About Me

We moved out to Portugal to live a frugal but better , simpler and peaceful life, our house is a very basic, semi ruin, up in the hills outside Figueiro Dos Vinhos, where we work our land, enjoy life with each other and our dogs, and hope to make the smallest carbon footprint we can,

Saturday 19 March 2011

Lots about everything...

Strange name for a posting I know, but It feels so long since Ive updated this blog properly there is tons to say about all kinds of things.
Firstly, a couple ofweeks ago we had Carnaval here and although the austerity measures are hitting everywhere, and we didnt have Carnaval lights at all, the actual day itself was great, lots of floats and parades and marching bands, silly stuff and generally everone having a great fun time. There should be a few pictures hereabouts somewhere, . It was sunny and bright but quite chilly and breezy. But there was a really good turn out.

We've had a helper the last couple of weeks, although he's not been a problem, and has worked reasonably well, it has hardened our resolution to not have so many this year, and to just get help for specific projects, we find it quite hard having people spending so much time in the house, not the social side of it so much but having to be so regimented about day to day life, these young people come and expect reasonable order, regular  meals and even days out etc... we find that hard, we start a project or a job and work till its done, if that means we miss lunch or just have bread and jam then it doesnt matter... but when you have someone expecting a decent meal... it does matter... and we found that hard. There is so much for me to be doing outside at the moment, but I found myself inside cooking a lot more than I wanted to... and if we weighed it up, the amount of work that actually got done was maybe less than normal... as I was doing so little and the helper working a few hours a day didnt make up for that... so all in all its defined our thinking on helpers ...
Im so much fitter this year, my knee problem is more or less healed now, so I feel I can cope with the work better myself now...
But Rick and Simon did get stuff done, my seed house they made from scrap forest wood and plastic bags is up and running and planted up with two trays of Petunias, hopefully to make sure I dont have to pay to ´pretty up´ the cottage area this year, plus tons of different types of squash, butternuts, big and small, big pumpkins, acorn squash courgettes, melons ... loads of stuff! Oh and Okra, Ive never managed to germinate Okra so I have high hopes now...
Again should be a couple of piccys here of the wonderful creation.

We received some great news the other day, my son Jordan has finally qualified as a fully fledged mechanic, after a huge set back and having to leave his first garage  nine months into his first year of training, then javing to wait another year after that to find another placement, he's finally passed his third yearexams and qualified. Im so damn proud of him for sticking it out and working so hard to make it happen... and all by him self too as we left just as he started...





Well, we are off to start the next phase of planting, carrots, peas, beets and tons of herbs...