18th May: LEAVING WALES
We have such lovely kind friends; they came to help us load
the removal vehicle with all our worldly possessions and they worked jolly hard
for about four hours - thank you all so much (and an extra special thank you to
Debbie for making us all lunch), hope to see you all in Portugal.
Then we waved 'goodbye' to our furniture. wondering if we
would ever see it again; we did everything that you're advised not to:
·
We booked an independent removal man; he took the first lot of our
furniture back in February, assuring us he had insurance but, as he had just
renewed it, he didn't have the documentation to prove it - so we just took his
word for it (as our furniture was already loaded onto his truck).
·
Second lot of furniture was just about to go and
he actually informed us he wasn't insured. And we still let him take our
furniture away!!!!!
·
While we were waiting for a friend to bring his
4x4 (to pull removal van and trailer up our drive ......... don't ask!) he
casually mentioned that he would be going on the internet that evening, to road
tax his van - apparently it had been SORNed for the last few months - so his
van wasn't even legal.
·
He was just a bloke with a van advertising on an
ex-pat website in Portugal.
The Barn scrubbed up pretty well; let's hope someone wants
to rent it out.
We spent the night at Rebecca's, in Clevedon; Rebecca wasn't
there - she was at Buckingham Palace.
19th May: FERRY - PLYMOUTH TO SANTANDER
To save money we booked reclining seats, on the ferry,
instead of a cabin (a saving of £65); of course we upgraded once I decided I
wouldn't get any sleep!!!
We had a really smooth crossing for a change and we both
slept well.
20th May: SANTANDER TO PEDROGAO DE SAO PEDRO
I really hadn't been looking forward to the drive from the
ferry to our village, but wasn't nearly as bad as I had expected and it took an
hour less than anticipated too, which was great.
We had to stop off at our quinta, before going to Pam and
Mark's; my goodness it's over grown, but so, so pretty, wild flowers
everywhere. My vegetable garden has completely disappeared with no sign of the
onion and garlic bed or all the herbs I planted; but the broad beans are
absolutely covered.
It was so nice to see Pam and Mark and Brett was completely
wrong - every time I converse with Pam on Facebook he says "you'll have nothing to talk
about when we get back", we just talked and talked.
They have done so much to their place while we've been away,
it looks fantastic, they have proper accommodation with painted walls, tiled
floors, solar electricity, hot running water, a shower, washing machine and
fridge (all mod cons) and the piece de resistance is their absolutely fabulous
area outside their kitchen, a huge wooden platform - we will be copying!!!
We ate out on their platform and sat outside chatting (until
the mosquitoes drove us inside, I'd forgotten about them!); it's great to be
back.
Pam and Mark have said that we can stay with them for as
long as we like, we really do have kind friends; so we can organise our place a
bit before we move onto our quinta.
21st May
Brett started to strimmer a path through our quinta to the
building where we'll be living and storing our furniture (about 250 metres from
the gate to building) in preparation for our furniture's arrival tomorrow
(fingers crossed!). I swept out the building, creating more dust than I swept out
as the floor is concrete (hopefully soon it will be tiled) and the broom just broke up the surface - I won't be
doing that too often then!
I have to say we're feeling a little bit overwhelmed, at the
moment, realising all the work we have ahead of us.
Back to Pam and Mark's early evening and I volunteered to
accompany Pam on a trip to the vet in Penamacour with Toobie, the farm dog they
inherited with their quinta.
The vet works with farm animals all day and has an evening
surgery around 8.00 p.m. we arrived
8.15ish - he arrived about 8.40, it's all very laid back here. Another English
couple arrived after us; they told us they have about 22 dogs (I lost count as
she was telling us the details) 8 or 9 were rescued from a ditch and they also
bred Rottweilers. They also have lots of cats with two litters of kittens, they
were trying to find homes for; no wonder the Portuguese think ex-pats are mad. Toobie had to have a blood test and as the
results would only take 20 minutes we waited in the waiting room while the English
couple went in - then the vet asked us to come in and help translate for him,
which shows how much our Portuguese has improved.
Poor old Toobie's results were positive; he's got a horrible
condition from being bitten by a mosquito (it's rife around here) he's got to
have an injection and tablet, twice a day, for a whole month (Pam and Mark will
administer them).
