Olive Oil is so versatile ........................

20th January

As we were leaving the village, to go to Fundao this morning, Mr Louis stopped us and asked if we wanted some eggs - he gave us a bucket full (33 eggs). We told him we were off to buy some laying hens and some meat birds, he said don't buy the white ones (meat birds) and grabbed hold of his throat and waggled it - what on earth did that mean?

So we bought six laying hens and ten brown meat birds - no reason other than he's coming up to advise us soon (on the garden) and we didn't want him to think we didn't take notice of him!!!

We came home via the people who are giving us the muscovies and they gave us a dozen duck eggs (I'd forgotten the bucket of chicken eggs when I said yes 'please'!); so tomorrow I will be making cake, Spanish tortilla, orange curd, mayonnaise, meringues - basically any recipe that uses eggs, olive oil, potatoes and oranges!

The new laying hens are slightly bigger than last week's hens, but that didn't stop the ones from last week bullying the new ones (they obviously feel at home), they'll soon settle down.

The eating chicks are only three weeks old, so they are living on the kitchen table in a cardboard box.

The sheep dog puppy follows us home now when we take Looby for a walk, it even tried to come into the house - it would be so easy to steal .................. it's so cute.

21st January

The chicks were in with us last night as we didn't want Looby investigating them - they chirped all night, tonight they'll stay in the kitchen!

Whilst I was feeding the chickens the puppy came to call, it wanted to play with Looby and it kept trying to come into the house - it takes all of our (my?) will power to shoo it away, Brett says if we don't it will be punished by the shepherd.

Can I come in please?

 

Today was wet and miserable so I cooked; I used my free oranges and eggs and my 1/2 price butter (from Lidl's) to make Orange curd - it makes a perfect breakfast stirred into Greek yoghurt and mixed with whipped cream it makes a lovely quick syllabub - I could add some of my orange liqueur too (yummy!).

I made mayonnaise with the free eggs and olive oil - I'm working on free lemons too, I'm going to try bartering them for olive oil with Claire. And I made a chocolate cake, which I couldn't use the eggs in as it's for our vegan visitors on Thursday, but I did use our olive oil! So all in all a pretty thrifty day.

We were very disappointed when we got water out of the Cleric's fonte, it's brown (Brackish?), so we won't be drinking that! Unfortunately we can only get the surface water, it's not like the village fontes with an ever flowing pipe, it's probably fine a few feet down.

22nd January

I spent the whole day doing housework, I did a proper 'spring clean', it was boring and exhausting and I really hate the vacuum cleaner! Worst thing is I know it won't last long, and then I have to do it all over again.

Brett finished the (duck) house for the chicks, so they are now outside; it's much quieter inside!

The puppy is becoming a regular visitor! We don't allow him in the house or feed him, in fact apart from a bit of stroking we try to ignore him so he goes back to the sheep. He followed us back to the house this afternoon when the shepherd's wife was outside sitting under the tree, so she knows he comes to see us.

23rd January

Karen, Jamie and Gypsy came to dinner today; I cooked a vegan meal -  spaghetti with a sauce made from olive oil,  the Greek style olives, onions, garlic and lemon juice served with a salad, the vegan chocolate cake for pudding, all washed down with our red wine or freshly squeezed orange juice.

24th January

Pam and I had another 'sewing day', at hers this time; I made a top and she made a skirt.

On our (Brett came to pick me up) way home we saw Claire and asked about swopping oil for lemons, she was more than happy and is bring a bag to Pam's tomorrow (2nd day of sewing).

Brett rotorvated the vegetable garden and got rid of all the grass that was growing through; it looks good. While he was doing it Louis (shepherd) arrived and called him over, he'd brought a lamb (dead) for us, he kills the male lambs quite young as, as he put it, they don't make milk so he doesn't have a use for them.

25th January

Pam and I had a very productive day today; I made a nightie, I bought from a charity shop, into a skirt and a jacket (with the addition of lots of lace) then I 'tea' dyed them along with the top I made yesterday. Pam had a pair of trousers, that looked like a skirt, which we transformed into a skirt with ribbon ties up the side - it looks so pretty; so we were both very pleased.

Claire brought me a lovely big bag of lemons which I will make into lemon curd (with our free eggs), lemonade, Moroccan preserved lemons and Claire suggested lemon flavoured olive oil - I can zest some and add them to a bottle of oil.

