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.
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