Five weeks in and the demolition job is over and done with. The whole house has been gutted, the espigueiro taken away (we have a boa vista!) and by the end of April the first of the trenches for the foundations had been dug:

It looks enormous but it’s deceptive. In fact the two bedrooms and ensuite bathrooms on this ground floor are going to be rather small, but what we will have is a much greater “living outside” area. The doors will open onto an 8 x 4m verandah with a view over the Lima river.

As we live a short drive away we’ve been visiting every day and the progress has been steady. The concrete foundations have now been laid and supporting pillars for the upstairs built too. They’ve also replaced one of the exterior walls with a combination of inner bricks and granite blocks on the outside.

Now they’re working on the reinforced concrete first floor / ceiling. They’re adding the precast beams, ceiling bricks and structural cages onto the supporting beams and scaffolding. Everything is carried by the crane (including the builders themselves who use it as a kind of lift). We are big fans of Grand Designs and we are always amused that these guys never wear helmets or high viz vests, except for this one day! The helmets remain hanging on the barn door.

And then the vests were put away. Look, we have our view 🙂 On the far side, almost 7 kms away as the crow flies, is the Miradouro de Peneda Branco, a pile of stones with a trig point on top (725m high) which is a popular spot to watch the sun go down over the river and Ponte de Lima. We plan to make a trip there and find the house.

Richard said it reminded him of the mosque in Córdoba…

Today we also saw they have started to make the trenches for the little conservatory for the front of the house. So overall we are really pleased with how things are going.

Meanwhile we entertained our friend Sue which meant visiting rather a lot of restaurants, museums and traditional tourist sights. We do, at some point, plan to add these to the blog, there is so much to see and do in the area and we have our favourite spots.

Perhaps the biggest news though is that we have at last put our dear Casa Azul up for sale. We have now shown a number of people around and will return next week for more viewing. It’s always bitter sweet going down and staying, such fond memories of our time there, but it will be nice to know there will be others to take her on and enjoy as much as we did.