Louis (shepherd) said now was the time to prune the vines and showed Brett how to do it, which was very useful as it is one of the jobs he's been wanting to learn how to do.

26th January

Sunday, bloody Sunday ......... we were woken at 7.00 a.m. by the hunters raining lead shot down on our roof, it was impossible to get back to sleep (thank goodness there's only a few weeks left to the season). Brett asked one of the hunters, who was on our quinta by the chickens, what he was shooting at, he showed him - thrushes, sparrows etc. ........ why? is what I want to know.

The garden is drying out nicely so I decided it was high time I hoed the vegetable bed; grass is growing through the plants like crazy.

Brett tidied up some of the vines down the bottom of the vegetable garden and he got talking to one of our Portuguese neighbours (he doesn't live on the quinta it's his vegetable garden and he has a few chickens) who we haven't spoken to before as there is usually dense foliage between us and him, but it's winter so we could converse quite easily albeit across the boundary stream. He's really nice and of course he is an expert in vegetable gardening in Portugal. He told us we should plant tomatoes and peppers now, under plastic, so we're going to make a cold frame. He gave us cabbages, leeks and some seeds - the Portuguese are so generous. He also said it was too early to prune the vines, he said we should wait until February/March time.

P&M came around for a 'proper' Sunday lunch; lamb roast with rosemary and garlic, roast potatoes, broccoli (P&M's garden), cabbage (neighbour) etc, our wine followed by meringues (free eggs!) which we had to eat out of bowls because the whipping cream (UHT it's practically impossible to get fresh, or fresh milk) doesn't whip up to stiff peaks however long it's whipped for, it stays soft so there's no way it can be used in cakes - very annoying!

27th January

We went into Fundao; we had two coffee engagements - Nicky & Rich and a couple we hadn't met before. While the weather was bad, and there was nothing much to do, I did quite a bit of 'googling' ....... self sufficiency and Portugal was one of the searches I put in and I came across this interesting blog of like minded people (Karina & Alex) who it turned out live only a few miles from us, so I contacted them. They are lovely, completely on our wavelength, hopefully they'll come and visit us soon.

Bloody soddin' hunters not only do they leave their rubbish on our land, they poo on it (right out in the open) and leave it for us (Brett) to clear up. Brett was furious, I was too busy gagging to speak! He says he's going to confront them next week.

I'm all enthused about the vegetable garden so this afternoon I started off some seeds - 76 tomato (12 varieties) 18 aubergine (2), 36 chillis (6) and 54 sweet pepper (2), then I ran out of seed trays!! If I have too many plants I can always give them away or swop them.

28th January

What a disappointing start to the day, it was supposed to be sunny and I was going to finish hoeing the garden and plant a load of plugs - beetroot (bought from market yesterday) and the lettuce, escarole, onions, leeks and chard I have been meaning to plant out for a while ............... but we woke up to rain!!!! I forced myself to plant the beetroot plugs (60 odd), but the ground wasn't breaking up nicely (too wet) so I don't know how well they'll do.

Our track is really rutty, because of all the wet weather we've been having, we nearly get stuck in four wheel drive and ordinary cars have to park just inside our property. Brett filled in the worst ruts, but more rain is forecast so he'll probably have to do it again.

The sheep are no longer grazing our quinta, but they come back to be corralled at night, however the puppy is left on the quinta all day (his guard duty is a night time job), so he just follows us about all day and whines at our door when we go inside!

An absolutely horrid afternoon = video and sweets!!!! We watched V for Vendetta, it was OK, and ate chocolate sitting on the sofa in front of the stove, it was cosy.

29th January

It was cold today, not frosty, but cold enough to warrant wearing hat and gloves. We noticed that the tops of the mountains are, again, white - what fell on us as rain must have fallen on them as snow.

Well I've had quite a productive day; I spent the morning cataloguing all my seeds, cross referencing with a Spanish gardening book and a Portuguese gardening blog to work out a Portuguese vegetable gardening calendar - I will update it as the year progresses and it's been trialed and errored; (I ended up writing it on the computer, so it will be easy to edit). I put the potatoes, the shepherd gave us, to chit in the wheelbarrow, we'll cover them up at night. Then this afternoon I, at last, planted out the escarole etc - the soil is still very claggy and not easy to work with, fortunately (for the plants) it's raining tonight so they should get well bedded in.  And I still have garlic to put in which is sprouting and all their roots are tangled together!! I want to put in more radish,  peas, broad beans, mange toute, lettuce, spring onions and leeks in the main bed as soon as possible (i.e. when it dries up a bit). Then in the cold frame (which hopefully will be constructed by the end of the week, we're buying the bits tomorrow) it's time to start coriander, parsley, tomatillo and, with a view to the future, rhubarb, and asparagus.

