OUR LATEST ACQUISITION!!!!!..

Hi all we found this little cutie on the way down to our allotment,it works better than the wheelbarrow and we don't need to make as many trips now! We also seem to have adopted a lost racing pigeon, it has been in our garden now for three days and doesn't seem to want to leave .

Hope we don't make you all jealous with this but we are now into our third week in a row with endless sunshine and clear blue skies and temperatures averaging around 80degrees, Wonderful. Alas, though we are only really enjoying it of an evening as work is priority at the moment and we have our hands full painting and stone cladding the exterior of the house, it does look awesomely different now though and we are over the moon with how it's turning out. Hopefully it should be fully completed in about another four weeks time. . It's a funny old world ain't it sometimes, glorious sunshine and new sunloungers but sadly no time to try em out!!!!!!!. As it is cherry season, not only have I been busy eating them by the handfuls, I have, for the first time ever, made some cherry jam and a cherry crumble is to be made tomorrow to be tried and tested by our neighbours who we have invited to our BBQ tomorrow night . Cant wait to try the jam it looks so delicious! Anyway that is all for today hope you like the pics and we will update again shortly.

Our little cutie .....

Sorry no blogs, we have been away .......

Hi folks, We are now back at home and ready to resume where we left off!!! We have been back to the U.K. to pick up a V.I.P (my mother) to be our first guest in our new home. After a well deserved little holiday and the pleasure of showing mum around and looking after her (unfortunately we picked up a chest infections but now on the mend) we have decided to spend the summer months outside where we can concentrate on painting the exterior of the house and getting the garden into some kind of order!!! The guest bedroom was completed on time, and is just lacking a few soft furnishings and pictures, etc., to finish it off. On our way back from Faro we stopped off at a huge store to pick up some items as locally we don't have as much choice, so took advantage of being in that area and will be putting the drill to some use now to display the new fittings. Here is a photo of the guest room and hopefully will soon be posting pictures on the progress of our exterior restoration. The weather is excellent, full sun and hot so we will be able to crack on with our work.

Whilst back in the U.K. we sadly missed our village's annual Cherry Festival (our village is famous for its cherry trees) but we are enjoying eating the cherries being given to us by our friends. On our first evening back we strolled down to our village cafe bar and was invited back to a friend's wine cellar where we enjoyed eating bread and cheese and drinking some lovely home-made red wine, had a jolly sing-song with a couple of friends playing an accorddian and mouthorgan (they do a version of rapping between each other! which is always a laugh) and that was before we had dinner at home!!!!

Bits and Bobs, odds and sods ............

Bit of an odd week, doing little jobs which have been put to one side until now, have been working in garden, strimming, pruning our very large orange and lemon tree which is quite close to the house and although it still bears a lot of fruit the new blossom is flowering and the bees are well humming, planting flowers and carrying on building "Rob's great wall of Portugal". Our first guest bedroom is now finished, apart from a few soft furnishings and wall decorations, etc., photos will be posted soon. We have laminated the floor in a rustic colour and have chosen a warm pink and cherry theme colour for decor (which is in-keeping with the local traditional style in this area) but have put our own stamp of modernism at the same time (sadly Ikea). Rob broke off walling to watch what appeared to be 2 queen bees having a right set to over territorial rights, they were having a mega go at each other!!! (I think what he meant was he was having a "fag break"!!!!!). Due to the unseasonal weather we are having at the moment, i.e. cloudy, a few sunny spells and rain showers, sometimes heavy (similar to the U.K.) it is colder and we are needing to light the log fire to keep warm in an evening which means we will soon be having to replenish our log supply!!!!! A couple of photos of a local river beach we took on the way to Castelo Branco (our nearest big town) and a more

recent picture of Rob's wall.