Despite a boiling hot summer, and some terrible fires not too far away, the Kingdom of Rain has lived up to its name. The resident meteorologist tells me we had twice the normal amount of rain for November than usual. It’s pouring down now and I’m wondering whether the pots I took out from under the verandah to get a bit of weekend sun, should have been put back. They contain a variety of bulbs and I have to admit…
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…
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 had a pond at Casa Azul. The initial idea was to encourage frogs and such to take care of the slugs in the veg patch, but it became a huge magnet for birds in a way we never imagined. We also had snakes, salamanders and even deer visiting one night. It got a little out of hand in our rewilding phase during the Covid years but we have always wanted to repeat that here at Casa Lima. We have…
In many traditional Portuguese houses the ground floor was often used for non-living purposes: keeping animals, storing foodstuffs, making wine etc. The house next to our rented one was full of their produce: onions hanging in plaits from wooden beams, potatoes supported in hessian sacks, wooden boxes full of eggs, buckets and buckets of dried beans; it was choc-a block with goodies and cobwebs. This house, Casa Lima, used the ground floor for making wine. It contained huge wooden barrels,…