Then next month (February) it all kicks off and most vegetables and herbs can be started off in the cold frame.

30th January

Ha, it didn't rain, we woke up to a cold and frosty morning; fortunately my plants look ok.

The best laid plans ............ Cesar (the woodman) emailed last night to say he would be delivering the wood for the next phase of poultry houses Brett wants to build (duck, goose and anything we buy on the spur of the moment!), he didn't say when (we did email back and text to ask but we didn't get a reply) so that meant we had to hang around all day, so no trip to CB! And then when Brett finally got hold of him he says he's coming tomorrow.

I did weed the herb bed, the soil is lovely; and while I was there I found baby new potatoes - I put some potatoes in the middle of the pea wigwams in Oct in the hope for new potatoes at Christmas (I used to do it in the Polytunnel back in Wales), but the frost killed off the tops and I forgot about them! We ate them with dinner, small but perfectly formed!

31st January

We went into CB and bought all the stuff off our list and then we went to the dog rescue centre; we came away with .............. nothing. They were either missing limbs of had their legs in plaster; Looby is far too boisterous for a physically impaired dog, which is a shame as a couple of them were really cute.

This evening I made pastry with olive oil (I'm finding so many uses for it); my goodness it's so easy - 7ozs plain flour, salt, 6 tablespoons (90mls) olive oil, 1/4 cup cold water, bung it all in the food processor and whiz up, takes about 10 seconds, wrap in clingfilm and leave to rest for an hour in fridge (I haven't used it yet but it looks good).

It's the end of the month so I'm going to use up my internet allowance posting my blog (I don't want to waste it!).

SHEEP ON THE QUINTA ..............

15th January

Brett has designed (in his head) a 10' x 10' mobile cabin we can use as a summer house /bedroom; it'll be on skids (like the chicken shed) so we'll be able to move it with the truck, he will clad it with the same planks we used for the sleep platform rather than the bread oven wood he used for the chicken shed and it will have a Onduline roof (which is lighter than tiles).

Oh dear poor old Looby was shocked by the fence this morning and I should think most of the village heard her shriek!!! Now she takes a very wide berth around the chickens.

When we got the hens home on Monday and took them out of their box we noticed that one of them was rather hunched up (the typical sign of an unhappy/ill chicken); the woman on the market just grabbed them out of the crate and stuffed them in the box we didn't get a chance to inspect them. She's been a bit hunched ever since but has been eating and drinking along with the rest. However today we found her in the water bucket, she was very wet and cold; so I dried her off, as best I could, with Looby's towel and we put her in the drawer of the stove to warm up. Initially she didn't look very hopeful,

she stayed very hunched up with her eyes shut, but after about an hour she started to become quite vocal, then she started moving around, eating and she even pooped on Looby's towel;

so we put her back outside with the rest of her flock and are keeping our fingers crossed.

Brett went outside this afternoon and there's a large flock of sheep under our olive trees, the shepherd and his wife were out there with them; we didn't even hear them arrive.

It means poor old Looby will be walked on a lead again; she was very good about the hen in the kitchen though, I told her "No!" so she just curled up on her bed and ignored it.

The shepherd corralled his sheep as soon as it got dark (5.00ish) and left a dog to guard them - it's a Serra da Estrela and it can only be about six months old, it's so cute I'm going to take a photo in the morning.

It's been dull and raining for the last few days so we had to turn the fridge off over night again; it's been on for five days so we feel quite lucky and we should have a few more days out of it if we ration it.

16th January

Callooh! Callay! all six chickens came burbling out of the pop hole this morning and drowned hen is looking quite spritely.

The sheep were still corralled at 11.30 this morning and the puppy was still there keeping guard, it was out all night in the rain, good job it's got a thick coat.

This afternoon the sheep were outside the house eating my peas (in the herb garden, I hadn't shown them to the shepherd) so I shooed them off, they're really laid back not in the least bit skittish; it's a very pretty flock.

Ha, Brett's turnip and carrot fermentation is working well, but my Kvass has mould growing on it!!!

