Too busy to blog !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Firstly we feel we need apologise for the lack of blogs this last couple of months (getting complaints now we are not keeping you up-to-date with our blogs!!!!!) Well, we don't really know where to start this blog as over the summer months so much has happened, its difficult to decide where to start so will just say a bit about what we have been up to.

We have taken time out this summer with a visit back to the U.K. for lots of reasons. We have had two lovely celebrations in the family, one being the birth of my great nephew Max, so adorable and cute I just want to cuddle him all day, and the other the marriage of my lovely neice to her fiance which was a wonderful occasion and so enjoyable to be with all the family and have a great day catching up, eating and drinking plenty and having fun!! What a fabulous day we all had!!!!!!!!

Being in the U.K. also gave us a chance to do some shopping, for lots of lovely, lovely goodies which we cannot attain in Portugal easily (only at an extremely high premium price!!!!!), which is mainly sauces, certain foods, t-bags and cooking ingredients, which although we can adapt to living without, after a lifetime of using these products one tends to crave these things and this was a perfect opportunity to stock up on them!!!!!

Back here in Portugal we are seeing the onset of Autumn. We had our first taste of wet weather after months of glorious back to back sunshine and boy did it rain!!! Almost a full week of incessant rain which has totally transformed the look of our surroundings. In just over a week the terrain has changed from dry, burnt out grasses, to a beautiful carpet of lush green grass with the vines and tree leaves turning beautifully from green to a variety of autumn colours. I am pleased to say now though that the sunshine is back and we are basking in temps of 25/26 degrees and we are loving it. Sadly though the nights are drawing in quickly and it starts to make you thing of the winter months ahead. We should really be making the most of this sunshine instead of grabbing an odd hour pinched whenever possible as no doubt the heat in the sun will soon be fading away. The locals have been busy reaping their harvest of grapes, brewing up gallons and gallons of the red wine and Jeropiga, which is a desert (sweet) liquor made with Aguadente (a national drink - otherwise known as Portuguese fire-water!) and partially fermented red wine and is very nice in small doses (for me anyway!).