Denver and Freckles first sleepover....

 After much ado, several months and some terribly bad Portuguese (on my part) with a splash of general confusion mixed in......... the village stud (Chibo) is finally here tonight for a sleepover with Denver and Freckles......

It is truly a daunting task to ask your neighbour for the services of his prized Billy goat to get your girls up the duff - for fear of serious misunderstanding... and sign language is suddenly totally out of the question.    :o{

My Son assures me that I have told my neighbour that a)he is pregnant,  and,  b) ...... I can't tell you because it is just ... very wrong.

But somehow, this evening.... we finally cracked it.

Fingers crossed it is love and we will hear the pitter patter of tiny cabriteeny feet in 4 and a half months...

Cabriteeny....

I LOVE this photograph very, very much.

This little guy was one of three boys born on the 8th Janurary this year, they are tiny and soft and cuddly. Just Gorgeous. My neighbour Maria has five all together - two were born to another Nanny about 10 days before.. one boy and one girl and they look like a right handful, especially the boy who tries to eat my shoes and clothes every time he see's me ! Maria tells me that they are ok to leave their Mum at around 4 months and I have asked her if I can have the little girl - to come and hang out with our other two.

We went to Arganil today with Maria and Fernando her husband. Fernando is ill, he has a bad leg at the moment and can barely walk and he had a hospital appointment today so we took them in. Slightly different experience for me today as we arrived 10 minutes early for the appointment, were seen straight away and were out the door 10 minutes later. Unbelievable. Not quite like my experience of Hospitals in the UK where you need a good book and some comfy slippers for your stay.

So we went off and did some shopping, then went back to their place for coffee and spent some time looking at photographs of their family. Fernando has been ill for 2 months and the poor guy is so fed up. Maria must be finding it so hard to look after everything without his help. I am not really sure what is wrong with his leg - my Portuguese would only stretch to the date /place and time of his appointment. Maria is fantastic at communicating with me, she seems to be able to decipher my poor pronunciation and breaks things down so I can understand - anyway we get by ! and I really enjoyed spending time with them today.

Sienna and Tashan have been chatting to each other in Portuguese tonight - I am so envious !

Sienna is really embarrassed to speak Portuguese in front of us and I only realised last week that she can actually speak whole sentences. She was trying to peruade me that she had to take her two cats to School with her as her friend had asked to see them. I (assuming she was trying her luck) and being irritable said "oh yeah ? and how did she ask you that ?" (you have to imagine my head swaying from side to side for that one).

Sienna : "Eu quero ver dois gatos amanha por favor".

Me : .......(silence) "umm right. Well go on then." -Well that shut me up !

Then tonight I asked her who she was playing with at school today, she met one of the girls Mothers last night in a local shop and I asked her if she had mentioned it to her friend.

Sienna : "she already knew"

Me : " how do you know ?"

Sienna "she said -voce viu a minha mae, and I said - sim"

Me: "Oh right".

So after a little more than three months at school I am asking her to translate for me and she is only four years old. Oh the shame of it.

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.

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.