17th January

We need a shredder for all our olive prunings, then we can use it in the compost toilet. So we met up with Jamie and Keren in CB with a view to purchasing one between us (and P&M), well the good ones were 900€+, so that didn't happen! And we didn't get to look at dogs either as we suddenly realised that as we were going to P&M's for dinner we would have to leave it with Looby for several hour having just introduced them to one another (not a sensible idea).

When I was walking Looby back from her shed I came across Louis and his wife tending their sheep (I tried to avoid them but didn't manage it!!!), so I stood there while they spoke at me in Portuguese! One thing I did learn (because I asked) the puppy guarding their sheep is only four months old and it's a he, not a she as I had thought.

We had a lovely evening at P&M's, very relaxing and warm.

18th January

Brett started building a duck house, some people we met on NYE offered us some ducks and we found out last night (as they had given P&M a drake) that they are Muscovies; just what we wanted, as they're not as aquatic as ordinary ducks, so don't need a pond.

Louis came calling with a bucket of potatoes and a bucket of oranges for us - the Portuguese are very generous. He showed us where the Cleric's fonte is, just beyond our boundary (about 5m) at the bottom of our front garden (i.e. about 50m from our house). It was built by the Romans and is a public fonte and he said 'a agua e muito boa' (the water is very good), it was used by the churches and the rich people as it's the best water around;  this means we don't need to drive to get drinking water anymore.

I 'googled' mouldy Kvass and it's merely a yeast fermentation and just needed skimming off. So we tried the Kvass; it's salty, slightly sour, nothingness - I don't get it, it's not unpleasant but I wouldn't drink it through choice, as it's not particularly nice either! But people rave about it, why?

At the beginning of December I put some of our large ripe black olives in salt

to try to make Greek/Turkish style olives - the shrivelled ones you get in jars without brine or oil.

We tried them today - they are absolutely brilliant!!!! They're just like the expensive ones you buy in the shops and these are free! I'm so pleased, we used them in our pasta sauce tonight. And I drank a Portuguese version of Sangria made with our wine and Louis's oranges.

I don't know why but I've always gained enormous pleasure from eating and drinking for free; I used to love collecting hedgerow bounty in the UK - elderflowers for wine and champagne, elderberries for port, crab apples, damsons, sloes, blackberries, horseradish, field mushrooms and the absolute joy of finding a giant puffball (we had quite a few of these when we lived in Warwickshire). So having a quinta where we can produce our own olives, olive oil, wine, fruit etc is wonderful for me, I get a real kick out of it.

19th January

Sunday ................... and we could hear the hunters way off in the distance, it was so nice not to feel under threat of being shot when I was out with Looby!

There's snow on the mountains,

but it was sunny and breezy today, so that means wash day. One of the nice things about wash day is the stove gets lit early (to boil the water on), so the house is nice and warm and snug, the less pleasant thing (in the winter anyway) is having to do the washing, as it gets done outside and when it's windy (like today) your hands get awfully cold; but the wind does help dry the clothes and my Sheila maid finished them off this evening.

I resolved yesterday to do some drawing, so over the last two days I've tried sketching the hens

and Looby,

Brett says this looks like Santa's Little Helper' (Simpsons)!!!

but they won't stay still for more than a few seconds; I don't know how long it will last but I thought I would try to sketch every day to try to improve my observation and speed.

Tomorrow we're off to Fundao again to buy more chickens and on the way back we're going to visit the couple who offered us the Muscovy ducks.

LIVESTOCK AT LAST ..........

5th January

Not so much rain today, but still dull and not much solar being created - we're starting to get a little 'stir crazy' now, there's so much that we want to get on with; Brett wants to get the chicken house finished, so we can get some laying hens and then start on the pig run. I want to get on with the garden - I have lettuce, escarole, and chard that I've grown from seed that needs to go in and, of course, I need to hoe the weeds.

I had a lovely 'talk' with Hen and Claire on Skype today, (they're still in Thailand), it wasn't a brilliant connection but I could see them (albeit mainly in silhouette and pixelated!) so I'm happy as I haven't spoken 'live' to them for quite a while.

6th January

Drizzle and heavy rain today ............................... but somehow we've still got some solar for the, one, light and charging laptops and phones, but nothing else; the fridge is completely thawed now so we're having to eat everything from it (or throw it away, which is a waste but one can only eat so many thawed brussel sprouts!!!!).

