Helen and Peter in Portugal

It's been hot, too hot for too long - 35 to 37 degrees most days, making it impossible to do much at all.  It's strange that you end up wishing for a cloud or two.   Massive thunderstorms brought some much needed rain the other night, but by morning the ground was bone dry once again. Needless to say there has been no gardening done since June when this hot weather came to stay. Except emergency watering, which is done every two days.   Not that it seems to have had much impact.  The grass (well the weeds in the grass) have turned brown and dust is forming where grass used to be.  The upside - no need to mow! The African daisies which usually look wonderful have turned a brown colour and need a massive chopping back once the gardening weather improves and the oregano which grows like a weed has given up and is starting to turn a brown/grey colour. The birds stay in their hiding places during the day, but I keep the food and water topped up...

In a world before fridge/freezers how did you store your food?   Peasants used salt and created 365 recipes for salted cod fish, but royalty used ice.   Ice houses were built in locations around Portugal and snow compacted within them to form large blocks of ice.   This ice was then transported by donkey or cows to the river, then onwards to the royal family.   Santo António da Neve in the hills above us was one of the places famous for ice, ‘ Neveiros’ the snow farmers (so to speak) worked all year to cool the food of the high born.   The ice blocks made a slow journey from the top of the mountain down the donkey tracks to the river.   How the ice didn’t melt in the heat of the day is beyond me.    There are still hundreds of ancient tracks in the mountains here and I recently walked one to take a donkey to his new home.   Friends of ours rescued an old female donkey last year and have been searching for a ...

‘Entrudo’ is a traditional shrovetide celebration in Central Portugal.  Up in the mountains of Central Portugal they are trying to keep this typical village tradition alive by keeping up the annual Entrudo and encouraging new people to join in.     Celebrating Entrudo means cross dressing and making your own cork mask (a local resource in the hills of Portugal).   Once suitably disguised you go and make some innocent mischief in the neighbouring villages.       It’s harmless enough; moving flower pots, creating barriers in the quiet village roads, throwing cob nuts at people and generally making a noise.   The sounds of the accordion are never far from the ears and traditional limericks and bawdy rhymes are recited telling the story of the villages, it’s history and it’s residents.  The group of revellers was organised by Lousitanea , a eco business set in one of these traditional hillside villa...

What is it about nuns that they feel compelled to mix eggs and sugar and pastry together and invent sweet treats?  Convent sweets (Doçes Conventuais) are a big thing in Portugal, each region has its own specialties, but it is all versions of a theme.  Mix egg yolks and sugar until a yellow paste forms and then shape, then that yellow paste is either encased in pastry or dough. Convents and Monasteries  started to churn out sweet treats in the middle ages, when sugar was made available in Portugal through the Portuguese world-wide trade routes.  Eggs play a major part in the cake making process, as egg whites were used to starch clothes, nuns habits and alike.  Egg whites were also used to clarify home made wine and beer.  What was left over was the egg yolk.  So what do you do with all that egg?  You simply add sugar.  Nuns used their initiative and in the spirit of making money for the church started to sell sweets....

There is a slight chill at 8am when I walk the dog these mornings, that and the acorns falling, the blackberry is out and the wasps are starting to get drunk on the figs fermenting in the trees...It's Autumn on its way and my favorite season.  This year there has been no veg patch work, a month away in the key month of June put stop to any ideas of growing our own vegetables this year.  The raspberry, white currant and black currant  all died off due to lack of watering, so this year there's been no making jams, juices or cocktails.  There's a tree in a neighbour's patch which produces some of the best figs, I like them just as the bit of juice starts to leak from the underneath and the wasps are circling the tree.  It's then they are at their best I think.   So I scrumped some today to make fig preserve and fig roll.  I've also started to harvest the walnuts from our tree.  It's a tedious job really (although not as bad as the ...

A recent day trip out to an artist in residence village in the mountains has got me thinking…when is art, actually art and when is it a craft?  I mean knitting is a craft, but I think of my friend Jackie creating intricate patterns, putting these on paper then making them up into garments, I think that there is a real ‘art’ to that.   So, I looked it up:  Art noun 1. the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance. 2. the class of objects subject to aesthetic criteria; works of art collectively, as paintings, sculptures, or drawings: a museum of art; an art collection. Craft noun, plural 1. an art, trade, or occupation requiring special skill, especially manual skill: the craft of a mason. 2. skill; dexterity: The silversmith worked with great craft.    OK so an craft is an art, but related to a special skill….hmm I am still none the wiser really.  I...

I’d judged Caldas de Rainha from the ring road surrounding it.   We’d passed round the town many times before on our road trips.   From the ring road, Caldas seems like a town in need of some love, large supermarkets of every brand, petrol forecourts, modern apartment blocks abandoned and large areas of wispy grass gone yellow in the sun.     One day we took a detour from the ring road and into the centre of what is a charming town.   The town (city in fact) was founded in the 15c by Queen Leonor because it has naturally forming hot springs.   Around these springs a hospital was built, where patients are still sent by their doctors to take in the natural healing properties of this water.   Back in the 15c the queen believed in the healing properties of this stinky egg smelling water so much that she sold her jewels to pay for the hospital. Like so many Portuguese towns, the historic centre is in need of a bit more love.  ...