight spot was on the track nearest out land and we managed that without any mishaps.

We’re a bit worried that we can’t find continual shade for the camper; you’d think with all this land and 300 odd trees there would be the right combination, but the olive trees aren’t high enough and the cork oaks tend to be planted in isolation, so there’s shade for part of the day but as the sun moves it goes. We might have to buy a tarpaulin to put over the top of the van, because it gets very hot in there when the sun’s been on it for a while; we can afford to spend a bit of money on getting comfortable (we’re not going to buy anything that won’t be useful later) as we’re saving on campsite fees, 70€ a week and diesel, 80€ every ten days.

At the moment we still have a charged battery in the camper (the drive from the campsite charged it), so we were able to (sparingly) use the lights in the van once it got dark, around 10 p.m. We have 360° views of mountains, villages and olive groves; it’s easier to see habitation at night as the lights are on. And as there is hardly any light pollution the stars are very visible – there was no moon tonight.

The noise of the cicadas and crickets was incredible; there was no traffic noise at all.

14th July CASTELO BRANCO

We didn’t go to the quinta today as we needed to do chores and buy some things in preparation for moving to our new home. We spent the morning doing our washing, including bedding and towels – it takes a long time when it’s done by hand, especially the wringing out – I wish we had an old fashioned mangle.

We managed to buy some oil lamps, and a couple of solar lights (the ones you stick in the garden); I’m getting a little bit worried about how dark it’s going to be out at the farm at night, we’re about a mile out of the village and 500 metres from the nearest house with electricity – proper wild camping.

We bought two large clay pots for the ‘fridge’; we might have to resort to buying a gas fridge if this doesn’t work (if we can find one).

We saw a lovely big gazebo, with mosquito nets, which we might buy for our outside kitchen and we’re still looking at pools – the snake has rather put us off the ‘plunge pool’!

Half the shops we wanted to go to were closed, because it was Saturday; we still haven’t got used to shopping times in Portugal, some shops shut for lunch/siesta (a couple of hours) while some are open every day 10a.m. – 8p.m. I don’t think there can be restricted Sunday opening here.

We went into the town centre at 1.30ish, it was completely dead, a few shops (mainly Chinese) were open but there were no customers walking the streets and there were masses of car parking spaces – not like Swansea on a Saturday lunchtime! Castelo Branco is the capital city for this region.

We had a barbeque for the third evening running; tonight we had chargrilled squid, drizzled with olive oil and finely chopped garlic, served with a mixed green salad, for pudding we had chocolate with bits of dime bar crumble in it, straight out of the freezer.

And tomorrow we move!

13th July CASTELO BRANCO

Same old, same old – me watering, Brett digging his trench.

There’s basil through and two leeks ....................... I’m so frustrated; I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I was good at growing in Wales but here I can’t get the seeds to germinate.

The snake was back in the tank today; we think (us and Steph) that it’s a Viperine water snake – it’s not venomous.

Brett wanted to get a bow saw out of one of the sheds, he said he was going to be careful as he had been strung on two separate occasions going into this particular shed; so he goes in really carefully, gets the bow saw and says “Yes, there it is” and pokes this little wasp nest, attached to the door, with the bow saw ............. so what do the wasps do? They attack him, naturally! He got stung twice, it was fortunate it was only a small nest.

After lunch I drove along the track while Brett looked for overhanging branches, which he sawed off in preparation for bringing the camper van on Sunday. We met Joao and Ilda walking along the track, we think they were coming to see us; they seemed very pleased when we said we were bringing the van on Sunday – I hope they realised that it’s going to our quinta, not theirs!

We went all around Castelo Branco looking for a gas supplier who would refill out British gas bottles (so we could use the fridge in the van when the camper is at the farm) but we couldn’t find one. We even put a post on the expat forum, which somebody replied to saying we could fill them ourselves at the motorway service stations – I don’t think we can. So it looks like I’m going to have to make my water cooling device with the two clay pots.

Steph sent me this article on seeds not germinating, I might be putting them in too deep (I’m sure I’m sowing them the same depth as I did in Wales) but I try sowing more shallow and see if that gets better results.

12th July CASTELO BRANCO

Back to early mornings .............. we checked on Gary about 8.15 – he looked fine, we could see him doing some block work on his shed.