I'm fed up with this weather now, I've got so much that I want to do; I do have some 'wet weather' projects (or so I thought) but I can't get on with them because, when I was naive about solar, it didn't occurred to me that when it was wet I wouldn't have any electricity or light!!! Pam and I bought material in CB and I'm itching to make some clothes.

I'm trying to find as many different ways of preserving food as I can, ready for when we have a glut in the summer. I know I can bottle some of the produce and make jams, jellies, pickles and chutneys etc but the jars are expensive (and take up an awful lot of room) and although I save every jar I buy (and get Mark to save all his for me) I never seem to have enough; we even looked into getting a canning machine from America, but the cans are ridiculously expensive, so where's the sense in that? Unfortunately freezing isn't an option so I need to find other ways to keep our harvest edible; we use an awful lot of (at the moment tinned/bought) tomatoes through the winter so we're going to try drying tomatoes this year which will save space. Today I experimented with some of the lemons that Claire gave us - preserving them in salt, if nothing else they look really nice;

years ago I tried preserving runner beans in salt - it didn't work they went slimy!

OK I have a gripe (or two) ............. why do manufacturers put stiff, scratchy labels at the back of the neck of clothing? I put on one of my new tops tonight and it was awful, I couldn't stand it, I had to take it straight off and cut out the offending label but of course I couldn't simply unpick the stitching because it was sewn into the facing and, while I'm on the subject, why do they sew white labels inside black lacy clothes? And what's with the long loops that always stick out of the neck of tops and dresses, why don't they stitch them to face the other way so they naturally stay inside the clothing (ribbon bends so it would still do its job, for those with the luxury of a wardrobe and hanging clothes!!!!!), I had to have them out as they were scratching me too.

This evening Looby was barking, as she had heard a noise outside, it was a ewe and her two lambs; somehow they had wandered onto our land. It was too dark to herd them back to their flock, not that we knew where it was, so we've got to wait now until the morning and just hope they don't discover our vegetable garden.

7th January

RAIN, RAIN, GO AWAY, COME AGAIN ANOTHER DAY!

We've had enough now thank you, the wells are overflowing. Every one of my vegetable plugs is standing up straight and tall (unless the sheep have had them in the night, it's too wet to go and look) even the strawberry that I thought was dead is alive, so the garden doesn't need it.

The man on the quinta next door is trying to drain his vegetable garden by cutting channels in it, he's out there, in the pouring rain, with his enxada and an umbrella, bless him.

I made a sage oil infusion with some sage leaves, that I had in the freezer, chopped up and mixed with olive oil, I'll use it in cooking; if I could make the essential oil it's good for colds, sore throats, oral thrush and apparently Alzheimer's! But I need a still for that, I don't think my infusion will have any medical benefits, it's merely a flavouring.

OK Looby is in the dog house;

"Who? Me? ......"

we decided we had to brave the weather and take her out for a long walk, she chased the sheep (they're still on our quinta, but haven't been near the vegetable garden, phew!)) and then wouldn't come back when we called her, well obviously she did in the end, I made Brett take his belt off so we could put her on a lead.

Everywhere is so flooded, fortunately we seem to have the highest land around here so we're not too bad, but the river (which we didn't even know about until a couple of months ago) is way over the stepping stones and has burst its banks. The ditch around the bottom of our property is moving very fast and is several feet deep. And don't let's talk about our track ......... all I can say is thank goodness we have a 4x4!!!

8th January

We had a little bit of sun today and no rain; hopefully we'll get some charge on the solar.

Looby was put on her lead for her morning walk, just in case the sheep were still around - there was one lone lamb, how are we going to reunite that with its flock?

We went into CB for a quick shop but didn't manage to get to the animal rescue centre as it doesn't open until 1.00 p.m. When we got back there was no obvious sign of the lamb but there was a ewe on our land - where are they coming from???

Poor old Looby has been on a lead for all of her walks today, which isn't fair as she likes to run.

Oh dear Louis, the shepherd (o pastor,) came while Brett was training.

Here's how I think our conversation went (bearing in mind it was all in Portuguese):-

·         he asked if he could bring his sheep to eat our grass, I showed him my vegetable garden and said I didn't want his sheep eating the plants

·         he said he would fence off the vegetables (or did he say we should fence them off?)

