the story of Casa Azul

It seems winter really has finally set in now. As I type it is chucking it down. However, it must be said, winter here is not like the winters of old I remember from the UK – the winters I promised myself I would never revisit. Freezing wind, rain, floods etc. I hate to say it but I actually quite like the winter here (so far). Here, it’s not actually that cold (I say again, so far). It has just meant a change in nature’s palette. The vine leaves are red, the sycamores and the chestnut leaves are yellow but there is still the bright green backdrop of everything else. In our garden it is the relentless green of the grass, in our temporary house it is the green of the pine and eukalypt forests.

It also hasn’t stopped us going ‘down the farm’. Yesterday, with a backdrop of drizzle I finished off the big pond. Now we just need to wait for the spring and hopefully it will prove tempting enough for the frogs to drop in some spawn. And we need them, giant monster slugs have started appearing. Licking their chops and asking when the veggies are going to be planted.

Meanwhile Jackie has rejoined the battle against the brambles and a new ‘super weed’ we have discovered. In actual fact it is a dense and deep network of roots from the plum trees which are sprouting all over the place. Nice to know we have a lot of plum trees but their roots spread wide and are very difficult to dig up.

Away from the garden we have been spending a lot of time shopping – we have bought tiles for the whole house. Most of the rooms will have the usual terracotta tiles found in houses round these parts (you will not believe how many shades of brown there are!) but the bathroom will be shades of green. Tiles chosen by Jackie, which she says were inspired from our trips to Ko Samet, a beautiful island in Thailand. Those beachy days with our toes in the sand seem a long way off now…

Winter seems to have finally arrived and with it some rain. Just as well actually for us as we’ve planted some fruit trees. A plum, cherry, apple, lemon, pomegranate and fig. They need plenty of water and recently they’ve got it. It also means the grass has quite suddenly grown out of control. I thought grass grew slowly, but I swear I can see it grow here! So out with the strimmer and suddenly I turned into the green man. At least from the knees down.

Our short edible mushroom season seems to be over. However we have enjoyed quite a few meals out of them. We’ve had delicious mushroom soup but I think my favourite is just to lightly fry them in a little butter and garlic. Absolutely delicious!

The edibles in our garden might be over but we have been on a number of walks in the area over the last week and keep finding strange new varieties popping up all over the place. Far too many to identify but I have put them on a page all to themselves. See if you can identify any of them and let me know. Check them out here.

So we find ourselves in the garden most days battling with the brambles, collecting walnuts or adding to the bonfire pile. There are a number of projects we have finished, many still on the go (eg the bramble busting) and many yet to start. A minor project finished today was making a small pond down towards where all the veg will grow (very big project yet to start!). The idea is that it encourages slug eating creatures (aka toads) to come out and keep our greens nibble free. So a small hole was dug (by me – not a tractor in sight!) and then over the three days of downpour filled with rainwater. Nothing is to be added, apparently the plants and toads will arrive all by themselves! Well, I was chuffed:

Richard, meanwhile, has been working on the big pond. Now that has been dug and covered in black plastic it seems there won’t be any rain for a bit so we have to wait for that project to be ticked off.

You’ll notice that Richard is sporting a snazzy new pair of bright blue overalls (the top not on as digging a hole is hot work). We had been looking for some work clothes for sometime and then found these in a shop yesterday. Unfortunately, they only had the one colour so we look a couple of twerps in matching outfits but at least they’ll keep us cleaner (and perhaps stop the brambles from snagging our clothes). I’m looking forward to the next garden projects: one is picking the black olives and then either turning them into oil or bottling them, and the other is picking the quinces and making quince jam. Saboroso!

There’s plenty of wildlife at Casa Azul – quite a few rabbits which will no doubt play havoc with the veggies next year but we’ve also seen kestrels and sparrow hawks in addition to plenty of garden birds including tits and robins and redstarts. However we’ve photographed none of these. We have a few photos of animals around our rented house though. Insects and cats…

Meanwhile, the pig house has disappeared…

Things have been actually happening at Casa Azul this week. The plans have been finished! Or rather the original renovation plans that we discussed with the architect will be sent into the Council for approval whereas the modified plans (we made a few changes last week) won’t be put in at all – or rather not until the work is finished. Don’t ask, I don’t understand what is going on either. All I know is now we can ask builders for quotes to do the work. One has already had a look around and said it will be at least 6 months. In Portuguese time that means we may have to brace ourselves for longer. I dare not even think about that. Anyway, this should not besmirch the fact that the plan submission is indeed good news.