Brett continued with his trench; Nick told us that in the summer we could expect rainstorms (flash floods) with a rainfall of 5” in a couple of hours – so Brett’s digging a ditch in front of the ‘living room’ doors (as we’ve dug the floor down it could get flooded). And I watered! Some more French beans were through, and mangetout and the basil is starting to come through – BUT STILL NO RADISHES!

I heard Brett say “Bom Dia”, so went to have a look; there was a man walking up through the olive grove (he wasn’t coming down the track). He was a neighbour (Luis), who lives in the village, and owns one of the quintas along our access track. He asked us why we weren’t sleeping at the quinta, we said because the access route was too narrow for the camper van (this is all in Portuguese and sign language, with some French thrown in for good measure). He then said “come with me” (i.e. beckoning and walking off down the track); on the way he was asking if we could get the camper van through various narrowish bits, “Si” this is fine, we replied. Then we got to the narrow bit that we don’t think we can navigate; stone building one side, stone wall the other. He owned the land with the building on it and showed us a route through his olive trees (either side of the narrow part of the track) and said we were welcome to drive this way to get to our quinta – how kind is that? And if we got stuck he has a tractor so could pull us out. All our neighbours are trying to make it as easy as possible for us to live here.

He did say something a bit odd; he said Brett and I were good (man and wife), but Gary wasn’t good (no wife). We came to Portugal because it’s a bit like living in the 50’s i.e. old fashioned values, not too modern; unfortunately they are still rather prejudiced, like they were in the 50’s, too and we think a lot of the problems that Gary is having is because he is gay (and a bit alternative).

We relax on loungers, in the vegetable garden, under an olive tree

We had another snake swimming in the tank today.

About 15" long, no idea what it is (Steph/Will)

The main thing is we have decided to try to move to the quinta on Sunday (we’re paid up at the campsite until Saturday night). So today we bought a solar shower; water heats up really well in hose pipes (you can’t put your hand under it it’s so hot) and in watering cans and buckets in the sun. We’re worried about not having the fridge; it can run on gas, so we’re going to see if someone can refill our British gas bottles. Otherwise I’ve seen this method of keeping food cold using two clay pots (one larger than the other) with wet sand between and a wet cloth over the top, water evaporation cools down the area in the smaller pot; or we can hang bottles in the well, the water is pretty cold in there. We’ll be camping with none of the facilities we’ve got used to on the campsite; we might have to buy a generator at a later date, but we’ll try to do without at first. We thought we had found little oil lamps in one of the shops, which would have been really useful, but they were fake and took batteries! It’s going to be very dark out there at night without any lights.

11th July CASTELO BRANCO

Day off!! They seem to come around so often; it’s because I’m making Brett get up early (6.00 on our ‘work days’), he’s not a natural early riser, so now he looks forward to his lie ins.

All my shoes are wearing out; so today’s task was buying a couple of pairs of replacements. Ha Ha Ha, I bought two pairs of men’s shoes! Not because my feet are big and manly; but because all the women’s shoes are either VERY high heeled or have that very flat hard leather sole of fashionable sandals (which make me slip and aren’t very comfortable). So I bought some men’s Hitec walking sandals and a pair of men’s flip flops which are a dead ringer for my Birkenstock shoes (which my sister Sarah gave me two years ago, not new then, so they are very long lasting) even down to the pattern on the sole – except the Birkenstock are pretty pink and the men’s ones are dull brown (and of course the ‘button’ isn’t engraved Birkenstock)!! But this means my tan line stays the same.

We cooked outside this evening (barbeque) and ended up with Mark and Glen eating some of our food, while they waited for their food to cook.  As they have no electricity they’ve put their oven on top of our electricity outlet – tonight they were cooking these pizzas from Jumbo (1€), each came with a sachet of liquid cheese ................. what on earth is liquid cheese? It looked, and tasted, disgusting. But we had an enjoyable evening.

10th July CASTELO BRANCO

We negotiated the, even narrower than our track, track (as the market was on) and were checking on Gary by 8.15, we could see him working on his shed so we went down to see him (we thought we’d better as we hadn’t spoken to him for a couple of days). We left Gary to get on with his shed renovations; 10 minutes later he turned up at our place with blood dripping down his face – he’d managed to hit himself on the head with some falling concrete, fortunately it wasn’t too bad – heads bleed quite freely.

We went down to the market; it was almost identical to last month but without the wickerman; Mr Luis was there and invited us for coffee at the cafe. Initially we were told there was no electricity so we’d have to have cold drinks; Mr Luis ordered a brandy (this is 9.30 in the morning!), then we were told the electricity was back on, so I had coffee and Brett has a soft drink – the three drinks came to 2€30, that’s about £1.84. 