22nd May: FURNITURE ARRIVAL
Hoorah, our furniture arrived in the village on time (I
didn't doubt it would!) AND the van and trailer managed to get along our track
right to our quinta - this was one of our main reasons for hiring a private
removal man rather than a proper company with big removal lorries, and it was
one of our biggest worries - how would we get our furniture to the quinta if
the van couldn't fit down the track, but it did and we were greatly relieved.
With help from Pam and Mark unloading the furniture took
less than half the time it took to load. Then it was back to P & M's, for
me, to help with the food preparation for our 'welcome home' party; Brett
stayed to sort out our living accommodation.
A lovely party with
old friends and some new acquaintances; the platform was decorated with fairy
lights (posted to us, in Wales, and transported along with our furniture), we
drank our communal homemade wine (grapes from both our quintas) and ate pizzas
cooked in P & M's bread/pizza oven - yep, we're going to copy that too - it
was a brilliant evening.
23rd May: CASTELO BRANCO
Happy Birthday Mother.
XXX
Well we went into Castelo Branco and communicated in
Portuguese (well Bret did! We have been studying Portuguese daily whilst we've
been back in the UK and are keen to use what we've learnt.)).
In the first shop, an
electrical store, the man didn't speak any English at all and we came out with
exactly what we went in for.
Then we bought a 1000L water container on a pallet (to fill
from our well for our household use) - unfortunately the man did speak English
so we had a dual language conversation with Brett talking Portuguese and him
answering in English!!! It was all rather bizarre.
We are getting too comfortable at P & M's so have
decided we need to move onto our quinta tomorrow; how exciting/worrying/scary.
24th May: BUREACRACY
Today was one of those days that you dread but needs to be
done; we had to arrange insurance for our truck (we've had it a year), then pay
the road tax (really not looking forward to that after last year's experience),
arrange for its first service and put money on our Portuguese mobile (which for
some reason wasn't working) - and all this had to be conducted in Portuguese as
these bureaucrats make a point of never speaking in English (they are real
'jobs worths').
It started badly, in the insurance office, where we got the
woman who thinks that you simply shout loudly at foreigners and they will
understand you better - fortunately the man in her office decided to take over,
and we completed the transaction in just over one and a half hours!!!! Everything
takes so long here.
Next stop was the Fiscal Office (Tax Office) which, apart
from a ten minute wait, went surprisingly smoothly - so our truck is now legal
for another year.
Went to book a service with Mitsubishi and were told to come
back after lunch and they would service it there and then; wow, the day was
going well ......... famous last words!!!
We left the truck at the garage and walked to Jumbo
(shopping centre), it was very hot!! So our Portuguese mobile no longer works,
as we haven't used it for seven months, the Sim card has been cancelled; and
'no' you can't purchase a new Sim card, you have to buy a new phone with a new
Sim card (can't even use the old number) - so we now have two Portuguese
mobiles but only one Sim card - I am annoyed.
This evening we took P & M out for a meal to thank them
for putting us up for the last few days. The restaurant in our village isn't
open yet so we went to one just outside the village; we had a very good meal
(rather better than our local restaurant!) and it was a very pleasant relaxing
evening after which we came back to our quinta and both slept very well, under
a mosquito net loaned to us by Pam.
25th May
Today we started making our lives a little more comfortable.
We filled the 1000L water container, our pump is brilliant it only took a few
minutes to fill and should last for about a month. We have treated it with some kind of chemical, 2
teaspoons to 1000Ls of water, which makes it completely safe to drink
(William!!!).
Pam has left Portugal, she's gone to France for a week, to stay
with her mother; I'm already counting the days until she comes back!.
We've cheated a bit and connected a fluorescent light to one
of our (already charged) batteries; it means we don't need to go to bed once it
gets dark! We'll never take lights or running water for granted again. At the
moment we are leading quite a primitive life here, but it will rapidly improve
once the solar is up and running. And once we've had our second well tested
we'll be able to move the water container nearer the building we're living in,
so then we will be able to have water on tap.
I'm making it sound like we're really suffering here, but
we're not; we have a double burner gas hob and this evening's meal consisted of
three dishes - sticky lemon chicken, couscous and broad beans (so that's not
suffering). We have light, we can use our lap tops (and charge them), we're
researching what to do about the internet; we borrowed Pam's dongle but we
don't get a wonderful signal here with that provider, then again there is free wifi in the village, we just have
to work out how to register for it (it's all in Portuguese!!), it would be
brilliant if we could use that as we can definitely receive it on our quinta.