More good news is that we have been reunited with our worldly goods. They were stuck in customs for a few days but emerged unscathed to be delivered intact last week. However, as our rented house is quite small we cannot actually unpack many of the boxes. Just the priceless home design books that Jackie immediately fell upon and devoured for ideas.

…and the good news continues. Our friendly neighbour, Luis has had his tractor round and dug a big hole in our garden. I never know what to call an acre. It seems too big for a garden but too small to be ‘land’. So I’ll just switch seamlessly between the two. Anyway, Jackie had the brainwave to dig a hole and then fill it in with the breezeblock rubble from the recently demolished pig sty. Thus forming a mini hill which will become a ‘feature’. As it happens we thought the hole that Luis made would be too small but it actually turned out to be more than big enough to swallow up all the breeze blocks and have room for more. Strangely enough it seems that the resulting ‘hill’ may turn out to be a piddling mound unless we can find other stuff to bung in it. Anyway, hard work brings it’s own reward and not too many aches and pains from the process, so a good result all round. Here is the half broken down building and half filled up hole:

Even more good news? We had some rainy days last week which was good for the land and a pleasant change for us. However, the sunshine has returned, so we took the time to go on a few walks in the surrounding forests. This is why we came here: unspoilt beauty on our doorstep. From our rented house we can see a hill in the distance and saw from our military map of the area that there was a track leading to the top from right near the house, so one day we headed up, sandwiches and biscuits stowed in a mini rucksack. We didn’t quite get to the top then but had a great day out and actually returned a different way a few days later in our pickup. This time we went up around late afternoon and the light was stunning. The top of hill emerged from the surrounding pine and eucalyptus forests to give fantastic views. We could see for miles and the forests took on a beautiful golden hue. Magnificent. We also managed to grab a geocache at the top.

Those that know us well will not be surprised that a local cat has adopted us. It’s a very cute thing that very oddly smells of perfume despite the fact, or so we think, that it lives mainly with the pigs and sheep of the small farmholding a few metres down the road. One night last week, Jackie was awoken to find it outside our front door with a little mousey present. NB We don’t feed it or allow it into our house so no accusations of leading it on, please.

Next week we may be brought down to earth as we receive quotes for the building work that has to be done. Watch this space.

I don’t know about Indian Summer but we’ve been just over two weeks in Portugal, it’s now at the end of September and the weather remains glorious. Not a cloud in the sky for 16 days out of 17 and the temps in the high twenties.

Of course we are still waiting on the plans for the house so no work has started there yet but we are using the time to work on the land. We’ve been harvesting our first crop. Embarrassingly we found a tree with hard green fruits wondering what they were. It was only when we saw some rotting on the ground that we discovered we had a walnut tree. Since then we have eaten quite a few and are keeping the rest for the winter.

We’ve also had loads of pears and peaches but just missed the apples – there are one or two on our tree but many more lie rotten on the ground. However on a walk we did at the weekend we passed an apple tree overhanging the path from someone’s garden with loads of ripe fruit on the ground so helped ourselves. On this walk we also gorged ourselves on delicious figs, grapes and blackberries which were growing wild.

There is plenty of work to do in the garden. The main one being to free the olive trees from the masses of brambles which have grown up over the years. We plan on keeping some brambles and more importantly their blackberries lining one wall but the rest we want to get rid. We’ve had some help from a local farmer who brought his industrial sized strimmer with him. This is a contraption he drags behind his tractor and consists of a rapidly spinning wheel with three chains attached underneath a large metal plate. This whips through anything and with it he has managed to clear most of our land. We have also had to knock down a walnut tree which was too near the house but it meant I have put my new toy to good use – the chainsaw. We’ve saved the logs for winter and our wood burning stove.

Next up is the compost heap which we plan to make from some old pallets which we managed to purloin from a neighbour. This relatively simple task however is already putting my rudimentary woodworking skills to the test. At this rate the potting shed and chicken coop will have to wait quite some time.

We also plan on planting more fruit trees in the garden and have been scouring local garden centres. Here we have discovered the vagaries of country time keeping. I mentioned in a previous blog that most places shut for lunch. But everyone keeps their own time. So one place may shut from 12.00 till 1.30 while another 1.30 till 3.00. We got to one garden centre which was indeed closed to the public for lunch even though a couple of workers were unloading a truck. They confirmed the lunch hour of 1.30 – 3.00. We duly returned at 3.15 to find the place still closed. The workers were still there but the centre still closed. They didn’t know where the boss was with the key to open up again and didn’t think he would be back that day. C’est la vie as they don’t say around here.

