My number one amiga....

Oh boy was I happy to see my Sister last week.... I have loved every minute of this year with all of its ups and downs but being separated from my little Sister, who I now know is my best friend in the world has been harder than I could have ever imagined. The build up to Vicky and my Niece Laila arriving had me up and down... from -terrified of having to say goodbye again as I know it will open the 'miss you' wound to jumping up and down like a hyperactive teenager who just drank 8 cans of redbull. So off I went on the train to Lisbon to collect them last Tuesday... my eyes welling everytime I thought about the moment I would see them and looking like an unbalanced weirdo on the train and in the airport...... and then they were there..... and it was just amazing and totally normal like we had barely been apart. So I am one week in and have 5 more weeks to enjoy loving them face to face before they return to Australia....... (until next time).

Poor buggers were freezing when they arrived... -1 at night and around 7 degrees in the day for the first few days and now thankfully it has warmed up to about 17 / 18 again.... lucky really as there is not much meat on my little Sis to keep her warm. Fingers crossed ! So our little girls are back together again... giggling, bickering, babycino's and general mischief.....

Laila the Sydney city girl has been great company helping me feed the goats and the chickens.

On Sunday we went to the "chicken market" as it is referred to in our house (first Sunday of the month) in the pouring rain. We sat under the tarpaulin with an umbrella and still managed to get soaked (dead posh). Well worth the trouble.... that piri piri chicken is unbeatable.

Today I attended a parents meeting at Sienna's School. Ok so about 98% of the conversation went right over my head. Man these guys talk fast ! -when they are not talking to me slowly, like I am hard of hearing and a sandwich short of a picnic I really struggle... but I made the effort and managed to pick the important bones out of the conversation.

So despite the rain pouring, a brief taste of sub zero with no central heating ..... a house renovation with a long way to go and the burning question of how to earn a euro out here..... life is good and I feel very lucky indeed.

A friday night in Central Portugal....

It's middle of November in the Portuguese mountains, what shall we do? I know, let's have a street party! Will anyone turn up? Of course they will! In their millions! Dancing in the street, and eating bbq'd sardines! Oh yeah, and drinking loads of ridiculously cheap alcohol! What a start to the night, now to the bigger 4 day street party!

This picture was taken by our mate Ad last Friday night... being a Mum I was at home in front of the log fire myself ..... !!!

A little piece of heaven.....

We have had a lovely few days with our friends Dawn and Chris who we met in Alvor in January and were sorry to see them go this morning. Really great to see them and Dawn has cooked us wonderful meals the past two evenings too.... ! We look forward to seeing them again in March before they return to the UK...

We were invited into our neighbours adega yesterday afternoon for a glass of port and some of their homemade chorizo, both of which were very good.... I managed to have a much better conversation with him than the last time I was there in May which made me feel a bit more confident. We had to resort to a pen and napkin and a few diagrams to work out a few bits and bobs but got there in the end !!!

Autumn is here and it is a bit windy ad damp at the moment... the jumpers have been dragged out of storage.. ! We have had the wood stove going in the kitchen which feels cosy- perfect backdrop to my pasteis de nata and a fine expresso...... !

Halloween...

Long weekend last week as it was a public holiday....and three days of rain !- we now have the log fires going in the morning and evening although it is still quite warm in the day..

We had a little Halloween party for the kids on the 31st... they carved pumpkins, bobbed apples, made bats and spiders and ate worms..... :o)

Right - off to work at the house now, need to finish building a fence for the goats.. hopefully the posts will go in the ground a little more easily after all that rain !

Olives.....

Well we just returned from the Lagar in Silveirinho having taken our teeny yield of olives (43 kilo's) to be pressed for oil and returned with 5 litres of liquid gold. ! 8.6 Kilos of olives for each litre of oil. What a lot of work for such a tiny amount !! This has been a bad year for olives. The rest of our olives -3 kilo's or so are soaking in brine and will not be ready for a few weeks. I reckon it took us about 15 hours to pick and sort the olives.. although it was hard work I really enjoyed it and have learnt lots - we will be far more prepared next year. I have read that the oil is at its prime for the first 3 months in terms of health benefits ... so today I have tasted freshly pressed oil for the first time ever and it is delicious... now for some salad munching.. or perhaps bread dipping... yum.

Every cloud has a silver lining......

