Sunshine, goats, chickens and pigs ........... our neighbours !!!!!

The joys of spring are definitely upon us now, the fields are full of wild flowers, the sun is shining from dawn till dusk and temperatures are hitting low 20's and it feels like absolute bliss .... (although I'm not foolish enough to think it is here till the summer sets in, as I'm sure there will be more cloud, cooler days and rain to fall the before summer!) Anyway the goats are out grazing, the familiar sound of petrol strimmers and chainsaws humming away, small fires burning spent branches from the pruning of trees and tractors buzzing up and down the lane, the fruit trees bursting out with blossom are all signs that spring is here and nows the time to be cleaning and tidying up in the garden and planting out ready for harvesting our crops in the summer.

For the first time ever I am attempting to grow potatoes. We bought a sack of seed potatoes (white potatoes) and at the moment they are spread out on the cellar floor waiting for them to sprout. My Portuguese friend Filomena gave me some of her seed potatoes (red potatoes) which had already sprouted and has shown me how to plant up these seed by cutting the potatoes and placing the sliced potatoe with its tuber on end upwards then covering with soil, spaced out in rows so hopefully, fingers crossed and the weather helps me out, we are looking forward to producing our own delicious spuds! Red potatoes seem to be more commonly grown here and Filomena assures me they grow better here than white ones.

I called on my friend Filomena yesterday and she took me to see her goats as one had given birth 4 hours earlier and another one born the previous day. Ah soooo cute, the new born was having a little play around and happily sucking away at his mother's milk.

Newborn just four hours old and the darker one a day old

Update on the loft conversion ......................

The dreaded loft conversion project is continuing at a steady pace for various reasons, mainly difficulty at times in sourcing materials, and now Rob is having problems with his elbows which is the result of mixing up around 130 buckets of sand and cement then climbing 3 lots of stairs to render the walls and to his great sorrow is only half-way through completing the task!

All three rooms now have the roof insulation and either plasterboard or pine cladding fitted to the roof.
We then painted the cladding and plastered the plasterboard ready for stippling and painting. At this stage we decided to concentrate on completing the first bedroom as this was the only room where the walls had been rendered (apart from above the window which was finished off when the window was fitted). We had a new double glazed window with shutters fitted on the outside once the hole where the previous blinds had been bricked up the room started to take shape. Pictures showing the old and the new -much more pleasing on the eye!
Bedroom 1

More pics from different angles:-

So in bedroom 1 the ceiling and walls have now been plastered, stippled and painted. The floor has been tiled and we are now just awaiting some skirting board to be made (a more difficult task than you would normally expect to achieve as carpenters here seem rather difficult to pin down!). We ordered some wood to make door frames (from a local carpenter) but after waiting and waiting we gave up and went down a different route and finally achieved it ourselves by using MDF purchased from the DIY shop!!!! So once we have the skirting board and on site it will be fitted and painted and then we can finally hang a door and the result will be "FIRST BEDROOM FINISHED" !!!!!!!!!!!

Fishery filling up .......

Firstly, we wish all our readers a Very Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year !

On the weather front we have had a rainy start to the new year, which on the one hand we are pleased to see the fishery filling with up water, but on the other hand, feel downhearted as we don't like rain and more rain !!!!!!!!!!!! Although after watching the news reports from the U.K. our sympathies do go out to all those who have been heavily affected and have suffered greatly with the floods and so all in all we shouldn't be complaining about the rain here.


The fishery is filling up quite nicely but we are not expecting it to retain the water, we knew it was a bit of a "long shot" but no-one could tell us for sure whether the water would hold or not, so it was a case of letting nature take its course and then making a decision on how to deal with it at a later stage. The terrain has a mixture of soil, clay and stone but unfortunately we don't have the necessary equipment for tamping the earth down to form a hard surface. Other solutions to it are either to line it with plastic or concreting the base and sides. The obvious permanent solution is to concrete, so that is most likely the way we will decide to go.

These two pictures were taken on the 2nd January 2014

This picture was taken on the 4th January 2014

The Loft Conversion has commenced !!!!!!!!!!!!

Now we have completed the floor we live on the time has come to bring new life into the loft and I (Caz) must say that this is one project I was not particularly going to enjoy the challenge of doing - "endure" me thinks is a more appropriate word!!!The entrance to the loft is from the hallway on the main living floor with the staircase already in place we will be creating two bedrooms with a lounge and shower room. The loft has been crying out to be insulated both for keeping the heat out in the summer and the cold out during the winter.

