Knocking on heaven’s door

I’ve been debating whether to write this blog entry as death is one of those strange topics. But the custom of notifying local people that someone has died by stapling notices up around town has had me hooked since we first got here.

We all know we live in an aging population, well triple that for Pera! Seriously when our neighbours moved here with their two young girls I think it was the first young children in Pera for years. Simply by attending events, even I, manage to make the average age a little lower! So, as in all areas the only people having a boom in this recession is the undertaker!

A death is announced (not by a notice in the paper as Agatha Christie announced) by posters going up around town, with the details, date of the funeral and often a photo of that person looking so young and healthy that I don’t recognise them! Funerals happen pretty quickly round here. Within a couple of days you are sleeping in your spot in the cemetery.

Cremation is rare, in fact we are told that Rui (our local grocer and undertaker (seriously)) only arranged his first cremation a couple of years ago. Tradition is to be taken to your family plot where your name is carved into the family headstone. Our 86 year old neighbour tells us that she’ll never leave Pera, even in death, as she has her spot in the local cemetery.

It’s what happens after the announcement and the funeral that has inspired this short blog.

Because despite your age, riches, likeability or any other redeeming feature in life, your death announcement is stapled to the same door, where thousands of staples remain from previous lives and following your funeral your notice is torn from the door and scrumpled up and thrown under the doorway.

Now if I was more poetic then I’d find you a nice bit of symbolism in this. But since I’m not, I’ll leave you to ponder it and decide if there is indeed symbolism to find!!!

And sorry to Tricia Gray - I couldn't work the turtle into this at all.

Comments

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

Helen and Peter in Portugal

Search This Blog