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.