Festivities over ........ Back at work !!!!!!!!

Hi everyone, both myself and Rob would like to wish all our readers "A Happy and Healthy New Year". This has been our first Christmas in Portugal so was a little unsure how the Portuguese celebrate the festive season. The build-up was very low-key, Shopping Centres were nicely decorated but there didn't appear to be any of the "shopping madness" that everyone suffers with (and endures) like back in the U.K.!!!

Here Christmas Eve is celebrated more than Christmas Day. The day begins with the men out on their tractors gathering tree stumps to make bonfires which they light about 9pm in the evening. In our village we had 3 bonfires in various places and it is usual for people to walk round to each other's bonfires and have a celebratory drink or some food cooked on the bonfire. Dinner is mostly eaten (about 8 o'clock) and usually the meal will traditionally be bacalhau (the cod fish meal) with potatoes and cabbage. We walked down to our local bar and ended up going into the Church as the bar was empty and the Church was full to watch the service. It was very different to a typical Church of England service with Carols, etc., (the Portuguese are mainly Catholic) members of the local community took part in the service, remembering their loved ones who are no longer with them. After the service it was straight into the bar and people gathered around the bonfires. We then went on to the bonfire at the bottom of our lane and was immediately invited to various wine cellars!

Chocolates and nibbles were being handed out and then food was being cooked on the fire! We gave up about 3 am and went to bed and left them to their cooking!!!!

Christmas Day was spent with our lovely friends Luisa and John, Andrea (Luisa's daughter) and Julie and Barry (not forgetting the lovely woof woof Lucy). Luisa cooked us a lovely dinner followed by 6 different deserts!!!! Home-made Christmas Pudding and mince pies with custard and I was "in pudding heaven", not to mention her famous cheesecakes and how lucky was I to be loaded up with lots of cake and puddings to go home with!!!!!

For the New Year's Eve celebrations we were invited to our Poruguese friends' house where we were treated to a feast of king prawns,dressed crab and lots of other party food and plenty of vinho!!!! We counted down the minutes to the New Year with our friends and later on went to the all night Dance Party in the village community centre, organised and run by the young people of the village, and then staggered back home at 4.30 am !!!!!! Needless to say New Year's Day was spent on the couch feeling pretty dam rough!!!!!!!

Joal, Mum, Filipa, Pedro, Carol

Sarah and Bruno, Carol

So Back to Work ................

Just before Christmas we began working in the downstairs bedroom which we shall use in the summer as it will be cooler in there but mainly it will be used for guests. After painting the ceiling and texturing two walls Rob is busy covering two walls with stone and tiling the floor. Our weather has been a mixture of nice sunny days and cloudy and rainy days which has made the job seem more drawn out as we have had to use a heater to dry out the adhesive used on the stone and floor tiles so it has been a slow and drawn out task! However, most of the floor tiles are laid and the majority of stone has been fixed to the wall.

Tomorrow morning will be spent tracking down the guy who sells us the stone (mostly to be found in his local cafe bar) and once we have bought our next load of stone we are devoting the rest of the day to chiselling off the wall tiles in the kitchen. I started doing it yesterday and thought we had "got lucky" as the first few came off easy and then they wouldn't and are now coming off in minute pieces instead of whole tiles which means it is going to be a tedious, frustrating and long drawn-out job!!!!!!!!!!!!

On our next post we shall print photos of the bedroom and update you on our next challenge - the long awaited for kitchen !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!