Rob was full of enthusiasm for this project and so we commenced the arduous task about a month ago and, can now say, that at after a month at it, and at this particular moment in time, after a gruelling week for Rob (doing his dreaded "electrical side of things") and now onto some intricate and fiddling ceiling cladding, his sense of humour has now almost diminished and the air is mostly blue and I am just pleased that most of our neighbors do not speak English (although I guess they can imagine just from his tone) that his patience is wearing thin!!!!

Firstly it was a trip into town for certain materials and several deliveries from our local builder's merchant and wood merchant for plasterboard, wood, insulation, etc., etc., Then the fun started to commence and, to be fair, it didn't seem too bad. Just tedious!!!!!! Cutting polystyrene insulation to size and fitting between the beams, sawing wood to fit batons, measuring, cutting plasterboard, passing screws, drilling holes, treating timber, plastering, filling up holes, sweeping up, and sweeping up again and again, and that's just to mention a few of the tedious jobs and then, of course, being up against it as all the original timber beams, walls, floors, etc., are never square or equal !!!!!!!

!!!!!
A couple of pics here showing how the loft looked originally. The previous owners never had it finished off sadly!

A few pics showing the progress :- Bedroom 2 has pine timber cladding to the roof and 2 walls plasterboarded, the other two walls will be rendered and stipled and painted.

Bedroom 1 below has plasterboard cladding with the outer wall being stipled and painted and a new double glazed window will be fitted later :-

Veggie Delights

Really relishing our home-grown veggies at the moment - even though we are novices at veggie growing, I am pleased and proud to say that we haven't done badly at all this year with our produce. We had an abundance of tomatoes from six plants and even after munching our way through fresh ones all summer I have even managed to chop and freeze probably about 15 - 20 kilos for winter curries and chillis, etc. Unfortunately our onion stock is very low now but I have put in about 60 and have room to plant some more and keeping fingers crossed I am as successful with these as the last crop. Red peppers and hot chilli peppers are still coming strong and today we had a chicken dinner with a plateful of roasted parsnips, red peppers, peas and a cauliflower and leek bake with cheese sauce all picked today fresh from the garden (except the peas which had been frozen earlier in the year).

How satisfying to enjoy the real flavours of these home-grown veggies, the taste is way superior to supermarket veggies which have been picked and stored for heaven knows how long - it is so worth the effort to plant, weed and harvest !!!!!!!!

My first ever home-grown cauliflower - well chuffed !!!!!

Butternut squash, chilli peppers, cauliflowers, parsnips, leeks, red peppers, beetroot

And to top it this week we have had some glorious days with full sunshine and temperatures reaching 22 degrees and no wind. Perfect to be weeding and reaping !!!!!!!!!!!

AT LONG LAST - FISHING HEAVEN !!!!!!!!

Hi everyone,

The old saying "good things come to those who wait" - has at long last well and truly come good! It has been a struggle for me to acquire information on local venues for my type of fishing, partly because there doesn't to be many anglers around on a more professional basis but I have now located and have become a member with the fishing club through the internet in Castelo Branco. A couple of the anglers in the Club have put me onto venues which are paying rich dividends. Two venues are within 30 minutes drive from where we live and are absolutely exceptional. They are more like the venues I am used to back in the U.K. i.e. good car access enabling parking behind the pegs and concrete platforms to fish from.

Fishing competitions are held regularly at these two venues which makes me a very happy chappy for the forthcoming season. As I have said before I am only willing to disclose the locations to my personal friends as it has taken a tremendous amount of groundwork to discover these places.

Here are a few pictures of my last visit where I caught 18 carp, 1 crucian carp and 4 barbel, the carp ran upto 8 kilos (17 lbs) which is great "fun on the pole" and requires a lot of skill to land these naturally bred wild fighting carp!! In total I caught around 60+ kilos (around 130 lbs) of fish.

End of the Saga Bathroom !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Finally the bathroom is finished (although it sounds a bit daft really calling it a bathroom as there is no bath in it!!!), I can't seem to call it the wet or shower room!!!!. We decided to do away with the bath and the bidet to make room for a toilet, (the toilet used to be in a room next to the bathroom with the electric water heater) a sink basin vanity unit and a double shower. The walls are now all fully tiled and, bearing in mind none of the walls are square, it seemed to be a never-ending task. However, Rob's tiling skills have come shining through and he has done us a brilliant job !!! It hasn't been an easy job, as we have told you about some of the grief we have endured in an earlier post, but we are extremely pleased with ourselves with the result.

A photo just to remind you of the old "bathroom" and some of the new bathroom. It's difficult to photograph the room but we have done our best to show you what we have achieved.

Lovely ....................