Things are going well so far with the renovation.. the roof is back on and looks lovely, On Monday we had a call to let us know there was a delay of 2 weeks on the order for our new floorboards, an exotic hardwood... and there was no guarantee of them arriving in 2 weeks either... I was adamant we should wait , until we popped in to the workshop to take a look at some alternative samples... and I realised that I didn't actually like the wood I had ordered anyway.(It looked very different when it was wet). OOPs. So we have now ordered some Portuguese pine floorboards which have the added bonus of being half the price of the others. Phew.
Moral of the story ? Try not to make rush decisions - and pray for a cloud with a silver lining to bail you out when you have made a cock up.

The joists are now going back in as I write and I look forward to having an upstairs again. :O)

The Portuguese really are plain lovely.

I am so loving everything Portuguese today..... bit of a shock this morning to find it was only 4 degrees (brrrrrr) and we had to clear the windscreen before Lee could drop the kids up to the School bus.... weirdly it got to 32 degrees by lunchtime and I managed to get mild sunburn on the back of my neck whilst gardening ! we have been out all day tackling giant brambles and overgrown chaos and it is beginning to take shape.
This afternoon when I collected Sienna from the bus her lovely chaperone lady presented me with a lovely marmelade in a gift bag that she had made for Sienna .... I was so chuffed... how lovely ! she told me if we like it she will bring us some more. The Portuguese are so generous with gifts of produce, you pop into the local shop for juice and get given grapes from their vines... and the neighbours often pop down with bags of fruit, green beans eggs etc.. sometimes we find bags of things hanging at the front of the house and have no idea which lovely neighbour has left them there to be able to thank them ! Our veg patch went horribly wrong when I switched the irrigation system off and totally forgot to switch it back on ... oops. I need to think of some suitable wares to offer back as way of thanks to these guys..... what lovely people :o)

Just stuff really.....

Things are feeling a bit more settled here the last few weeks, the kids are settling into the routine of School again and are now happy to go. Tashan has been offered an extra session of one to one Portuguese tuition (much appreciated and needed) which is great as it saved me begging !and Sienna is picking up the language well with enthusiasm so far... she has lots of basics and can count one - 10 etc. She has a long day - she gets the bus (there is a lovely lady chaperone) at 8:10 and returns home at 4:10... not quite as long as Tashan's day of course. I am really proud of them as I know it is tough being the only English speaking child in their Schools.... but they are both doing well.
Our renovation is making progress too... the roof is now back on and complete and looks gorgeous. I am so pleased with it. We now have the plans for our new kitchen too which is being made by George Robinson Kitchens in Cornwall.... I am so excited about having a new lovely kitchen ... I cannot wait.
My hands are covered in blisters and hurt like crazy after lots of manual work over at the house... but I amfeeling really motivated and enjoying it at the moment. Lee and I have been out in the garden all day today erecting a fence to keep (we hope) the goats and chickens in and some local stray dogs out. Yesterday a pack of 6/7 stray dogs ran into our garden and tried to attack our goats. Thankfully our neighbours spotted them and zoomed down the hill to throw rocks and scare them off. The dogs are a bit of a pain putting it mildly. Poor goats.... I am really hoping that either one or both of them may be pregnant ..I might just be wishful thinking, but they are looking a little chunky. Fingers crossed.
Oh and the best news ever ? My Sister and niece Laila are flying to Lisbon from Sydney next month to stay with us for 6 weeks..... I have not seen her for over a year now and miss her so much it hurts.... It has given me a real burst of energy.... SO EXCITED ... :)

Mortagua rally....

We visited the Mortagua rally this weekend.... I'm not particularly interested in cars so the event on Saturday night wasnt really my bag....I was more interested in talking peoples ears off than watching cars... ;O)

On Sunday morning they all raced past Mickaellas house which was much more fun - we had a great view from the communal wash house roof at the end of her garden. The weather was gorgeous so we were able to have a lovely meal together in the garden too.... not bad for half way through October...!!. may the sun continue to shine for our visitors this weekend !

Weather obsessed....

I am always being asked about the weather here and find myself checking the temperature during the day and night ritually ... every day. Perhaps that is a British thing ? who knows. I guess that as it is our first year here, every month is new to us and we are learning when the various crops / fruit are ready.. when the flies are unbearable (September) and so on. Well the rain came last Sunday and we have had lots of rain his week... 5 out of 7 days I think.. the ground certainly needed it having had none for so many months and I am happy to have a break from watering the garden !!! It is 20 degrees today... coolest day this week and go's down to about 15 at night. It is predicted to be dry, sunny and mid 20's for the next 9 days, so fingers crossed our roof will be finished next week. I am curious to see what the weather will be like here for Christmas !

Aveiro and Costa Nova beach..

