I called 112 last night. This was the first time I have made an emergency call. We had been sitting on the balcony, enjoying a glass of wine and the mild evening when we spotted a burst of orange light from across the valley. Just like that a fire had started, or rather a fire had been started. It began to grow and spread very quickly, so we called the emergency service. It was in a forested area and by…
For those of you who thought we were a bit smug last post will be pleased to hear it has been a very wet month. We have had 365mm of rain, this is compared to 274mm for October 2023. That’s 24 rain days over the month. Fortunately, this area of Portugal has avoided the awful flash floods and storms which areas of Spain are still suffering from. One of the annual events we look forward to here is Laurear a…
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…