We’ve had a door put on the barn though by the local blacksmith and we are now waiting to fill it with our worldly goods from Jordan. Fingers crossed, our shipment will be here this week.

We’ve been here a week and things are going pretty much to plan – in that we knew that things would go very slowly! We think we have all the necessary paperwork completed in order to get our shipment in and we actually have an address: basically our names followed by our village: Galega. That seems to be enough for the postman. We are having to wait on our architect to finish plans that should have been done weeks ago. Very frustrating but par for the course I expect. He promises they will be done next week after which we can start getting quotes for the work. Anyway, the main task for the week was to buy a pickup and we’ve done that – a Mitsubishi L200. It cost us almost 7000 GBP (year 2000) but we knew that cars are expensive here. It’s just what we wanted and has plenty of grunt.

Having another look at Casa Azul was a reality check. Despite it not looking too bad we now realise how much work we have to do but little idea of where to start. However, that’s what we are here for and we are up for the challenge. At least we now know what fruits we have on our land as everything is ripening at the moment: pears, apples, peaches, walnuts, blackberries, redcurrants and figs and soon enough we will have olives and oranges.

A first priority on the house was to clear the courtyard of roof tiles which we have done. It was then a difficult task to get the pickup into the courtyard so the next job is to widen the entrance. At the same time we need to demolish an unsightly brick pighouse in the garden. I think the knocking down will be easier and more fun that the building up.

The house that we have rented is fine. Nice views across the valley to forested hillsides. Just as well as I think we will be in there for longer than anticipated. It’s also very close to Casa Azul. Although it doesn’t have a washing machine, we have met a friendly English couple who live down the road and they are going to let us wash at their place – at least for a while. The woman who rented us the house lives nearby and she said we could use hers but she has just gone into hospital – she has terminal cancer! It seems there are already a few Brits living nearby. Enough to ask for advice but not enough to overrun the place.

We have also got an internet connection, of sorts. It’s a dongle that connects our laptop with the mobile phone signal. Only problem is the speed is snail-like and there is no chance of uploading or downloading pictures. Anything more than checking E-mails is therefore to be done at the nearest library which is in Penela – itself only 6 or 7kms away.

Apart from the essentials, the other main aspect of our first week has been a general acclimatisation and I think we have done that. We’ve been to a few local markets – every day it’s a market day somewhere. They’re quite small and notable for the fact that almost everyone is over 60. I think I am the only male on view not wearing a flat cap and Jackie the only woman without woollie tights. I guess a startling realisation of the differences between the ageing populations of Europe and the young populations of Asia which we are more used to.

Lunch here is still an important part of the day. At least an hour and a half and most of the shops seem to shut down – not a siesta it’s just that everyone is tucking in. All the local restaurants fill up not long after midday. Mainly with labourers piling into the staple of Portuguese cooking – bacalhau (salted cod). There are supposed to be 365 recipes for it. Vying with bacalhau in popularity is pork – great big fatty chunks of the stuff. Veggies are fresh but definitely play second fiddle – always spuds and perhaps a bit of greenery if you’re lucky. The fish is also fresh and delicious. The locals also fill up on the local wine at lunchtime and good stuff it is too. I hope they don’t use any heavy machinery in the afternoon.

Weatherwise it has been wonderful. Long warm days with plenty of sunshine. However we have had one wet day – perhaps a taste of things to come. Better get some fire wood collected.

After two years in Jordan with the British Council I have left both. I am officially homeless and unemployed. Enough there to chat about for a while but as this blog is about Casa Azul, I’ll stick to the Portuguese angle.

The last few weeks was about shipping. Shipping our worldly goods wouldn’t be a problem (apart from the huge expense especially at the Portuguese end). Of course the problem was bureaucracy (I can see this becoming a theme with this blog).

In order to move to Portugal, or rather to ship personal possessions to Portugal you need docs. Plenty of them. The most important being a Certificado de Baggagem. Issued by the local consulate stating that the shipper (us) had lived outside Portugal for the last two years and was only shipping old, personal items. OK so far but as there was no Portuguese Embassy in Jordan I had to do it all through the Portuguese Embassy in Egypt. No problem they said – just pop over and they would process the docs for me. Of course that didn’t fly so I had to get all the docs certified by the UK embassy, translate the packing list into Portuguese, send it all to them, pray it was going to arrive safely and then arrange for someone to go to the Embassy in Cairo to physically pay for everything in Egyptian pounds. What a pain!

Now in the Isle of Man, I just have to wait in hope for the Certificado to arrive on my doorstep. The other docs (and there are plenty of them) will have to wait until we arrive in Portugal.

One week to go! I can’t wait!