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 !!