IT'S BEEN A WHILE .........

Firstly apologies to all our followers for being a little neglectful regarding new posts,it's been a rather hectic couple of months but, this time in the best of ways, as we have had family here from the UK, which was, of course, lovely and also the Festas have kicked in with our village's Cherry Festival being one of the first and then they go on and on.
The weather has been fantastic this year with cloudless hot sunny days from the beginning of March with perhaps maybe only a week's worth of dodgy weather in the last twelve weeks.
Anyway, now on to the topic of this post which is all about fishing - sorry folks!!!
I have started to fish the competitions here in Portugal now as I was a very keen match angler in the UK for well over 25 years, and the returns have been excellent so far.
I have fished 8 competitions up to date and have won money on six of them with 2 first places 2 second places a third and a fourth place winning between 40 and 80 euros per match, around 250 euros so far, which considering it's my first full season of fishing here, to say I am over the moon, is a big understatement!!!!
My best weight so far was 51 lbs but as the weather keeps getting hotter the weights will get bigger as the carp here eat copious amounts of bait mainly trigo and sweetcorn, but I am having successes with luncheon meat too.
The match anglers in my club at Castelo Branco are amongst the the friendliest I have come across, and Antonio who runs the matches is a very accomplished angler having represented both Benfica and Portugal in the fishing world, so there is always more I can learn, never one to rest on my laurels, you can never know enough information regarding competitive fishing and local knowledge is a must. I am always picking their brains, but alas they, like me, will never reveal winning methods!!!!
We are getting good average attendances with around 22 anglers per match, so you need to be on the ball in regards to competing.
Finally, now I have bored you all to death, well those of you who have no interest in fishing, here are few pics of the last few encounters:-

Rob and his friend "Bob"

Enjoying the BBQ lunch after the match !!!!

Garden Fish Pond

You may remember we put a post on May last year when we began the groundwork and foundations for the garden pond and then in July we did an update on our progress. We decided to put that project on the back-burner until the following Spring (now) so during a spell of lovely weather in March we took to the spade and started to dig out the earth. Shovel after shovel of soil began piling up which was useful as we needed to fill up some veggie beds and use on the back garden for a new border bed. Once the earth was dug out and tamped down we had a delivery of sand and began to line the pond with sand before fitting the butyl pond liner. Rob had previously installed the electric wiring and cables to fit the pump for the pond and the filter which sits inside the garden shed so it was a matter of connecting them up once the pond was filled with water (my favourite part!)

With the pond filled it was then onto finishing the cladding of the stone over the pond liner to seal it. Rob built a waterfall from concrete blocks and used the stone to clad it.
Some pictures showing the build stages of the pond:-

Rob has began entering fishing competitions and has won 2 of them! One on the matches he fished we were allowed to bring some small fish back for our pond. The main fishing season is closed at the moment but in May when my brother comes to visit they will go and catch other fish to add to the pond. And that makes Rob a happy chappy !!!!

Enjoying the garden

Last month on the 20th March we had our first BBQ of the year. We invited our friends and enjoyed the spring sunshine with a well earned "day off" and soaked up a few rays!

This time of the year I think the flowers are at their best. Mostly in other people's gardens though as ours isn't established yet. There are many fields displaying splendid shows of cherry and other fruit blossoms. Also lots of colourful shrubs, and garden flowers which are unknown to me. I am still learning which plants do well here as I have had to learn the hard way by finding out that some flowers I used to grow back in the UK just get burnt to death in the heat of the summer! Keeping them well watered is a major task in the summer and a lot of flowers just cannot tolerate the heat.

On the more productive side we are harvesting onions planted last October with another batch to harvest later which were planted in January, and very soon the next lot will be planted. We use lots onions either fresh or for cooking so I am trying to keep a succession of plants always in the garden, as thankfully this is one plant which will grow all year round here. Last month we planted a full bed of seed potatoes and this last week they are sprutting like mad! It is our first attempt at potatoes so fingers crossed we are successful. Garden peas are now planted, they don't seem to be growing as quickly as last year but they are up and on their way. Last week-end (5th April) we planted tomatoes and sweet peppers and in the small greenhouse we have courgettes and french beans waiting to be planted out. I know I am doing well with my onions as I can proudly say that when our locals pass by they always comment on my "grande cebolas" - big onions !!! Drying this batch out to use soon:-

Back Garden Sorted !!!!

Finally we have got round to "sorting out" the back garden. Last year we put in a flower border but left the rest to die off after applying weed killer and strimming.

This year we decided to put down weed suppressor and then lay gravel on top as it is such a huge job to kill off the 2 ft tall weeds and strim it all down after the winter on a yearly basis. The heat kills off the weeds and the ground goes hard if you leave it but it's not really a pretty sight so we decided to get some grunt work done and deal with it! Under the back garden we have a "fossa" which is a soak-away where the sewage and water runs in to and "just in case" we ever have any problems with it, it's advisable not to lay a hard surface on it and so gravel seemed to be the best way to go.
After the weeds had been killed off and strimmed.

Last week we had a full week of incessant rain (well it seemed like it) and then it turned 3 days ago (6th April) and we have been enjoying temperatures of 25/27 degrees and so we have put 2 sun-loungers there and have taken full advantage of an afternoon and sat with a beer, crossword puzzle book and sat back and enjoyed the view!

I am in the process of germinating some flowers and will be putting some plants in and adding a few potted up planters to pretty the back garden up. We also have to buy new garden furniture as we lost 2 tables and a chair after they went flying off the veranda ending up in various parts of the garden after ferocious winds last February.

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