The last blog post featured our walks. I suppose I need to start this one with the fact that today’s Friday walk has been cancelled. This is partly because it’s boiling hot, 35ºC, but also because the sky is heavy with smoke and it’s a bit depressing being outside. The main culprit is the monster fire in the Peneda-Gerês National Park, a 30 minute drive from us. In fact it was where we went for our latest walk. Right now there are 11 water planes / helicopters, 225 fire engines and 675 firefighters on the ground. It’s been going for a week now. It’s difficult not to be upset by it all. The weather has been exceedingly hot over the last few weeks, with only a smidgen of rain and strong winds.

This walk was back in September 2018 when we were visiting the park for an autumn break:

And the same spot last week which we now know has been affected by the fire:

On a more positive note we started the month with friends who took the train down from Paris. This meant another opportunity to go kayaking and a swim in the river.

We popped to Ponte de Lima with them one evening for a meal. This began with watching one of the horse events that was on over the weekend and finished at a medieval fair celebrating 900 years of the town. There always seems to be something going on!

When not making beer Richard is fretting about the lawn. The hot, dry days means large brown patches have emerged where the grass should be but the daisies, clover, bugloss and knotweed are thriving. The latter two are being pulled up. It’s an endless task. He was happy to have his first dip in the sea on a recent trip to Spain for lunch.

On the wildlife front “Batty” continues to sleep behind the ceramic name plaque at the front of the house. We think it’s a pipistrelle. A number of birds have nests in the garden but the prowling jays are always a concern. We have one frog in the water tank and at least six in the pond. We have recently installed a solar powered oxygenator to help clear the algae there, plus we have bought a number of plants.

The pond and the flowers around the edge attract a range of insects: dragonflies, damselflies, butterflies, bees and beetles.

I was sitting on the bench Richard had made having a mindfulness moment (or is that mindless?) having spent all morning watering the plants and veg patch when I spotted a frog. The frog had spotted a bumblebee. And then, just like that, the frog leapt up and ate the bee! And now I realise, one of the reasons for them to sit on the rocks under the plants, aside from appreciating the shade, is so they can leap up and catch their unsuspecting prey.

The veg patch has been a hit and miss affair. To be honest more of a miss than a hit. We have had some toms, courgettes and pimentos de Padrón but the heat has simply been too much and many of the flowers haven fallen off. There has been one measly buttercup squash from the four plants. In fact the most successful plants have been some plugs I bought from the market. They were labelled as pimentos vermelhos, red peppers. However, they are not bell peppers. Instead they have thin skins and are not sweet. They look like chilli peppers but they’re not hot either. And they are not really that tasty. My neighbours didn’t know what they were. Hmmm. Actually, I am seriously considering not having a veg patch next year. Despite these set backs the fridge is full of produce as the neighbours continue to donate us vast quantities of goodies. I was able to return the favour in some small way by making nectarine jam for them which they seemed very pleased with.

Some of this produce was used to make a lunch for my niece and her family who came down from Spain to see us. We have found a small river beach near us so it was lovely to go swimming in the Lima again with them all.

The flower beds have been a bit hit and miss too but the Zinnias have been marvellous neither showing any signs of the heat nor refusing to flower.

The pot plants, although they need constant care, have rewarded us with some colour for the verandah.

I’ll leave you with this beauty. It was scurrying along the lavender as I was watering one morning. Surely the inspiration for Alien?!