Where does the time go ....... !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi everyone, apologies to all for viewing blog only to find no new posts!!! The weeks are flying by so quickly its hard to find the time to sit down and when we do its a bit of telly time and sleep!!! Hahahaha!

Anyway to try and keep you up-to-date I am going to cover a few subjects and will post again by the end of the week!!

The garden

The "relaxing" side of our garden is more or less finished now all the paving is complete, pergola finished and planted up, still plants needed for the borders but they will come in time. One part of the border is for herbs and small edible plants and the remainder will be mainly cacti, small shrubs, floor-covering plants etc., easily maintainable plants which hopefully wont need much attention!

The other side of the garden where we have a selection of fruit trees, 3 orange trees, peach, cherry, pear and pommegranate tree will be our veggie garden. Our friends, Jose and Carla have been to rotovate and have started planting up for us. So we now have 40+ cabbage plants and 100 or so lettuces!!! Winter is definitely the best time to get serious about dieting which is on the top of my "list to be doing urgently jobs" but for some unknown reason am unable to achieve it!!!! The growing seasons here are different from the U.K. so I am researching when and what to have a go at planting out now. Will keep you informed as to my progress!! I have been desperate to grow hot chilli peppers here (to use in cooking and make our own hot chilli sauce) as they are very expensive and sometimes hard to buy at the supermarket. The Portuguese favour "piri piri" peppers for their sauce and I am also growing them. I was late getting my seeds to germinate but have been successful in growing them but for the hot peppers and normal peppers I am needing some more sunshine to turn them red! Yesterday (5th October) we had 28 degrees and have had a beautiful week of weather but at this time of the year we are not guaranteed hot sunshine so every day we have one is a bonus for us. Rain is much needed but I'm sure it will be on its way at some point.

The House

The exterior painting of the house is now complete, the third wall had to be done by professionals as the gable end is way too high for us to contemplate painting ourselves. The back of the house we were able to paint ourselves with the help of the scaffolding lent to us by our local builder's merchant, Miguel. This was a "first" for me, climbing up and working on scaffolding and I must confess one thought that went through my mind was (for those ex workmates who know me - "I would rather had been doing a major replan!!!!!) and here is the proof:-

Still to be done is fixing up exterior/security lighting and tiling the veranda but that is for another time!

We have now started decorating the second bedroom but have come to a standstill as we are waiting, not patiently, for the window man to come and fit the double-glazed aluminium windows and shutters which we have ordered to size to fit! Still finding it difficult at times here to have the laid-back approach to getting work done as the Portuguese people!

Our current task in concreting one of the cellar floors. On the ground-floor we have a garage which has already been concreted then a middle section (this is the one we are concreting now) and an Adega which has all the wine brewing equipment but neither of us have the "know-how" of what the hell to do with it! The purpose of concreting the middle floor is to create storage space for the building materials and stuff we are acquiring as it has taken over the garage space.

Pleasure time!!!!!!


This month is also a very busy month for the locals as it is time to pick their grapes and begin their wine making procedure. Although we have a few vines we are just picking them to eat and the locals have so many we can't even give them away. Almost everyone in the village has their own "Adega" (wine cellar) and brew their own. It is absolutely staggering to us just how many quantities they make. We have been told by a local guy that he produces around 20,000 litres of which some he sells on. Others brew it just for themselves, friends and family and amounts between 1,500 - 2,000 litres are usual!!!!!!! They can then proceed to tell us that during the winter months a daily chore is to sit in their adegas and pass the hours away drinking the stuff!!!!! Can't wait!!!!!!

My lovely friend, Filomena (a retired infant teacher), is helping us to learn the language. We have also started taking lessons in Castelo Branco so hopefully we will have a better communication with the locals. Rob is fairly good anyway but I least I can make the locals laugh (at my expense) when we are having a few vinho's in the cafe at my pronounications!!

Filomena bakes her own bread and cakes in her bread oven. I went to watch her baking batches of bread and cakes and was impressed with her skills in lighting the oven, keeping it at the right temperature and producing the most lovely tasty bread and cakes ever!

We had a fabulous day in Lisbon with Filomena and Jose and will blog later in the week.