This is Costa Nova, just outside of Aveiro - approx 1 hour from us. We love the beach up there as it is big, unspoilt and beautiful with great surf. There is a good selection of local restaurants and some trendy beach bars where you can lounge and chill out. The pretty beachlined street is lined with gorgeous candy striped houses and palms. Although this is not our nearest beach it is certainly our favorite so far although we have lots more to find.. ! We found this summer that as long as we avoided the weekends it was really easy to park right next to the sand.

We ventured into Aveiro itself once and I can't wait to go back and spend some time photographing some of the incredible tiled pavements up there..... I was very impressed with the Aveiro Forum there too... would love to do some shopping up there ;o)

Carnage......

Well, an interesting weekend with a mixed bag of carnage... !!! we went over to Ad and Lisa's on Saturday to celebrate her Dads 60th birthday along with Mickaella's (I think it was her 21st)....

So we all got together a 70's buffet and had a lovely day.... we went on to celebrate at Paulinho's in Mortagua having tucked all the kids away in bed...

Had a very funny evening and stayed out way past my curfew.... all getting rather drunk and doing our best to mix with the local lads and speak Portuguese... ! - anyhow we stopped out overnight, then woke up to rain which was odd after so long without it and arrived home at 2pm the following day to total carnage... it looked like some kind of mini tornado had been through..... chairs had blown off the roof.... shutters ripped off their hinges, tables on their sides.... half of the roof on Ades balcony had blown off and was scattered across the lane and terrace.... then the icing on the cake.... one of the toilet windows had blown in, coming totally off its hinges and smashed the toilet cistern off on its way down to the floor... the water had spread out of the en suite and across the bedroom floor to the doorway by the time we arrived back.... just what you need when you have a hangover huh ?! I would like to lie and say I was cool calm and collected...... but I totally lost the plot and got hysterical for a few minutes..... then Lee cut the water supply off and the smashed cistern fell down and sliced through his thumb.... oh happy days. Anyhow it looked much better once we had cleaned it all up -ooh then we noticed that our peach tree had blown over and was no longer.... :o( The following day it was 27 degrees and beautiful. Ho hum !!

Hello..... is there anybody out there ??

Or am I talking to myself again ??? !

Cruz Alta

On Tuesday we took a trip to Luso with Lee's Grandparents and drove up to Cruz Alta to check out the view. WOW.
We didnt make it up to the viewpoint when we were there earlier in the year with the camper in Luso as we were cycling with the kids and it is 6 k up from the Bucaco Palace. 2 hopes.
Anyhow when you reach the top the views are breathtaking. I took photographs but they would not do it justice. This is one you have to see for yourself to appreciate. This giant mosaic cross is mounted on stone steps - presenting an even greater view.... Lee thought he would check out the view from the top of the cross..... no he never made it !
There was a chap sitting at the base of this cross with his ipod plugged in, having cycled to the top having some serious time out - then we arrived. Note the blue sky and shorts..... it is almost October !!!

September.....

Well this September weather has been pretty

gorgeous so we have been able to take our

visiting family to the beach and river beach

for days out..... its a hard life ! :o) It is grey

today but we are still having the odd high of 44..

Goatlings....

These are our new amiga's who joined us about 3 weeks ago.... they still have no names !! I want to call the brown one Denver and the white one Scout but nobody likes my name choices..... we tether one goat at a time and the other gets to roam free..only they stay with each other all day... they are very lovely and are beginning to trust us now. Tonight they went back into the barn without leads.. they just followed us in.... I have really enjoyed watching the white one run and skip / jump in the air today.. very cute.

Poor neglected blog ;o)

Oops.. it has been a while..... have had a busy Summer, fantastic weather, blue skies... good food. Festa's, beaches, family visiting, 2 new goats (very cute, with no names as yet), now living next door, house sitting for 6 months.. kids still on Summer holidays :oS... Lots of forest fires..It has begun to cool down a little now - it even rained today! We had a bit last Tuesday along with a thunder storm but prior to that it had not rained in months. Last Monday was HOT here 44.8 degrees.... thankfully we were by the sea for the day. Downside ? flys.

Anyhow.... I need my bed now ! I'll be back !

Wild fires....

Northern and Central Portugal have been struggling to deal with numerous wildfires the last three days and smoke has been visible all day here... this photo was taken at about 20:30 this evening from the roof.... I can smell it but it is several km away ..... now it is dark the sky is glowing orange... blimey. I do pray nobody gets hurt.

2 hours ago a helicopter flew over us carring a huge 'bucket' of water scooped from the dam... weirdly it looked like a bucket of smoke.... !

I had a look on the online news and there is an article posted 9 hours ago saying that Italy have lent Portugal two water bomber planes and Spain have already sent aircraft - to assist the authorities in containing the fires.