Brett carried on with his trench and I watered and watered and watered; my latest theory is that I’m not getting the water to the seeds (it’s staying on the surface and evaporating) so that’s why they haven’t germinated. The spring onions are starting to come through (11 days to germinate), but still no radish!

We had just finished lunch when a man turned up; it was the Nick that had befriended Gary a few weeks ago when he had all his break-ins. He’s been living in Portugal for eighteen months and is quite knowledgeable on the cheapest places to source material – so he should be a useful acquaintance. He stayed talking for over two hours – so we didn’t have an especially fruitful day.

Our leisure batteries don’t appear to be charging; it looks as if the faulty substation has blown our van battery charger (like it blew our two plugs, Mark’s extension cable and his charger, by the looks of it) which is a real pain, and there’s no way the campsite will accept liability (that’s if we could even explain it to them); so yet another job for us before we can sell the camper – to date we have to fix: windscreen washers, exhaust, shower tray and charger (hopefully some of it will be covered by warranty or insurance).

We’ve had three early mornings so tomorrow is a day off. Yippee a lie in!!!!!

9th July CASTELO BRANCO

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Rebecca!

Another early start and we were at the quinta for 8.00. We checked on Gary .................. we’d feel bad if we stopped checking and something else happened to him.

There was still no sign of the radishes so I had a dig around and I think I found some radish seeds sprouting; I’ll just have to carry on waiting, it’s been nine days they’re supposed to germinate in 3 – 4 days. A few more mangetout and French beans have come through; but I have to say I thought everything would be quicker here, in the heat (stuff always came through faster in the polytunnel than outside in Wales).

Peasant woman working in her garden!

We spent another day working on the vegetable garden and then rewarded ourselves with a dip in the ‘plunge pool’ It’d gone a bit slippery on the bottom; when we first got in we could see through the water, when we got out it was murky (with green bits floating in it) as we had disturbed all the slimy stuff growing on the floor. So now we’re seriously thinking about getting a proper swimming pool, but they need a pump and filter system running for a minimum of eight hours a day, and as we don’t have electricity that is a BIG problem; I looked at solar pumps, the cheapest I could find was £700!!!!! That wasn’t with a swimming pool.

The electricity hadn’t been fixed, when we got back to the campsite, but only half the site was affected so we had to move to another pitch; which is a shame as we had found somewhere which seemed to be in the shade for most of the day – overheating is a problem here (I’m bragging again!).

Tomorrow is the 2^nd Tuesday in the month i.e. market day; Brett is quite confident to drive the narrow track we used last time to get to the quinta.

8th July CASTELO BRANCO

We were ‘up with the lark’ and at the quinta for 8.00. First thing we checked on Gary I don't know how long are we going to have to do this for; he was grouting his tiles, he's nearly finished his floor.

As we drove back to the house a rabbit ran (hopped) across the track; we were so excited to see it, there’s so much wild life here, interesting stuff we didn’t get in Wales – wild boars (we haven’t actually seen them, but we’ve seen their tracks), rabbits, grouse (we saw her again today, she was making a racket), golden orioles, azure winged magpies (not our favourite bird!), snakes!, lizards, slow worms, frogs, storks, eagles (we’ve seen a few unidentified birds of prey circling on the thermals), swallowtail butterflies not to mention the big (3”- 4”) lime green, with blue spots, caterpillar which I have ‘googled’ and not been able to identify (Steph/Will?).

Brett strimmered the Fat Hen and grass that was covering the unused vegetable beds – it looks much neater now; then he cleared the track, to the quinta, of foliage; it was encroaching so much, the track looks much more navigable now.

I spent the morning making bird scarers – windmills, it was quite windy today and they were working well; and I spent hours watering ........................ it takes so long! We have French beans, mangetout, scarole and cucumbers all through – where are the radishes? I’m sure they should have been the first thing up. Then I sowed more seeds – nasturtiums, calendula, basil, sage, rosemary and flat podded beans (they don’t seem to grow runner beans here).

When we got back to the campsite Mark told us that their electricity wasn’t working; Brett plugged in his ipod to charge, it seemed to work ok then the plug went “phutt” and smelt funny and grew hot. We managed to destroy two charging plugs (for kindles and ipod) and Mark has a melted extension cable and dead electric kettle; we’re worried that our fridge and water heater might have been affected too (we can’t check until we have electricity!). On investigation, with the campsite staff, it was discovered that the main substation, that supplies electricity to the campsite, has had a problem – half the connections are melted and distorted and as it was Sunday nothing could be done about it until at least Monday. So we had no electricity which meant no refrigerator = no cold drinks.

