Obligatory donkey picture

Sand Flys

Today was our 13th wedding anniversary and we decided that we would carry on the tradition of going to the beach.
Praia de Mira is about 1 and half hours away on the Silver Coast, huge white sands and dunes, lots of fisherman, fishing with nets attached to tractors, enormous crashing waves and lots of hideous houses.
There are a few old buildings dotted around, mostly falling down, they reminded us of the Essex and Suffolk coastal houses, so we felt very at home. Blossom had a lovely time running wild and rolling in dead fish....great day was had by all.
If any of you have facebook accounts you can view all the photos taken today in my profile

Sunday afternoon in Benfeita

We spent the day following a band around town, they came from Barril de Alva, they went up the hill and back down again, stopping at various houses to play. The stopped to drink and smoke and eat and wipe the sweat from their brows and ended up giving a concert in the recently opened cafe in the square. It was sunny and very very humid this morning, then thankfully it rained, it stayed cool all afternoon and the sun came out just before it set. We had a lovely day with the locals, we were the only foreigners around all day, we sat with our favourite old ladies and others came over to talk to us. I was made to get up and dance a salsa type dance with the guy (a local builder) who had organised the whole thing, being led around in front of the whole town. We, incidentally were the only ones dancing.

Swarm patrol

Time off for good behaviour

From plant to plate

Freshly picked mange tout, thinned out baby carrots, first new potatoes of the season and quiche made with our fresh free-range eggs......said in a "Marks and Spencer's" voice

Arganil Social Club

At the market today
in a small cafe

Pizza hut

Yes we do have time off.......
sick and tired of trying to cook things in the oven in the kitchen we decided to finally light up the bread oven outside, Rick made pizza's.
This is where we will do all our cooking from now on, makes sense, it's practically free, takes half the time and it works!! I guess that's why most of the Portuguese have one and use them all the time.....

how does you garden grow......

The garden and the terraces are looking beautiful, foxgloves and wild flowers everywhere......I thought that March and April were beautiful, but this is amazing.

Rick's got wood

here's some more pics of Rick's wood!!

Home wood bound

The wood is slowly being bought back to it's final destinantion for drying.........still got a few more days left and 2 more trees to fell and then that's it for this year. Thanks to all for their help and enthusiasm!

Rick's new toy!

The saw mill arrived last week, from Sweden. All the trees we have cut down will be put through this mill, some to get them out of the wood as too heavy as they are, but don't wont to loose the length so they'll be "beamed". This was it's first outing with Rick practicing and seeing how it works with some pine that he cut down on our property. I expect it will become a bit of a spectator sport with the villagers once they get wind that this is what he's doing, we seem to be a constant topic of conversation.....

Torre da Paz – 7th May

Torre da Paz – 7th May
The Torre da Paz (Tower of Peace), is 11 meters high and its schist walls stand proudly in the middle of the white houses around them.( one of them is our rental!). The Tower is one of the symbols of the Aldeias do Xisto network and is also one of the buildings most cherished by the people living here, given the historical relevance of the tower once known as “Torre Salazar”.
It was the intiative of Mário Mathias “illustrious villager” that in 1944 it was decided that a monument to celebrate the end of World War II was going to be built, anouncing its end by the ringing of its bell. It was what happened for the first time at 2pm of 7th May 1945, when in Benfeita the end of the war was known, before it was even known in Lisbon (an employee of an english company, husband of a villager, called to give the good news). Since then, every day on that day the bell of peace sounds, ringing for 1620 times, the days that the “Potuguese Peace” lasted – starting the count on the day that Portugal assumed itself as a neutral country. Every year, in Benfeita, on the 7th of May, Peace is celebrated by the ringing of the bell.

Sorry I copied this from a web site....I attended very briefly, much to the delight of my neigbours who insist on me attending everything. A national TV film crew were there.....the singing was terrible!