So, how lovely is it?

OK we are online. We have a phone, we have internet access.

Been an amazing week here in Portugal. So much done...Planted veg (carrots, beetroot, onions, squash, corn, potatoes, cabbage) mostly bought from the market. Photo to follow in later posts.
Our neighbours are great. American couple, ex US Marine and an artist - they know everyone.
Local bar (social club) is great, like the Farmers Inn before they asked the people to stop swearing in the lounge bar!

Card games taken too seriously here, loud beyond loud. Or so I thought until Port V Benifica on the TV on Sunday. Boy they take their football seriously here. I told the bar boys that Chelsea were the team to beat!

We've been exploring too. The Zezere Rio and Coimbra. The Rio is so wonderful, we spent a great day driving around, eating a picnic by the Rio where the fish were jumping. One thing I have noticed is that they take their amazing countryside for granted. Example - Fantastic view across the Rio from this bar, but the seating area did not take account of this, instead the seating area and bar overlooked the road. Maybe when it is all around you, you just don't need to view it so much!

Coimbra today, hilly (I need to get rid of that half stone weight). A great city, but once you leave the cool air of the mountains you can feel the heat of the day. We ate dinner in the cantine for the Peace and Law faculty. The views from the top of the city, across the Mondago Rio were fantastic.

Tomorrow we'll be clearing the water way channels for the river flow to water our gardens, look out for snakes!

So far so good here, although I'm finding the language difficult, not knowing how to communicate is pretty hard. Hurrah for Peter though, totally relaxed with the way of life and can make himself understood like a native.

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Building our Barrel Vault Wood Fired Oven

This is a short description of my barrel vault build that I have done here in Central Portugal. The final internal size is a 1m squared floor with a arch height of 50cm. I hope you enjoy and get some ideas from it. I wish to thank ukwoodfiredovenforum for their advice and support. • 1: First I dug out a hole in the flower bed, on top of the stone wall, where the oven was to be built • 2: Set up a form to pour in the concrete base • 3: Pour the concrete base, which was about 5-6 inches deep • 4: On top of the base I cast 4-5 inches of LECA (light weight expanded clay balls) mixed with cement to hold it's form • 5: Then I cast a 2-3 inch heat retaining base, to add to the thermal mass, using calcium aluminate cement with large grain sand, as a flat base for the hearth bricks to sit on • 6-8: I then dry laid the hearth bricks on a dry bed of fine sand and clay mixture, with th...

Read the signs

In 2009/10 there was a brief outcry in the UK about the amount of unnecessary road signs on British roads. The consumer group called Civic Choice submitted information that there were tens of thousands of excess road signs and that too many signs were confusing and distracting. The AA results of a survey can be found here and the Campaign for Plain English also supported some of the findings. I think this problem has ‘gone global’, well at least ‘gone European’ OK maybe just ‘gone Portuguese’. There is certainly a road sign disease spreading on the IC8, one of the major highways in Central Portugal. This disease seems to have reached its peak in the area between the turn off for the IC3 and Castanheira de Pera. The disease is spreading, the spores of signs scattering along the roadside and new signs growing all the time. In this short distance, it takes just 10 mins to drive, it has been reported to me that there are a ...

oh what a lovely bougainvillea

It was something I wanted to grow, a plant which would cover the wall, give shade, give colour and really stamp the fact we lived abroad. Bougainvillea. We have the other Mediterranean type of plants growing; we have olives in abundance, we have the grapes thriving, we have the figs establishing, but alas no bougainvillea. I looked up how to grow it and it says: Bougainvillea thrives in full sun. “At least 5 hours a day of direct sunlight is the minimal light required for good bloom. More hours of direct sun are better. Less than 5 hours and the plant may not bloom very well.” 5 hours of sun ‘check’, good light ‘check’, south facing ‘check’….but alas the Med we are not! This little peak of Central Portugal has cold air in winter (snow even), a vigorous breeze at dusk and is prone to a late frost. Our courtyard is just too exposed to the elements, there is no little ‘nook’ for a bougainvillea, there is no wall for it to climb...

Helen and Peter in Portugal

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