7th July CASTELO BRANCO

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Lesley!

We had a day off; we’ve got up early three days in a row so this morning we had a bit of a lie in.

We bought a barbeque (just a little cheap one); our plan was to have a relaxing day at the campsite, sitting outside reading our kindles, snoozing in the sunshine etc. And then in the evening try to recreate the meal we had on Armona – griddled squid with tomato salad (we couldn’t do the chips).

Huh!!! When we got back to the campsite it was full of little people (children) in brown and yellow outfits having a playscheme and camping in tents (very close to us) – they were quite noisy (they were enjoying themselves). But not nearly as noisy as the boys at the top of the campsite who played their music very loud all day; you couldn’t actually hear the music itself just the base going boom, boom, boom, on and on and on – it was not relaxing at all.

So we stayed in the van and watched this documentary Nick had given us (both he and Glen had been going on about how good it was) called “Water” . Well ...................... I now know that water has memory and can change it’s crystalline structure from really beautiful shapes, like snowflakes (if you’ve said nice things to it) to terrible deformed shapes (if you’ve said nasty things/ignored it). One ‘scientist’ did this experiment where he put rice and water in three separate beakers; beaker one he said “thank you” to, beaker two he said “I hate you” to and beaker three he ignored – after three weeks the rice in beaker one had fermented and was sweet tasting and fragrant, in beaker two it had gone black and in beaker three it had gone mouldy. Another experiment was a ‘doctor’ taking a blob of blood from a woman’s finger; she looked at it under a microscope, her blood was ‘sticky’ the ‘doctor’ could tell that she had problems with her heart and other organs ............. she gave her a drink of water (about ½ a glass), waited 15 minutes and then took more blood – she was healthy this time – how did that work?  When Brett looked it up on the internet it turns out that the bloke who made the film actually sells bottled water ‘with intent’ (H₂Om) – it’s been given positive vibes, and the label has love & gratitude written on it! What a load of crap!

6th July CASTELO BRANCO

We were there for 8.00 again; we didn’t meet the sheep this morning. 

Brett dug over another bed and strimmered (or as he called strummed) a path about 1/6 of the way around our boundary; it took him about three hours – it’s a long way round (I feel like I’m bragging, oh yes I am!). It makes walking around so much easier; it’ll be great when it goes all the way around the farm.

I watered, it’s taking me longer and longer each day; it will be fine once we get a proper irrigation system installed (2” pipe rather than ¾” hose). Then I tackled Mr Luis’s onion bed; he left it full of weeds (which have grown worse in five weeks), at first we thought he was coming back for his vegetables, but it seems that now he’s taken the potatoes the rest is ours. The onions look much better; you can actually see them now.

Path through vegetable garden to house

We dug up a couple of French beans (just to see if they were germinating!) one was, one wasn’t; so I’ve planted some in a tray as well, that’s how I would have done it normally. We were going to dig up a couple of mangetout but we could see two sprouting out of the ground, so we left them alone! I’m surprised that the radishes haven’t come through yet, but there are more scarole up today.

We went to the agricultural shop (the one that sells chicks and rabbits) when we got back to Castelo Branco and bought more seeds; I need to get herbs established asap; today we bought sage and rosemary, and I wanted something attractive (but edible) so I bought nasturtiums and calendula (marigolds), we also bought rocket and pointy cabbage. I can’t find borage which is a shame as it’s my favourite herb (it’s such a pretty blue), in fact the seeds we can get are fairly limited – no internet shopping here; we have a long list of things to buy when we’re back in the UK.

5th July CASTELO BRANCO

Ewes on their way to be milked - this is a main road!

We were at the quinta for 8.00 again; Mark followed us in his lorry, he managed to squeeze all the way down our track into the farm. I watered the vegetable garden, nothing had come up overnight; Brett and Mark went to check on Gary’s sofa (which is still outside).

The sofa was fine! But he had left Betty out; after her disappearing for twelve days, he has left her wandering around outside again.

Mark took masses of measurements of all our buildings for the house; he’s going to draw them all to scale (on his computer) and then calculate load bearings/stress something (I don’t know), basically how thick and how many beams we need for our roofs and whether we need to build pillars either end, as I don’t want a support in the middle of the room.