Hopefully it will be out tomorrow and the blue skys will return...

Along with my boys ;O)

I am praying that they are feeling better having taken travelsickness tablets for the return ferry as they were hugging toilets on the way there..... oh blimey we have had a power cut and my fridge sounds like it is about to take off now it has come back on...... aaRgH.

I'm outta here......... !!

melTiNg........

I have been busy melting today.. and have jumped into two different pools with my clothes on - the first whilst fully clothed, much to Sienna's amusement!. It was 39 degrees earlier and is currently 35. Pretty warm for 9pm.... I guess it will take a bit of getting used to. I spoke with Lee earlier who told me it was raining in Bampton. I closed my eyes and thought how good cool raindrops would feel... I think I would have been so excited I could have done a rain dance in the garden in my pants ! and that would have been a shocking sight for the locals!! Poor Armandio already thinks I have lost the plot having seen me talking to my computer the other night -(Skype), - he almost drove his tractor into the wall..! Still, I never imagined I would wish for rain !!

Well Lee and Tashan have been gone 2 weeks tomorrow - they return to Spain with a trailer of our gear on Thursday and I cannot wait to see them.. and Heinz baked beans...and oxo cubes...

I have had a good chill out with Sienna .. making things, painting, park, pools, etc but I look forward to us all being back together again. I have been very lucky in having such fantastic neighbours to share lunch / dinner with - go shopping with etc as with no driving licence I would have been a bit stuck...

I had an email from our Architect, this morning to say that he has finished the drawings of our house... I am really looking forward to seeing them, impatient as ever to get started with the rebuild..

The pup above is one of three who are living in a drain up the road from us. Nobody seems to own his Mother. Maria tells me there were 10 pups to begin with but the others have died. Maria coaxed this little guy out of the drain with chocolate biscuits and brought him down to our house where he had a well needed bath and Spag Bol for dinner.... I almost caved in as he is so affectionate and sweet but resisted the temptation (and begging from Maria) and took him home. There are so many dogs and cats here - sometimes at night it is like being near Battersea dogs home as the howls travel from village to village.. then the peacock kicks off and I wish I had an air rifle...!

I spotted the butterfly this morning on the gorgeous tree over our entrance... so beautiful... I really do love butterflies - they remind me of happy times as a child.

I am reliably informed that it is set to get hotter the next few days with the temperature peaking on Sunday.... so I plan to check out a new beach... maybe Mira or back to Tocha. I want to make sure I am near cold water either way... what a bummer my legs are looking like pepperoni pizza thanks to my many mosquito friends....

hey ho.... ;O)

Coimbra..

Sienna and I spent the day with Caroline and Evie on Thursday and Caroline showed us around parts of the old City..... Previously every trip I have made to Coimbra has been for Bowling/Mondego Retail

Park/Forum etc.... and I now really regret not exploring before..... I cannot wait to show Lee and Tashan around when they come home.... ! It is stunning. I loved the cobbled streets and mix of elegant / shabby chic townhouses , restaraunts and shops...

The archway above is the old entrance to the City... We had a meal in a rustic little place tucked away down an alley that I will struggle to ever find again... ! I look forward to checking out the Italian place on the riverside which Ade and Caroline have recomended... That is Evie above helping me finish off my expresso !

Sienna did her young Mum impression pushing Evie along whilst wearing a tiara she persuaded me to buy her.... I cant wait to go back....

Vimieiro river beach...

This photo does the place no justice at all... I spent the day here last Sunday with Ade, Caroline, Evie, Marcus Mickaella, Luca, Elsie and M&Ms buddy Grant. This picture was taken from the shaded bank where there is a long row of picnic benches, several BBQ's and a restaraunt. Most people seemed to have brought or were cooking their own food ..like us... There were families and couples and guys playing dominoes....

Either side of the picnic benches are tall trees in a row either side.... someone had a plan many years ago and it it lovely. So this is my Portuguese Tarr steps... (my favorite place in the UK on Exmoor). you can walk across the shallow water on the bridge and swim.. this is fed from the River Mondego.... so it is chilled!

I would have got some better shots but it was not safe to carry my camera whilst drinking Cerveja and plotting water fights... so next time...... !

Childrens Park, Travanca Do Mondego.

So this is the Park at Travanca Do Mondego, small but beautifully formed ! It has a play area with swings , slide etc... a toilet block, drinking water fountains, basketball net, running water, BBQ area with sinks for washing up ! and a ton of shaded seating under the olive trees. I think it is less than a year old.....

It is a great space.