No - not a rat. Flower of the week - Acidanthera.

A Happy New Year!

Two very calm still days - there seem to be more birds fluttering about and more flowers appearing so may be they know something......

For New Year's Eve we went to Albufeira (on the coast 45 mins from here) and saw the fireworks.

We thought they were very good but suitably subdued in view of the bad economic state of this country.

We have the Case of the Disappearing Rat.  Yesterday Michael saw a large rat completely stuck and very still halfway through a small hole at the bottom of the generator room door.  

I never saw it although I walked by a few times - I must have been looking the other way.   So we spent some time discussing how to deal with this - Michael says he had a nightmare about it.

 My solution was to remove the door completely and take it - rat 'n' all - to the rubbish in Peter's trailer ( The door is very damaged anyway because of a break-in we had once while we were away - hence the hole in the first place and I saw it as an opportunity to have a new door)  

However Michael had a much more gory solution which I didn't want to think about.

When Michael looked today the rat had completely disappeared and there was no evidence it was ever there and yet it was very stuck and very still.    A complete mystery.

This is the border edging our 'drive' and it is full of wild rocket now with lots of yellow flowers which the bees love.  Standing here the noise from them is almost deafening particularly as it is so quiet here and it is the only sound apart from the odd bird twitter.  We think that the bee keepers around here must have noticed a difference in the flavour of their honey since we planted up the garden with all sorts of plants which attract bees.  A favourite all year round is Rosemary.  This is what we would like to ask them if only our Portuguese stretched that far. 

51 years and no let up yet

We have planted 60 trees in the 6 years we have been here.   When you think that each hole takes Michael an hour to dig with a mattock because of all the big stones this is no mean achievement. It means that we can only buy trees in smallish pots.  They sulk for about a year while they get over the shock of being transplanted but then they get away quite happily.  Only the fruit trees need watering in the summer.

The tally is this, 

Olive 20, Lemon 2, Orange 7, Fig 5, Almond 10, Pomegranate 2, Pine 6, Apricot 2, Peach 1, Nectarine 1.

So these two days we have focussed on looking after trees.  Michael strimmed and cleared round them and I checked stakes and did necessary pruning.  I topdressed, fed and watered the fruit trees and others on the two terraces.  We are self sufficient in lemons now and are picking a few oranges.

The others all around have to make their own way because they are planted down the slope and are too difficult to barrow to. These are not fruit trees so do not need so much attention anyway.

These two days have been fine and sunny.  Chilly mornings and evenings, but the cold N wind has gone now.

Mon eve M made a octopus stew from a Portuguese recipe which was very rich and flavoursome and Tues eve I concocted a turkey and mushroom supper with garlic, white wine and cream sauce out of the top of my head.  It was passably good. 

This man has been married for 51 years - to the same woman

We have been married 51 years today - whatever else you may say it is a blooming long time!

So some form of celebration was required.   We booked a trip to the Azores flying from Lisbon in early Feb.  Another adventure - we have no idea what it is like over there - so - much looking forward to it.

We went shopping in Continente which is in the big Algarve Shopping Centre near Albufeira and it is 50 mins from us.  Well despite 51 years we still have to eat - we shopped for 4 days because when we are at QV we do not necessarily want to go out unless we have to and even then we try and combine several errands together.  

Today we also went to Leroy Merlin a French chain which has stores in every West European country except the UK.   It is somewhere between Ikea and B and Q.  Michael needed swimming pool chemicals and and lime descaler.   Around here they say that if you can't get it in Leroy you can't get it !

Then it was the treat of the day - a visit to Chicken Piri Piri.  This is a restaurant which over the 27 years we have been coming here we have seen grow from a small bar to a huge establishment.  The reason for this success ?  Simple - although there is a choice on the menu we have never seen anybody eat anything else but Chicken Piri Piri.  It is a typical Portuguese dish - spicy chicken pieces, chips and tomato salad.  The beauty of it is that it comes almost as soon as you have ordered and it is cheap.  Today's lunch cost £26 euros for the two of us.  We love it !!

Then on for a walk on  Praia da Oura beach which is where our Timeshare is.  If you follow this blog you will read more about this later when we move there mid January for our two weeks.  We have been there for 27 consecutive years - never missed a year. 

