Well, it’s been an interesting past few weeks. The end of March saw the cobbles, at long last, being laid around the house. The men came and went according to the rain but eventually finished the area all round the house and the driveway out front. This has put us in good stead with our neighbours as the area in front of their entrance was also done.

This gave Richard another job to do: he used all the tiles we brought up with us from the old house to partly cover one of the walls below the road which had been looking very scruffy.

We just need to add some plants now, above and below.

Talking of plants I have, since mid February, been sowing and then nursing a range of seedlings. Most of these are flowers, and many from seeds we took from our old house. On the veg front there are red peppers and padrón peppers, buttercup squash, courgettes and a bush variety of purple French beans. However, it wasn’t until I started putting the tomatoes into one of the beds (6 cherry and 6 large Spanish ones) I realised something was wrong. I thought they were just looking a little sorry for themselves because the weather hasn’t been great but looking more closely I saw the leaves were covered in small brown spots and turning yellow. I don’t think it was early blight, but rather tomato leaf spot, but either way it wasn’t good and it was with a heavy heart I threw all 12 plants away. I now have to find replacements and hope it’s not too late.

Richard has also painted around the seating area by the barbecue, made a bench out of pallets so we can sit and watch the frogs in the pond, and has done a tremendous amount of backbreaking weeding. One thing about the rain: everything grows really fast.

One project I started, and half way through wondered why on earth I was doing it, was to make a pair of curtains for the kitchen window. I decided to make a patchwork version out of the remnants I keep from all the clothes I have made over the years. When I say over the years I actually mean over the decades, the oldest is some African fabric from the 1980s – really! I started with cutting out 12 x 16cm strips, which were sewn together, cut, and then sewn together again to make the squares. In the end I cut out 384 strips. 384! The cutting board has collapsed and the cutting wheel is now blunt. They have been lined, with an old sheet, but I still need to add the curtain band at the top, and to hem them. Last year I made 5m of bunting, 41 triangles in total, from the same remnant material so you can see how much I had.

We went to Ponte de Lima’s version of Crufts. I was quite looking forward to it but I wasn’t expecting to walk through huge numbers of huge dogs accompanied by the constant sound of barking from the little ones. I’m not sure Betty would have been that keen either.

Of course Portugal made the headlines, along with Spain, when on Monday both countries “plunged into chaos” because of a massive power blackout. It seems the reason for this is still unclear, an international committee has been set up to investigate. Portugal and Spain share a fully integrated electricity system so when Spain has a blackout, Portugal does too. This was not our first experience of being without electricity for any length of time. Back in 2013, after a terrible storm, we were left in the dark for three whole days. As it was a regional situation nobody knew we were without emails, or couldn’t update our website. It was January too, so cold and wet. We did, however, have a gas hob and the wood burning stove, and the camping lights for the evening (I think we played scrabble each night…) so for us this time round it was a minor concern. Richard had already bought sardines for the barbecue (the Intermarché supermarket must have its own generator as it was all working as normal there), and a warm evening under the stars with a glass of wine was no hardship. Unlike those of course stuck in lifts and trains or who couldn’t get home. It was on again in the morning.

Our neighbours continue to be neighbourly. We have had more bags of lettuce, mange tout and eggs given to us, and also a large pot of blooming pansies which was lovely.

I wish I could say the weather is lovely now. It’s been a real mixed bag: there’s been snow on the hills, torrential rain but then, when the sun does come out, temperatures of 30 degrees. Nice to see the dancers out on the sunny days.

I’ll finish with news of our latest resident. Richard, somehow, noticed something behind the sign a friend kindly made for the outside of the house. Peering closer we saw, snoozing away, a little bat!