Helen and Peter in Portugal

When a friend asked Peter to come up with a logo for a new coffee shop recently he took the opportunity to be paid in cakes.   We went to collect last week, as the coffee shop, Dona Chica opened to the public.   Our friends, a family from Oliveira do Bairro, have taken on a cake shop and bakery in a village close to them.    It’s a bold move, there are thousands of cake shops and bakeries across Portugal, every village has one.   It’s also long hours, our local one is open from 6am to 11pm every day of the week, 365 days a year.   Arriving at Dona Chica we stepped into a slight chaos and very mild panic.    So much to do before the doors open the following morning.   Peter tasted the beer, it was fine so he felt he could have another.    I started cleaning tables and decorating the Christmas tree.   We took the tour, saw the bread chef making the bread, watched the pastry chef make Bolo Rei (a great ...

In this instalment I am going to try to attempt to prove that finding a builder here in Central Portugal is much like dating.    Now it might be like this the world over, I don’t know, I have never had need of a builder in the UK or Jersey.    It might just be a very sad reflection on my dating history (likely) or it just might be the next 10 points are the truest thing you’ve ever read. 1)         There are a lot of ‘fish in the sea’.    Just like the dating pool there are a lot of builders out there.   But finding the one you want is hard.   I’ve heard my friends make their recommendations ‘not him, he is pissed by noon’, ‘he’s good but never returns your calls’, ‘don’t trust him’.   2)         You need to deal with rejection.    You invite the builder to take a look at the project, you speak you best Portuguese, tell a few jokes, look interested in what he has t...

I love a phone call which begins with a great friend telling you they are coming to visit.   I especially love a phone call from said friend when she tells you that she is putting us up in the 5 star Pestana Palace hotel Lisbon and that we are meeting this Sunday! Well if the hotel is good enough for Madonna, then it’s good enough for us!   Poolside Musings One   - when it looks too much like your boobs it is wrong. Because of the heat, we didn’t do much during the day, instead we lazed by the pool, reading, chatting and people watching.    There’s that great scene in Sex and the City where Stanford and Carrie are talking about judging people and he uses the line, “Carrie, we judge, it’s what we do.”   He’s right, most of us have made people watching a fine art, complimented by the catty comments, either said in your head or to each other.   This in mind I was watching some of the ‘Euro Rich’ at the hotel pool, when one woman caug...

Peter’s gone on holiday, back to Jersey for the first time in 3 and a half years.   He’s taking the scenic route with his friend Jamie, up through Spain for tapas, then into France for a surf then onwards to St Malo for the ferry.    I’m home alone for the first time ever.    Normally I go away for a week or two and I’m working, working 10 hour days, making the trip pay for itself, despite some hard drinking with girlfriends and shopping in M&S.   Whenever I get home I look to see what Peter has done in terms of DIY.   I was spoiled a couple of times last year when I got home Peter had, built a desk, a cabinet, varnished the floor, dismantled a bread oven…..etc.    But the last few times, I’ve got home and nothing has been done, not even the vacuuming!   So, while Peter is away I’m making it count, I’ve got a tonne of jobs listed….from finally finishing my fundraising strategy for work, to filling and painting the water dam...

Times, they are a changing.   Fibre optic is coming to Pera, yes our little village is going global and the sales people from Portugal Telecom (PT) have been round!    We are lucky, I think PT ran out of fibre optic cable and Pera is the end of the line!   (It’s the same (I hear) for the mains drains, anything above Pera is not connected). In fact large towns like Figueira da Foz are without fibre optic because the law in Portugal has recently changed to allow any provider the opportunity to 'rent' the lines of PT.  So, what have PT done?  They've stopped putting in the lines of course!    A law which is suppose to benefit everyone,  gives consumers choice and adds some competition to the marketplace, has backfired a little and the result is a deadlock that ends up stalling progress! So with a promise of a whopping 30mb speed guaranteed we signed up!   Now we wait for the change-over and for the obl...

Last year Peter bought himself a motorbike.   It took months of looking in every motor-repair shop in Central Portugal to find it.     Motor-repair shops either stock brand new scooters, usually called ‘Sprints’ or ‘Cities’ in an ill-placed homage to the 1980s it appears.   These great plastic things cost £2000 are about a 50cc and go about 20 miles an hour.   With two of us on the back we’d never make it up the hill to Coentral, let alone anywhere else! The other thing filling these motor-repair shops are ancient motorbikes, mostly in bits, in need of much love.   These bikes seem to be permanent exhibits at every repair shop, relics of bikes, bits missing, crash victims the whole lot.    When we asked in these shops if they had anything for sale, it turns out that these bikes are semi-permanent displays, we were told on many occasions ‘no, it’s in for repair’ but these repair seems to take years! I think Peter had images of bikin...

After what felt like weeks of rain the sun came out....BBQs, drinks on the patio, mosquitos, lizards and a little sun-burn.  Peter put his tender plants out, things started growing fast.  Then the world turned up-side-down and the cold came back.  Monday was about 12 degrees in the day, blinking freezing.  The fire was put on at night and I have been ramping up the sex appeal by sleeping in my fleece! Today though the world has returned to normal, the sun has come out and it's lovely out there.  So to celebrate I've been taking some garden pictures....  Peter without realising gave me a complement; 'you couldn't wish for a better flower bed' he said...without realising that there is an awful lot of work, weeding, thinning and re-planting gone into it. I soon told him! I love these flowers - no idea what they are  Peter and Lord.  Everything in the garden is moving so Lord is hunting lizards, mice and snakes  These tiny flower-...

A day trip to Lisbon with our Dutch neighbours Ferrie and Ingrid was planned.   Ferrie had to go to the Dutch Embassy to sort out his passport, while Peter and I wanted to go to the super Chinese supermarket we know in the downtown area of Lisbon. In a city where people queue for tins of sardines, we wanted to buy noodles, sweet chili sauce and shrimp paste (not items normally found in your average Portuguese supermarket, where flour tortillas are considered risky).   A coffee break on the drive into Lisbon (just 2.5 hours away) we realised that Ferrie had left his phone at home!   Not to worry, Ingrid had her phone with her .    The plan was to part company at the Embassy, for Peter and I to take a walk from one side of town to another, stopping for much needed Sargres (beer) on the way and for us all to meet up in the downtown district once our Dutch friends had driven over and called us.   An hour passed and Peter and I we...

This is not a new subject for those Central Portugal bloggers, but it’s my version and I’ve been meaning to show off this very special (‘special’) part of Castanheira de Pera for quite a while now. A friend, Emma, has already written one of the best blogs about our town on her blog, Emma's House in Portugal – read it here. Rightful Castanheirense (those born in Castanheira de Pera) were a very proud bunch.   In their lifetime they have seen the town change from flourishing to slightly sad (like Brighton about 30 years ago before it got good again – you know what I mean).     Castanheria de Pera is a town built on wool, from socks to traditional hats the town was once full of mills powered by the Pera stream.   Sadly, a walk along the stream at the back of town shows the decline of this industry, abandoned mills almost litter you pathway.   The whole industry replaced by cheaper imports. But despite this sad decline, Castinheria de Pera is not so diffe...