Skip to main content

Sunshine

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-heads are the olives starting to grow


And our first lemon has appeared on our tiny tree


Depite hacking back the vines to an inch of their life, they are sprouting again.  Tiny grapes are already forming


Complete with pollen covered bee/bug thing

Peter has been working hard in the veg patch

This is blooming for the first time.  It's stunning.

The tulips and iris' are almost over already, but the rose buds are about to bloom

Our amazing Jasmin is stunning again this year - it's about to come into flower


Just one problem - MOLES - last count 23 mole hills

Comments

  1. Lovely pics, Helen. Wish it would warm up here. It's grey and blooming cold today. British bank holidays - love 'em!

    ReplyDelete
  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi, thanks for this blog, I came across it while researching the area, and it has been quite helpful. My husband and I just bought an old house in Pera, I think we're actually quite close to you, it's the Manor house next to the recreation center. It needs a lot of work but we love the house.

    cheers,
    Normandy

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi, yes it is just down the road, about a 1 min walk. Very close indeed. We've heard that we are getting new neighbours in town.
      The house is great, but yes it does need work. You'll love Pera, it is lovely here.
      If you want to email me direct and ask me anything then I'm helenleegray@hotmail.co.uk
      Meet you soon I expect.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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 whopping 400 plus signs.   I tried

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 up.   So, after a courageous start in