We then did a bit of material sourcing, the three of us travelling in the Ute; first we went to the builder’s merchant, in our village; he seems to have, or can get, most things we’ll be needing and he’ll deliver (and he was very friendly).  Then we went into Fundao to check out a timber merchant we’d been told about and had lunch sitting outside at one of the cafes.

The timber merchant looks quite promising, we haven’t found wood flooring, plywood etc in Castelo Branco but they had everything (at a price, wood is much more expensive here than in Britain); they are also carpenters and they make a rather nice range of kitchen chairs.

By the time we got back to the quinta (we had to return for Mark’s lorry) it was 4.30 p.m.; I checked on my vegetables and my Scarole (chicory) is coming through, I’m so excited. Before we left we checked on Gary’s sofa (it was fine) and Betty, she was still around (thank goodness).

4th July CASTELO BRANCO

We got to the quinta before 8.00!! And it wasn’t too hot at that early hour. We checked on Gary; he’s tiling his bedroom floor; he’s moved all his furniture outside and is going to sleep in his other shed tonight.

None of my seeds have come through yet; it has only been four days since I sowed the first ones, so I suppose I have to be patient – I have been known to dig up beans and peas at this stage to see if they are sprouting (it doesn’t seem to do them any harm and it makes me feel better).

Brett dug over another vegetable bed for me and I sowed some Florence fennel in it; the thyme, leeks and cucumbers I sowed into trays and pots (sorbet box, yoghurt pots etc ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ – I’m so green/tight!) and the oregano has been planted in a border, near the house, so that we can watch the butterflies on it.

Mr Luis came round; he’s still on about us having our land ploughed up (as a fire barrier) but the cost is 35€/hour (we think that’s foreigner’s rates) for 5 – 6 hours (175€ - 210€), that’s a lot of money. He said we shouldn’t have pruned the vines and pointed out all the shrivelled bunches of grapes which he said had been caused by the sunlight getting to them (there were quite a few – whoops!).

Brett continued digging his trench around the house; Gary came round, he’s run out of tiles so, he said, he’s going to mix some cement with pigment and putting that down instead of buying more tiles - I'm not sure it will work. I told him that Mr Luis had said we shouldn’t have pruned the grapes, and showed him some of the shrivelled bunches. 

Brett called out from his trench (I thought he had hurt himself); there was a snake in the trench with him, it was hissing and trying to strike him (he said it had wanted to escape but he kept pushing it back, with the rake, so I could see it, which had made it a bit scared and cross – understandably).

Please identify this snake for us (Steph!)

The pickaxe is for scale - it was BIG!

It was between 2’ – 3’ long, as Brett said, it was the biggest snake we’d ever seen in the wild; we let it make it’s way back along the trench and then it disappeared into a small hole goinginto the foundations under our house!! Bloody hell, we’ve got a snake living in our house now. We don’t know what it is (we don’t think it’s an adder as it hasn’t got the diamond pattern down it’s spine); so if you could ‘google’ it, please, Steph .....!!!

We picked a carrier bagful of plums today (some we’re already on the floor courtesy of the sodding birds), which I’m going to cook up (unfortunately they’re not quite ripe enough to eat raw) and have with yoghurt for breakfast (probably for the next two weeks, as there is an awful lot of them).

When we got back to the campsite Glen came round with some mulberries; they’ve got an absolutely massive mulberry tree in their olive grove – they’ve said to help ourselves.

Mark (the engineer) is coming to our quinta tomorrow to advise us on our roof joists etc.; he hasn’t been there for five weeks so we’re hoping he’ll be impressed by our progress.

3rd July IDANHA NOVA barragem

We’ve worked for three days so today we took a day off; we’ll still be working six days out of every eight, which is more than five out of seven (but as not as much as six out of seven, which we were doing before).

We packed the Ute with chairs, blankets and Kindles, went into town and bought food for a picnic, and drove to our local barragem; it’s about eight miles from the quinta. There were no notices saying we couldn’t drive anywhere, so we followed this dirt track around the water and parked in a secluded spot under some trees. We passed a family picnicking, saw a couple of fishermen by the water’s edge and there was a couple on the water in a pedalo; apart from these people it was quiet (I should imagine it gets busier at weekends). Slightly away from the water, up an incline and under a large tree, was a tent with the front open; inside it was a full size double bed, it was made up with bed linen and pillows - somebody obviously likes their home comforts!

