So much produce ....

18^th July

We had rather a lazy day today as Brett, and I, both worked hard yesterday. We did a bit of shopping in Penamacor and then dropped in on Josh & Jamie, to talk water pumps!
Brett’s next project is to get tapped water to the house – how civilised will that be? Until the floor in the house has been tiled we’ll just have water to an outside tap, but that will be a huge improvement on using water from 25L containers. And washing day will be so much better, no lugging rinsing water out of the well – I’ll be able to just turn on a tap and the pump will do all the work for me ... so excited!

19^th July

Rain, rain, rain ... so we won’t need to water today. And blissfully cool air temp (27 degrees).
We were invited to lunch with our friend Lou (who it turns out lives only a couple of miles from Mark (& Glenn). We were giving Pam a lift there too; when we went to pick her up she was wearing lots of layers, a thick knitted coat and long boots, she was feeling the change in temperature!

But first we went into CB to purchase all the supplies to get well water to the house (water pump with balloon, pipes, fittings and tap) and then to Lidls to buy food and beer.

Lou has a quinta (which we didn’t get to see) and a ‘real’ house! It’s got electricity and mains water, and two bathrooms with flushing toilets and everything ... so posh!!!!! Tehillah and John were invited too. Lou had provided a huge spread of food (all home grown) and we sat outside at a large table to eat, it was a lovely afternoon and we only left when we realised that our poor old dogs would have been left for nearly eight hours by the time we arrived home – they were fine, and very pleased to see us.

20^th July

Brett spent the day clearing brambles etc from around the well, and a small water tank next to the well which he’s going to use to house the pump. It was hard work but while he was there he saw masses of bright green praying mantis and one brown one (who he thinks was the female); they were praying and boxing – he thinks it was all mating ritual.

I stored all the good onions in the back shed, picked a bucket of tomatoes, cucumbers and aubergines

and then made some of the ‘iffy’ onions into sticky onion marmalade. Unfortunately I don’t have access to my preserving pan which means I can only process 4lbs of onions at a time, so I’ll have to make more tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day and ............

21^st July

It’s getting hotter again ....
Our neighbours called us over for a chat this morning and gave us some 'yard long' beans, I'm definitely going to grow these next year.

We have tap water at the house!!!!! Brett has installed the pump down by the well and when we turn on the tap we have running water. And, when the sun is shining (throughout the day), we have HOT running water and I mean HOT not just warm, you can’t hold your hand in it – so now we can wash up and do our laundry without using gas to heat the water, we’re so green!

Today I picked a bucket of tomatoes and made tomato relish (old WI recipe) one of my favourites, really good with burgers (not that we have burgers!).

22^nd July

Laundry day was so much easier than normal, no carting of wet laundry to the well to be rinsed. And for my washing I just used the water that had been heated by the sun, Brett puts his clothes in a boil wash!

Then I picked another bucket of tomatoes ...

23^rd July

Today we had visitors, Diane and Tom; we ‘met’ them on the expat site last year, went for a coffee in Fundao and have kept in touch – they are looking at properties to buy with Remax, they even looked at our neighbour’s quinta.
We had a really good time; they want to do the same as us ... grow vegetables and raise a few animals (pigs, chickens etc), like us they’ve done it all before in Wales (so lots in common). They brought us a couple of sugar cane and aloe vera plants to grow, which I’m really excited about and tahini and saffron, which I’d run out of and can’t get here. I cooked a home grown meal; cold tomato and cucumber soup, sticky lemon chicken, salad, and rice ... apart from the rice practically everything was produced on the quinta (or bartered for, like the lemons).

24^th July

Happy Birthday Claire, X

Brett spent the day making mosquito screens for the windows; swearing a lot when the staple gun didn’t work properly (which was most of the time!), he ended up using the hot glue gun which worked a treat, and being stung by bloody vicious wasps, which nest in the walls of the house. We used some pretty material, given to me by Sarah (thank you Sarah); a closely woven net (which should keep the bugs out) that looks as if it’s been hand painted with a kind of tulip/poppy.

