Happy New Year! January has already given us four seasons in one month: a touch of frost, high winds and storms, downpours, sunny spells and glorious sunshine. Today we have drizzle. Nothing has stopped us either sporting sunglasses or donning our waterproofs to brave the elements and stretch our legs. The coast is one of our favourite destinations for the weekly family outing: we have the beach to ourselves and a seafood restaurant is always near (and Betty, exhausted, is…
I think they say it’s the lull before the storm but for us the lull has come after, house-wise that is. It was a quiet December for the workers with not a lot to report. The upper level has been prepped for the plastering machine but it seems more needs to be done still on the lower level. The boiler room has been been plastered by hand and is actually finished, apart from the flooring. We have chosen the style…
A stormy start to November, with Ciarán doing its best to leave a mark. Not as destructive as the tornado that hit Jersey but certainly enough to whip up the waves to destroy the boardwalk and paths down to the beach. Betty didn’t care, she was delighted to be running along the sand once again, it’s been a number of years since we have taken her to the seaside. No shells for us to collect but lots of lovely colourful…
The start of October was a real scorcher, as predicted in the previous post. This meant two things: we went out and about a bit more to take advantage of the weather, and more work was done on the external walls of the house. Street markets are extremely popular up here, and on any Sunday the beautiful Avenida dos Plátanos along the river Lima has something on. Every second Sunday it’s the Feirade antiguidades e velharias, basically antiques and old…
A surprisingly cool September. Building-wise a tad sluggish, slowly but surely, step by step. Having said that the photos taken over the month do seem to show some progress. All the internal walls have been covered. They are now lined with a double layer of silver thermal insulating material (a kind of posh bubble wrap) and bricked over, both downstairs and up. The only wall to remain uncovered is an original external wall which separates two rooms, one which is…
In the middle of this month the heavens opened and the Minho region of Portugal got a soaking, particularly Ponte de Lima which received almost 8cm of rain. The rest of the country: nada! We were in the path of the appropriately named Storm Betty, and heard the phrase Reino da Chuva for the first time. We were of course delighted, the area remains green and lush and I don’t have to fret too much about watering the plants at…
So the sale of Casa Azul went ahead. Not without a few minor issues: we had to stop the proceedings to collect the original copy of the habitation licence. At the council the woman behind the desk couldn’t find it, are we sure it was ready to be picked up today? A phone call later and she finds the precious document in a different in-tray. It is received with sweaty palms. And then the notary insists we arrange a meeting…
“The collection or sequence of forms and procedures required to gain bureaucratic approval for something, especially when oppressively complex and time-consuming.” The key phrase here being oppressively complex. We have been used to Portuguese bureaucracy since our arrival, and one thing we have learnt is that whenever you go anywhere to get anything done you take all the documents you own about everything. Whether it was getting married, obtaining Portuguese citizenship, renewing our driving licence, updating the size of our…
Another three weeks, another giant leap forward. Despite most of our photos showing blue skies it has been quite rainy this month, with some torrential downpours. Fortunately, these have been mainly over the weekends so the workmen have been able to crack on. And summer rain, in case we need to remind ourselves, is one of the reasons why we moved up here. So this was the last blog stage: And now? Well, Richard has made this nifty vid of…
Gosh, it’s just under three weeks since the last post and so much has happened it’s difficult to keep up sometimes. Firstly, the new house of course. The reinforced concrete first floor / ceiling has been done and dusted enabling us to walk through the ‘kitchen’ and ‘dining room’ and onto the ‘balcony’. Then we experience the best thing about the house, something which was not on our must-have list: the view. Actually it seems rather high up, and there…