We have our own bed, so we sleep comfortably at night, and a cosy seating area,
with two sofas, a coffee table and shelves; we also have a dining area (table
and 4 chairs), a cooking area with shelves for a larder and a wash area. And
all this is in one room (which is actually bigger than the footprint of the
Barn in Wales). All we're really missing is a fridge - the rest is just like
camping/playing house. Oh yes, AND we get a better mobile phone (UK British
phone) signal here than in Wales - I can text/make calls from inside the house
and don't have to stand outside in the rain .......... he he, here I'd have to stand in the relentless sunshine!!!
26th May: SOLAR STARTED AND
SANTA MARGARIDA FLOWER FESTIVAL
We are building a temporary solar system so that we can have
electricity as soon as possible; the frame is going to lie across the water
tank which ultimately we will use as a plunge pool (we've learnt from last
year, this one will be tiled, and treated - we'll even buy a pump and filter
for it). Today we built the frame and wired up six solar panels; if all goes to
plan tomorrow could see the switching on - we could be using our fridge by
tomorrow evening ......... mmmm cold beers!!!!
This afternoon we went with Mark to a flower festival in the
next village. It was fabulous; all the houses, streets, trees (basically
anything that didn't move) were festooned with handmade paper flowers.
There
were stalls of food and drink, and local crafts for sale and there were bands
playing, often in competition with one another! Many of the bands were solely
made up with drummers, it was very primeval; my favourite band wore costumes
and very realistic masks of wolf, badger, boar and goat - rather scary to look
at.
There was also an amazing, hand operated, merry-go round with fantastic
(very naive) figures of a flock of sheep and a wolf, instead of the usual
horses.
27th May: PLAYING HOUSE ON THEQUINTA
We had a bit of a lazy day today as we were waiting for Nick
(the guy who organised the solar for us) to come and give us some advice before
we wired it all up; we can't understand why we (Brett) won't get an all mighty
shock when we wire all the (already charged) batteries together (it's not as if
you can turn them off).
As we haven't got a fridge yet (have I mentioned that
before?) we have to shop for food daily. There's a Minipreço (supermarket) in
Penamacor, the nearest big village to us (about 8 miles away); when we went
there today there must have been at least half a dozen expats in there, not
including us. More or less every time we go in there we see at least one or two
estrangeiros (foreigners) in there,
it is the only local supermarket; and we thought we were moving to a
traditional Portuguese area.
Nick came and advised; Brett says he understands. I've put a
broom in the room with the batteries ready to rescue him if he gets a shock
(I've done lots of First Aid courses, they always say 'move the source of electricity
with a broom .....'; Nick says it's only 12 volts so it's safe.
Pedgrogão de são Pedro has free wifi hotspot!!!! So this
evening we went to the Junta (village council office, only open for 2 x 1 hour
per week) to register. All negotiations were conducted in Portuguese, of
course. Unfortunately it's very slow, well what did we expect for free? And so
far Brett hasn't even managed to get the page to load; but I have managed to
open facebook and AOL - I don't think I'll be using it to upload my blog
though!
28th May: WE HAVE ELECTRICITY!!!!!
The internet was much quicker this morning; I managed to
SORN our car and cancel the insurance on it - and we might have sold it; well
we've had a few people showing interest, so we'll see if anyone actually gives
us some money for it.
We've finished setting up our solar system (6 x panels, 14 x batteries); it's on and
working - we're so excited.
It was a little bit scary; as Brett says he's
rewired two houses, but then the system wasn't live (you connect to the grid
once the house is wired), here we're working with a fully charged bank of
batteries, so you have to make sure you don't touch live and neutral at the
same time. We waited until it got dark to wire the panels into the system, as
of course they are generating electricity during daylight; but it is only 12
volts until it goes through the inverter so it's not that dangerous (so we keep
being told!). Anyway the lights on the charge controllers are twinkling away
and the fridge is on!!!!!!! Tomorrow we will be able to do a proper shop AND
BUY SOME BEER (we don't like it warm, so we haven't bought any yet!); have I
mentioned that it costs 80 cents a litre?
Every day we are getting a little more comfortable and a
little more civilised.