Bathroom screen

Living room screen

After potting up the aloe vera and planting out the sugar cane (which Brett thinks might be invasive) I made a beaded cover for the salt jar – it took me most of the day (it was too hot to do much more anyway). In my defence, I did have to work out how to crochet the edging so that the beads hang and weigh down the cover, my friend/mentor Maureen (Crafty Bitch) would have been proud of down me; the finished product is quite pretty.

We had a phone call from Pam, about 7.00, saying they were going out for a meal and did we want to join them, unfortunately we’d had a couple of beers by then and neither of us would have been legal to drive – shame as we haven’t seen much of them lately.

25^th July

I made watermelon rind pickle ... basically something for nothing, as it’s the bit you chuck away (OK put in the compost), plus sugar, salt and vinegar. It looks really pretty, let’s hope it taste good too!

It’s HOT ....

Chris & Di texted; Brett is working on Tuesday and they invited us down the bar tonight but we couldn’t go as we were already invited out for a meal with Diane & Tom.

We went to our usual in Penamacor, but for a change we sat outside which was much cooler than inside. D&T are making an offer on a quinta tomorrow!!!! They have an appointment with Remax at 10.30, how exciting (I bet they don’t sleep tonight!). However I should sleep very well as Di and I ‘shared’ a litre of wine and she was driving!!!! They kindly treated us to the meal (thank you) and then they gave us a huge bag of plums and nectarines that they’d picked (I said picked not scrumped!) from the garden of the B&B where they are staying (yay, more preserves!).

26^th July

37 degrees today, it’s too hot to work for long ... I picked a bucket of tomatoes, prepared and set out a load to dry in the sun,

then went in the pool!

This evening we had a little gathering (bbq) with P&M, C&D and Andrew; it was all very enjoyable just sitting on the decking, drinking a few beers, eating mainly our own produce and conversing with friends.

27^th July

Still hot!
Picked another bucket of tomatoes! And harvested the chickpeas, and then spent most of the day shelling them; a painstaking and lethal job – painstaking, because there’s only one or two seeds per pod (I had one pod that had three in) and lethal, because each pod is armed with a nasty little spike (why?), I ended up with a coffee jarful.

Went in the pool this afternoon, it’s the only way to get to feel human.

28^th July

Brett has started preparing for the winter, he chain sawed some wood today.

While I made plum dipping sauce,

with some of the plums that Tom & Diane gave us, and prepared more tomatoes for sundrying.

I wanted to go for a swim this afternoon, but the man was turning the hay so I didn’t like to! The man came and had a chat, and a beer, with us once he had finished his work; we told him about the fox taking our Muscovy female and ducklings – he’s going to bring us a female on Wednesday.

29^th July

Brett went to work today and I had a ‘girlie’ day out in Covilha with Pam and Claire. We went to a few clothes shops, did some site seeing, had some lunch, I didn’t spend much; I bought myself a scarf thing which I can use as a sarong (it’s massive), it was reduce from 9.99 to 5.99, so I thought ‘bargain’, got it to the till 3.99, so well pleased! We didn’t get home until about 6.30 – I don’t know where the day went.

30^th July

Storing tomatoes for winter use is a problem; bottling takes up too much room (and I refuse to pay for jars anyway) and freezing isn’t a real option as we can’t guarantee our electric supply over winter. So we’ve sundried masses and today we’ve gone one step further ... sundried tomato paste; it was made in the liquidiser with just the tomatoes, sprinkled with sea salt and left in the sun for a couple of days, and our olive oil. It tastes absolutely delicious and will be brilliant as the basis for all types of pasta sauces and pizza toppings.

Talking of pizza toppings ... our bread oven is being delivered tomorrow afternoon, we’re very excited about that.

Mr Muscovy has a wife; she’s a pretty little thing, rather timid at the moment but Mr Muscovy is so happy. He’s been courting her all day; waggling his tail, clacking his beak and bobbing his head – it’s lovely to see him so animated.