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,

Wednesday 2 February 2011

Sunshine & Frost...Our Weather...

Well we are so glad that we (Rick) actually made the effort to build a framework (plastic & wood) and fill in the door and bottom of the stairs... its made a huge difference to the warmth factor in the house... and boy do we need it at night the last week or so... During the day its gorgeous, after about 10.30 am... and in the sun. But before that, and after the sun goes down at night... our temps are plummiting.. we've had huge heavy frosts now for over a week. Its not unusual, Jan and Feb are normally the worst of our winter months, by the end of Feb we can expect it to start warming up... and getting a little more of the wet stuff coming too... its been very dry lately , the one day of showers we had last week was actually very welcome, my cabbage was really suffering from the lack of water..
We have to go into the forest again now and collect as much wood for fires as possible, we are using it all day ourselves and now we have guests coming today too. Plus a few good bookings on the way for Feb... so we'll need tons to keep guests warm. Generally they come from the UK and are used to central heating, double glazing, carpets... etc... the idea of putting on an extra jumper doesnt occur to most people. They expect to be able to walk around inside houses with short sleeve teeshirts and be warm enough... Personally I think its crazy. Its winter... wear a jumper... wear an extra one if your still cold! Move around...! Heheheheh but hey thats me... I tend to wear most of the clothes I own all at one time during winter... Rick thinks I lose weight during spring every year... No I just shed several layers of clothing over the space of a few weeks...
Its lovely to have the sun though, it cheers the spirits, and at least we can get on with the huge list of jobs to be done before summer...
Its annoying when its pouring with rain and we have to stay inside lazing around when there is so much to be done.