11th August FONTE DOS CLERIGOS

I finished making the chutney this morning; it ended up quite runny as I didn’t have a preserving pan and it was catching on the bottom of the saucepan, so I stopped reducing it early – but it actually tastes quite good. 

This afternoon we were just about to go out when Joao and Ilda’s son, daughter in law and two grand children turned up; they live in Lincolnshire and speak English. We didn’t chat to them for long, which was a shame, as we already had arrangements to meet Pam, Mark and Nick in a cafe in Aguas, where Nick lives.  They have lived in the UK for ten years and said they wouldn’t want to move back to Portugal, but obviously miss the sunshine and family. It was great to talk to them; we told them how much we appreciated Joao and Ilda’s generosity, so that should get back to them, it’s hard for us to say it to them as our conversation is so limited.  

Nick (Gary’s ex-friend!) imports solar panels etc from China; so we were all meeting up to discuss what we need and how much it’s going to cost for our solar system (we have budgeted £8000 – £10000, it would cost that to get electricity installed anyway, it’s 1000€ per pole, poles are 100m apart and the nearest electricity to us is about 800m away). Nick is going to work out the exact price but it looks like we can have 12 panels for the house (which will give more than enough electricity to run everything we would ever need,) plus 4 for the gym/studio, along with appropriate number of batteries, charge controllers and invertors, for less than £5000. So we’re pretty chuffed. 

There were some other British people in the cafe; Joshua and Jamie, who have been living in Aguas for six months and Craig who lives on another farm near Nick. They have polytunnels and are into growing vegetables; they were very friendly and invited us to pop in anytime, they said not to buy any seeds as they had masses which they would share with us. It’s becoming a lovely little community here. 

We then went to see Pam and Mark’s quinta; they have 3 hectares, with 270 olive trees, several fruit trees and a large block building, which will become their house. It was lovely, but I prefer ours (which is just as well). The old owner and his daughter acted as our tour guides; just like Mr Luis they have vegetables growing there and are coming back to tend them, it’s a funny system where you can keep coming back even though you’ve sold up. 

Pam and Mark came back with us, for dinner; we were going to go to the village festival afterwards – we never made it, hopefully tomorrow!