We read, we ate, we dozed, I paddled – it was all very relaxing. I do enjoy our days off.

Paddling in the barragem

At the end of July there’s a music festival (Boom Festival) at the barragem; I thinks it’s a bit like Glastonbury. Unfortunately they don’t do day tickets, they only sell week ones which cost, including the camping 180€ each (probably quite cheap but we can’t really afford it, time-wise or moneywise).

I bought some more seeds today; thyme, oregano, leeks, onions, cucumber and fennel – I hope something comes up soon! I’m a bit worried because I wasn’t there to water today, but these seeds are meant to be grown in this climate, so hopefully they should be ok.

It’s still hot and I’m going off warm food so tonight I made Gazpacho; I had to cut all the ingredients small by hand (I usually use a food processor) and grate the bread, to make breadcrumbs; I really enjoyed it AND I don’t have to make my lunch for tomorrow as I have some soup left over.

We’re still working in the heat of the day so tomorrow we’re going to try to get up earlier; it’s getting light by five – I don’t think we’ll be quite that early!

2nd July CASTELO BRANCO

After watering all my seeds (nothings started growing yet!) I didn’t have much to do (I was a bit bored actually), and Brett was still digging around the house; so I ended up wheeling mud and stones for him – 23 wheelbarrows all told, I’m shattered.

Brett's digging

There’s a quinta we pass every day with a fantastic vegetable garden; in a month we’ve seen it turn from ploughed land to an oasis, there’s a patch of sweetcorn that has literally taken four weeks (only four weeks!!) from sowing to flowering (the tassels are obvious but we can’t get near enough to see if the ears are forming yet but I bet they are) – this is our model for our garden next year.

The birds (azure winged magpies) are definitely eating our fruit; so we’ve got to do something about them or we won’t have any soft fruit for ourselves. We’re going to make some bird scarers (windmills) out of plastic bottles and stick them on the end of bamboo; we have our own bamboo growing on the quinta, it’s about 15’long  so it’ll stick right up out of the tops of the trees – let’s hope it works. Next year we’re going to feed their eggs to the pigs; which is far kinder than Mr Luis who waited for the eggs to hatch and then threw the nests on the floor for the heat and ants to kill the babies!

1st July CASTEL BRANCO

The dilemma of the strimmer has been solved; Lea and Vicky are going to buy the one we have at home, so this morning we were able to buy a new one with clear consciences. We really do need one now, especially to cut paths through the meadows; all the grass and other plants have gone to seed, walking through them is an absolute nightmare, the seeds worm their way into shoes and socks and are really uncomfortable– there’s one particular grass seed, about 2” long that seems to be barbed, I always seem to have a couple in the toes of my shoes and it’s nigh on impossible to remove them - we spend a lot of time with our shoes and socks off trying to get the seeds out.

I bought some more vegetable and herb seeds today – chives, parsley, coriander, carrots and lettuce; I spent the morning sowing seeds and watering. Brett spent the morning digging (still the access path around the house).

After lunch we put the strimmer together; the instructions were in English (translated from Japanese, why can’t they get someone who speaks English to write the instructions?). It works well; though it’s not as comfortable to use as the one at home, hopefully it’s just a matter of getting used to it.

30th June CASTELO BRANCO

I’ve picked courgettes every day for the last week, we have four plants and they’re very productive; we had two days away from the quinta and we had huge marrows 

"Courgettes"

Brett reckons if you videoed them for 24 hours you could practically see them growing. We’ve been eating ratatouille, fried courgettes, courgette fritters and still have loads of courgettes left so there’s no way we could eat the marrows too – but I couldn’t throw them away (we wouldn’t have this problem if we had pigs). So we left them on the wall of one of the fontes (public drinking water, some Portuguese don’t have water at their quinta and have to collect it from the local fonte), they were gone a few hours later.

Brett continued digging out a walkway at the back of the house,

This was dug out at about 2' deep

while I sowed vegetable seeds, it felt good to start our vegetable garden and the area is starting to look better too, we’re gradually getting rid of Mr Luis’s mess and contraptions; like his supports for vines – made from rotten wooden poles repaired with metal poles and baler twine. We’ve replaced them with wooden poles held together with nails.

We went out for a meal in the evening with Mark and Glen (same place we went before); I put makeup on for the first time in about three months, it felt strange. The meal was very cheap again, 10€ a head including beer and wine.