·         I said he needed to talk to Brett, as he understood Portuguese better than me

·         he said he would come back tomorrow (hopefully to talk to Brett not with his sheep!)

·         I told him about the lamb that was on our land this morning

·         he went off to look for the lamb

So now I realise I need to get back to learning Portuguese in earnest; I was pathetic, I have absolutely no confidence in my ability to converse in a foreign tongue, we need to find a local teacher.

9th January

Today I made Kvass, a lacto-fermented beetroot drink (Russian); drinking it twice daily is  supposed to have a beneficial effect on the digestive tract, you can also use it in recipes in place of vinegar which is how I will probably use it.

Brett really enjoyed his fermented turnip and carrot, we're going to make more as it's all been eaten.

Louis came (without his sheep!) and said that our vegetables will be fine as someone will be with the sheep at all times when they are on our quinta (unless they are corralled, which they will be overnight, I'm sure that isn't what he said to me yesterday)  but that's what shepherds do here they spend all day with their sheep, it could be in an unfenced field or the verge at the side of the road, the shepherd is there keeping control of the flock.

Yesterday Brett saw an ambulance and a Bombeiros vehicle driving down the track that goes passed Gary's (our nearest neighbour, but  a different access track), Louis told us that a man had drowned in the river, how awful.

10th January

The fridge is back on for the time being as we have full batteries, I do love the sun!

P&M came round for dinner, we had a lovely evening and I'm really getting into our red wine (which is just as well as we have rather a lot of it!!!). We had a Thai chicken curry (my take on Jamie Oliver's fragrant green curry) and I made crepe suzettes (with our own oranges and the orange liqueur I made for Christmas) with Chantilly cream, jolly tasty they were too (even though I say it myself!). And, I'm so excited, tomorrow Pam is coming round and we're going to have a sewing day (yay!).

11th January

Brett finished the chicken shed, which looks absolutely fabulous - I want a big version for a summer house! We will probably go into Fundao on Monday to buy chickens, how exciting.

Pam and I started making a dress each, we took a pattern from my 'Magnolia Pearl' dress which I practically live in, by the end of our session we both had smock shaped garments that Brett said only needed a slit up the back to look like hospital gowns!!! The material is very stiff, we hope that a good wash with some fabric softener will help.

Pam brought over her hard drive which had masses of films and TV series on it; we spent the evening watching 'The Good Life', one of the classics; funnily enough we had been looking for it on Ebay last week but it was too expensive for us!!!

12th January

We were woken at 7.30 by gunfire - we had forgotten it was Sunday.

Pam came back, we finished making our dresses, washed them in hot water with lots of fabric softener in the hope that we can get rid of some of the stiffness. This afternoon we both made ourselves a top which we dyed with a Dylon hand wash French Lavender colour - they came out bluey grey!! But it's an OK colour.

Then this evening the rains came back, it's been so nice being able to go outside, hopefully it won't last too long.

13th January

Happy Birthday William !!!!!!! XXXXXXXX

We went into Fundao, me wearing my new dress which I'm very pleased with, to buy some POL hens, but somehow we managed to arrive at the market just as the poultry sellers were packing up!!!! We'd been to the supermarket, China shop, pottery etc first as we didn't want to leave the chickens in the car while we shopped, we were being considerate. Anyway all that was left was a crate of 8-10 week old Warren type hens at 6€ (about £5) each; we bought six and will go to our village market in the morning to see if there are any older birds for sale there. It's great to have livestock again, and I've always liked chickens, I love the soft burbling noises they make and these ones are very docile. They're already coming out of their shed and exploring their run.

And naughty Looby is already breaking into their run and exploring them, she got tied up after that little incident; we've erected an electric poultry net to keep them safe and Looby just pushed under it, but what she doesn't know is that it hasn't been switched on yet (she's in for a bit of a shock!!!!).

We couldn't get any commercial chicken food so we made a mash from stale bread, some brown rice (yes I cooked it first!) plus some vegetable peelings (which I cooked in with the rice), I wouldn't say they loved it but they had a good old peck at it - they have to get used to it because we're not going to buy all their food, they will be fed on scraps (until we get the pigs).

14th January

The chickens had to be forcibly shoved outside this morning and their pop hole shut; then they found their food and water so they were happier.