It was sun and cloud for the early part of the day but it ended in mist and drizzle and much cooler temperature.   

We are lucky we have a lovely warm fire to sit by in the evenings.

The terrace facing S in the spring It was a grassy slope in 2008.

Today has been sunny but with a chilly north wind.  QV is orientated SW at the front NE at the back.   We are on a ridge so we are very aware of wind.

 We prefer a North wind to a South wind because we mostly sit at the front (S) and so are protected.   We do not like S wind in any form, and most hated is strong N wind especially at night when it howls around and batters us.  

QV is 400 metres above sea level and so there is often wind here even if it is calm on the coast.  On the plus side we do not get frost as it rolls down the hill and collects in the valley where Peter lives and his garden suffers badly from frost.  Since his wife, Irene, died a year ago he has decided sell up and move back to the Uk.  We shall miss him. 

 Despite the chilly wind it was in the right direction today (N) so we were comfortable working and sitting at the front.  M still mowing - finished the 'lawn' - now around the trees on the terraces, and me working round the terrace gently pulling up weeds.

Some butterflies have emerged to flutter in the sun and the bees are very busy.  We have several hives near to us.

So it was of course turkey curry for tea . 

Today we visited Rosi and Bob and their family for lunch.  They are an hour's drive away and the roads were quiet - even more quiet than normal surprising because this is a normal day for the Portuguese.  Suspect that most had taken the extra day off.

Rosi and Bob gave us a sumptuous Boxing Day lunch so we were well fed and watered when we left around 5 and were home just as it got dark.  

Beans on toast for supper. Another fine day but getting colder - the cold air from  UK is on its way down here too.

Awoke to a fine day - not a cloud in the sky.   Michael lit the fire in the bread oven at 9.  By 11.30 it was glowing with hot embers and we put the turkey crown well wrapped in foil on top.  After an hour we added the foil wrapped vegetables and gave the whole thing another half and hour.

They were all done perfectly and it made a lovely Christmas Dinner.  We had Christmas Pudding and fruit for tea.  Michael won the Christmas Scrabble Game probably because we had CHOCOLATE!

An upshot from the lost sheep story - a man turned up in a truck and spoke volubly in Portuguese.  When we broke it down he was telling us he had lost his white dog with a collar and bell.

We put two and two together and came up with sheep. We told him we had seen him yesterday.  He gave us his phone number in case we saw him again and left.  The dog has been missing for five days.

A nice lazy day.

Every town has its monthly market and today it was market at Messines, which is our local town.  

It was very busy today being the last one before Christmas and the New Year but we didn't push the boat out with our purchases.  I bought three plants, two wooden spoons, raspberries and figs and a dinosaur for Eric, the 7 year old grandson of our friends Rosi and Bob who have kindly invited us over for Boxing Day. Michael bought some small lettuce and carrot plants.  

While I was wandering around I met Paula and her daughter Claudia.  Paula runs a small tomato farm in the village nearest to us, which we pass every time we go out. I asked her in my best Portuguese how many cats she had.  The answer was 15.

We went to the Post Office to check the mail box (nothing) and saw a man we only know as Correo standing outside his shop and we went in to say hello.  He owns a lot of land all around here and has the local monopoly on bee-keeping equipment which he sells in his shop... we bought some honey and had a chat.

Let me explain about 'chat'... in Portuguese we have one or two word conversations about the weather etc. and they are of necessity very short. 

We called in on Peter on the way back and shared a beer and conversation sitting outside in warm sunshine.    This afternoon I pruned the summer flowering shrubs and Michael put his new  little plants in the veg patch.   Today is the shortest day and the sun disappeared behind the hill at 5pm.  Sunset is about 20 mins after that.

Today Michael distilled the Medronha.   This is the local hooch made from the red fruit of the strawberry tree , Arbutus unedo, which grows wild in the hills.  In the Autumn all the locals are out collecting them and make day trips and picnics of it like we used to do collecting blackberries.   Another fine sunny day and we walked down the track to see our well.  We were amazed to find that the little stream that runs nearby had been a torrent while we had been away and had even lifted up stones and created deep pools.  Our friends did tell us that they had had 2 in of rain in 12 hours and we could see that it was true.  The well was bang full.