Gosh, where to start, perhaps with Happy New Year! December was a good month in many ways. The weather was kind for the main part which meant we could get out and about. Highlights included the fabulous new restaurant Richard found across the border where we can have marvellous seafood while looking over towards the coast. We spotted turnstones scuttling around on their orange legs, scavenging among the barnacled rocks. Other coastal birds we struggle to name.

Back home, however, we have identified 35 birds. A couple, the tawny owl and golden oriel for example, we have just heard and not seen. A few we have only seen in the air; watching the griffon vultures circling slowly overhead was special as was seeing the storks sailing high over the Lima river below us. We have seen many of the tits: blue, great, crested, coal and the charming long-tailed that fly en famille among the olive trees*.

It was also great to celebrate the Solstice, as we have done ever since living in Portugal, with our new friends up here and to be joined by our ‘old’ friends from down south. We just about managed to get six people around the table. There were plenty of walks along the Lima too, although Betty was less keen on having other four legged companions around.

Despite being winter it is the garden that has remained the focus of our attention. Work has continued with the pond. An extra shallower shelf was scooped out around the edges. Then the lining was trimmed and a hosepipe we had bought, and then didn’t need, was hooped to make an edging. The lining is now tucked over the pipe and, for now, it is the only time it will be visible. You can see some edging plants have already been put in, some more rocks added and there are a few aquatic plants which we pilfered from various walks along rivers. It’s very much a work in progress but a large frog and a marbled newt already call it home.

But I have left the biggest news to last. This week saw the gardeners arrive: 6 guys with a variety of tools and machinery. It was both exciting to see how much they could do so quickly, and rather alarming that they could be so clumsy. There were some casualties (the guy with the strimmer was the main culprit) including a bushy flowering bugloss growing on the threshing square which I am sure I said, in my best Portuguese, not to cut as the bees love it only to look round and the whole thing had disappeared.

So what did they do? Well, first of all one group strimmed all the land on the top level, turned it over with a digger and then removed the weeds with an adze.

While they were busy doing this many of the trees were being heavily pruned. Falling branches also ‘pruned’ some of the newly planted bushes below them. The emerging daffodils just escaped being trampled on.

By the end of the day, which saw none of the forecast rain, the garden area looked completely different. A few days later the sun and gardeners returned. The soil was raked and flattened and then hundreds of tiny grass plugs were planted, and thousands of grass seeds were sown. Attention was then turned to the two olive trees which had been cut two years ago. They had grown so much in that time we realised that they would soon completely block the view of the valley from the balcony (*see photo above). It was with some reluctance we asked for those to be cut again, but lower.

Other trees were also given similar treatment: apple, pear and orange trees, the enormous fig and a rotten cherry tree didn’t escape the chainsaw. Another olive tree that was growing into the electricity and telephone cables down in the lower meadow was reduced by half.

Meanwhile, Richard suggested I started doing the ‘plant of the month’ award again. There was an obvious choice: the geranium I had taken as a cutting from the village before we left. It had been in a pot for a number of years, struggling somewhat, and it wasn’t until June last year that it eventually had a home by the water tank. Since then it has grown and grown and grown with huge red flowers.

However, as I have been writing this the storm, I think this one is called Herminia, has worsened and some powerful gusts made me look out the window; the geranium was lying almost flat on the ground! We have both just rushed out and now, I really hope, it is sheltered under a pallet. Unfortunately, the ploughed land is under rather a lot of puddles. Whether this means the grass seeds will rot, or be washed away, only time will tell.

One olive tree that remains enormous is by the barn. I am jumping up and down to check it as it seems to be turning itself inside out as the wind swirls around. I do hope in the next post we can say that there is grass, or at least signs of it, and the weather is a little more settled. Here’s to a good 2025 and we hope all is well where you are.