We went to the village market (leaving Looby on guard) we saw Mr Louis there, and Mrs Louis was with him, last time we heard she was in hospital in a coma so it was lovely to see her up and about. They insisted we went for a coffee with them, then Mr Louis took us to buy the chicken's food (he thinks we're novices, he doesn't know we had about 250 birds (laying, eating and POL hens to sell) at one time when we were back in Wales!), he likes to help us - he's going to come up in a few days to advise us on our vegetable garden.

We spent the morning increasing the run size, it's now two x 50 metre poultry nets, so they have a huge area with three big trees for shelter - lucky birds, 

and the electric fence is on - poor Looby, it won't be long before she gets a shock, I keep telling her to stay away from it (but she's fascinated by the hens) so it will be her own fault, she'll do it when we're not watching her!

FELIZ ANO NOVO!!!!!!

1st January 2014

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

It was a lovely NYE party at Josh & Jamie's; it was many of the same people as were at P&M's Boxing day party, but we got to speak to some different ones this time. It was mainly expats but varied nationalities - Israeli, Dutch, Irish, .........

We woke up (late) to overcast skies and heavy, penetrating drizzle, not a nice day but it was forecast; so the fire was lit early. We managed to walk Looby a few times between showers and tired her out running after the ball, occasionally she even brought it back! Maybe this week we'll get her a playmate (I know we keep saying that).

I didn't write about our visit to Claire and Phil yesterday; wow their place is lovely. They have a gorgeous stone house which they only live on the second floor of, downstairs is massive with huge wine making machinery and tanks carved from granite; it was originally owned by a doctor. Phil has built beautiful Shaker style kitchen cupboards, shelves and pegboards (he's a carpenter by trade) and they're all painted in soft, calm colours (greys and mushrooms), it is very tastefully done.  They have the most amazing views and can see the Serra de Estrella mountains from their living room window (which is actually double doors and, at the moment, has a long drop below it, they're going to put in a balcony). They have 5 acres of fruit  trees - about 80 oranges, masses of lemons, almonds (we came away with a huge bagful), apples, pomegranate, to name a few and a massive vineyard (which is a waste as they don't drink alcohol). Out of all the quintas we've visited their one is on a par with ours (fortunately we still like ours better).

We did our accounts today ............... we need to budget better, we spent twice as much as we should have last month (whoops)!

2nd January

So budgeting started well today; Pam and I went to the 'sales' in CB!!!!! There's a brand new H&M shop and lots of lovely stuff was half price, so I just had to buy it - I saved nearly 40€!

The solar hasn't had much charge for the last week or so and the batteries are pretty low, we turned everything off except a for 10 watt (low energy) light bulb and waited for the inverter to switch off ......... it didn't!

3rd January

Still raining, still dull but we still had a little power and put the fridge on in the morning (we reason that it won't lose much cold if we switch it off overnight as it's shut up tight); then we read the weather forecast, another week of rain, so we made the painful decision to turn it off!

Looby is a thief! I put a dish of almonds on the coffee table and she has spent the afternoon stealing one at a time, taking it back to her bed and eating the nut inside - she's a strange animal she eats, nuts, grapes, olives, haw berries, acorns etc.

I bottled some of our red wine today; I've been saving bottles for a while with the help of Mark (and Glenn) and filled 15 bottles, now all I need is a wine rack (and electricity so I can print off the labels).

Our wine has the burgundy tops

Why don't I ever learn? Yesterday I bought nut crackers from a China shop (that's what they call themselves), today I tried to crack one of the almonds that Claire gave us - of course the nut crackers cracked first!!!

4th January

It rained all night, heavy, loud rain; and it was windy! But this morning the sun showed itself for a few minutes, Brett even said "shall we turn the fridge on?" (we didn't) and then this afternoon it rained ICE (that's what the weather forecast called it) and it was very cold and dark so ................ we lit the fire and watched a film (Red Dragon), (nothing else to do); oh yes, and ate chocolate!

But we did have a beautiful double rainbow.

We took down the Christmas decorations, we've only lit the lights twice (both times before Christmas) because we didn't want to waste solar.

This evening we made olive oil 'candles',

Olive oil doesn't smoke as it burns and if you want it to smell nice you can add essential oils (I want to make lavender oil next year but I need to source a small cheap still); we didn't use our own olive oil, we used the expensive stuff we bought before we had ours back from the press! This is a prototype we will experiment with different wicks (this was just string) and several wicks in one jar. If we can make them bright enough we won't need to buy candles any more.