Having decided to try to complete the work ourselves because we had run out of funds, our materials provider Antonio, offered us a deal. He would complete the internal rendering, paint inside and tile the ground floor in exchange for ...............Rosie!
I will be very sad to see her go but needs must.. and having recently traded the truck for the bus
we really now don´t have need of a second car. Sniff...sniff. Antonio´s youngest son will be receiving Rosie for his 18th birthday in January.
The upside though is that we have completed much more than we anticipated so should be settling everything into the studio rooms and party room in December.
I will be very sad to see her go but needs must.. and having recently traded the truck for the buswe really now don´t have need of a second car. Sniff...sniff. Antonio´s youngest son will be receiving Rosie for his 18th birthday in January.The upside though is that we have completed much more than we anticipated so should be settling everything into the studio rooms and party room in December. Fraser has already started to transfer his stuff upstairs.
It just remains for me to complete the tiling in the bathroom and on the fireplace and for Fraser to build the partition wall at the back of the bathroom under the stairs.
It just remains for me to complete the tiling in the bathroom and on the fireplace and for Fraser to build the partition wall at the back of the bathroom under the stairs.We have managed to complete all of the pointing round the stones outside 
and now I can focus on building up the other side of the rockery at the front. We are going to organise the shifting of all of the detritus in the quad, move the granite blocks to store along the roadside and level the area ready for creating the patio garden. Hopefully the levelling will provide me with more topsoil for the rockery. We will have to wait a while for my pension to kick in next year and spring to forage in the forest for cuttings to get that on the go.
and now I can focus on building up the other side of the rockery at the front. We are going to organise the shifting of all of the detritus in the quad, move the granite blocks to store along the roadside and level the area ready for creating the patio garden. Hopefully the levelling will provide me with more topsoil for the rockery. We will have to wait a while for my pension to kick in next year and spring to forage in the forest for cuttings to get that on the go.In the meantime the land will be needing attention and we are still waiting for more rain to soften up the ground to make it easier to double dig. I am extending my veges to include a patch down in the field along the ditch leading from the pond, where I am going to try to grow pumpkins, squash and melons again. Hopefully, being wetter there I will have a bit more success next year. We also are going to sow the clover...still not done but after the rain it will be a good time to do this.
The critter factor this month .....Our next door neighbour unearthed a local tree frog while she was weeding.
And we have discovered that Portugal has false Black Widow spiders...which still pack a venomous bite but are not as lethal as their antipodean cousins. This one lives at our neighbour´s place on a fencepost...
We have had to put a net frill string web across the pond since we have had a couple of visits from the local heron, who strikes a wonderful pose on the terraces across from the kitchen window. Unfortunately no picture of him as yet.
And we have discovered that Portugal has false Black Widow spiders...which still pack a venomous bite but are not as lethal as their antipodean cousins. This one lives at our neighbour´s place on a fencepost...We have had to put a net frill string web across the pond since we have had a couple of visits from the local heron, who strikes a wonderful pose on the terraces across from the kitchen window. Unfortunately no picture of him as yet. 
November is olive harvest time and some of our neighbours came to pick ours over four days, since we have had no time to even think about doing this and we didn´t want them to be wasted.
They got over a hundred kilos in the end which they will add to their own to have processed into olive oil. The quality is usually pretty low, but we will get a couple of litres anyway to see what it is like. I did collect a bucket of what I hoped were bug free olives to preserve for the table. One lot fermented and were full of little maggots and the other small lot are now in brine and herbs after 10 days of changing water and are bugless! It now only remains for us to prune the trees which is a huge amount of work since they haven´t been done for years. We have done four so far and the amount of trimmings created a wonderful bonfire. We now need to get onto trimming a couple each week, (since we have 25 trees) and dragging the branches down to the field for burning. Should be done by February! No worries.
Highlight of the month was a visit from friends Jenny, Steve and Skaigh (the dog)who came to us for a well deserved break after solving their lightning strike problems.
We took time off for a day of retail therapy in Viseu and for a trip up to the Estrellas Mountains to the highest spot 2,000metres 
The little blip that looks like a small tower is actually two people standing at the edge of the fall away... the rest is cloudbank ...
where we found snow!! 
Skaigh made friends with an Estrella Dog puppy at our stop at the dam below Torre
and we were sorely tempted to buy one of the puppies on sale, 
although we are not quite ready for a dog yet. On our way back we went through a wonderful valley near a place called Manteigas (butters!) and had breathtaking views of autumnal deciduous forest.
We took time off for a day of retail therapy in Viseu and for a trip up to the Estrellas Mountains to the highest spot 2,000metres The little blip that looks like a small tower is actually two people standing at the edge of the fall away... the rest is cloudbank ...where we found snow!! Skaigh made friends with an Estrella Dog puppy at our stop at the dam below Torre and we were sorely tempted to buy one of the puppies on sale, although we are not quite ready for a dog yet. On our way back we went through a wonderful valley near a place called Manteigas (butters!) and had breathtaking views of autumnal deciduous forest. 
and a glacial valley.
It was a great trip!
As it was the time of the festival of São Martinho, when traditionally the locals roast chestnuts and drink the first fermentation of their wine, we decided to have our own chestnuts, done brilliantly by Steve on the barbecue.
However we decided to forego the young fermented wine (vile and will give you a mother of a headache) and made hot spiced wine instead! (Better taste, same headache!)And finally conCATulations are due to Fraser´s niece Saffi and her Maine Coon cat Sarnia Cherie who won the UK Grand Premier Certificate, then Best of Breed followed by Best of Variety Semi-Longhair Neuter, beating lots of other cats along the way at the NEC in Birmingham.
She then competed against the six other Best of Variety Neuter winners - Persian, British, Foreign, Burmese, Oriental and Siamese and won the title of Supreme Neuter. Then Cherie beat the Burmese Adult and Norwegian Forest Kitten to gain the most coveted GCCF title - Supreme Exhibit 2008 while being filmed for a television programe...with Joanna Lumley. Absolutely Purrrfect!
She then competed against the six other Best of Variety Neuter winners - Persian, British, Foreign, Burmese, Oriental and Siamese and won the title of Supreme Neuter. Then Cherie beat the Burmese Adult and Norwegian Forest Kitten to gain the most coveted GCCF title - Supreme Exhibit 2008 while being filmed for a television programe...with Joanna Lumley. Absolutely Purrrfect!