Helen and Peter in Portugal

As a marketer I like my brands, Colgate, Revlon, Lenor all work for me, I get the brand investment, the brand identity the money it takes to make and maintain a brand.    I also understand that these are multi-national companies, who don’t really care about you or me other than the £s we spend, that no-doubt the amount of washing liquid going into our rivers and seas are polluting the water, that the chemicals used to make my hair soft or the oil to come out of my trousers are probably not the best for me and the environment. With this in mind, and the promise of a really great lunch, I went for a workshop on how to make your own soaps, lip balms, washing liquid and toothpaste at Qunita da Fonte this weekend. Our expert, Emma, took us through the processes, with her box of essential oil goodies. Laundry liquid – easy.    Melt natural soap with water.    Let is set until it looks like jelly.  Soap – who knew it contained causti...

People often ask ‘do you miss London’, the truth is no.    But I do miss my friends, I miss going to the pub, it being busy, I miss the boutique shops and I miss good steak and chips.    That’s why visiting is the very best cure for a little London Saudade (a Portuguese word which they say has no translation into English, but here is an attempt)   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudade Being a tourist in your old town is great and with the amount of development going in in Old London Town at the moment I felt like a stranger in town (well a stranger that knew the short cut into Covent Garden at least).     When I visited London recently my family decided to do a Big London Bus Tour.  It was a great way to see the sites, to avoid the walk around town in the very warm spring sunshine and spend some time with my family.   The City is changing out of all recognition, the building work has gone off the scale.  It used to be the G...

As a non-surfer I have never quite understood Peter when he drives up to the beach, gets out the car then watches the waves for 20 mins, what is he watching for?  He tells me it's the shape of the wave, where it's breaking, the consistency of the swell....blah blah blah.  Watch a group of surfers watching the waves anywhere, I think they are waiting for someone to make the decision to 'go in', that way they can see how good it is and decide whether or not to bother.   Get a group together and they can talk each other into or out of it, but that seems to take a good 20 mins.....these days, I take a book and stay in the car until the decision is made about staying or driving another 10 mins down the bay to the next spot and doing the standing all over again! But for Garrett McNamara the big wave surfer it is a whole other ball game, well it's still surfing, but you get my drift.   For McNamara it is life and death as he decides to ride one of the biggest waves in th...

Now we all know that olive oil is good for you, but how much olive oil is too much?  Let me start this by saying that we get through a lot of olive oil.  Last year our olive oil consumption topped 40 litres.  I feel the need to justify this use by saying that; it is the only oil we use, I use it as a moisturiser and make olive oil cakes and….well I cannot really justify it further. But as I read online , olive oil is good for you!   Peter and I recently went to the olive oil press to purchase this year’s requirements.   The press that we go to is over an hour away and we choose to go here because it’s been recommended and the price of olive oil is 2 euros cheaper here per litre compared to our local press.    Despite having 15 olive trees we have made the decision not to pick and press our own olive oil.  Our friends as Casa Azul cannot believe we don’t use our own olives, each year they harvest their olives and take th...

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...