March Mayhem

It has been a bit of a crazy month with absolutely loads going on and we have been busy most weekends as well as catching up on our jobs list. The weather had started to improve so we were able to get out and about to get stuck in to various gardening and maintenance chores which otherwise eluded us.
Fraser has had to build more secure gates and higher fences to keep the ever escaping Bugsy interned and we have now closed off the patio area so that we can hopefully leave the dogs securely if we have to be out for the day. The look on Bugsy's face says it all really."Bugger! Another new bloody fence and gate!"Fraser's exhibition opening was a lovely occasion with lots of friends coming to wish him luck. He has sold two small paintings so that is better than none, and lots of very positive comments in the exhibition comments book. Here are some of the images. It is a really nice space.We had a surprise serenade from a local young philharmonic group who had come to the centre to rehearse so they came and played for the opening. A lovely touch.We helped friends Josh and Veronika to erect a yurt at their current house with a group of other friends. It was great fun, a great learning experience and the whole team managed to put it together before lunchtime! Now I want one!!!!!

Spring is bursting and the river is high. The toads are mating in their hundreds at the water's edge and the dogs don't quite know what to make of them.Meanwhile the processionary caterpillars which have highly toxic hairs which they shed if approached are due to leave their nests in the pine trees and start making their conga-lines across the forest floor. You can see one here in the centre of the photo leaving the nest. Sadly they are spreading apace and doing a lot of damage to the pine trees because the forest around us is poorly managed, overcrowded with young wild pine saplings and a ripe breeding ground for the caterpillars to spread. We have to keep the dogs away from them because the hairs can cause swelling in the respiratory system and anaphylactic shock in both humans and dogs too.

I have been planting out new spring stock and more vegetables and despite the rain returning this week, the seedlings are starting to appear as the weather has warmed up.

Friend Mark has adopted an Estrella Puppy, who is only a few months old and a real character. She loves playing with Bugsy and Scraps and is very bold.She comes to play as often as she can but unfortunately gets very car sick at the moment!

On 20th March there was a campaign in Portugal to clean up the country and collect garbage dumped in forests and verges. We participated with neighbour Elaine and cleaned up our lakeside and the fringe of forest bordering it. Collected 10 huge sacs of rubbish after 3 1/2 hours in the pouring rain. 100,000 people in Portugal participated and its hoped that this will be the start of a huge clean up programme on a regular basis. Portugal is rife with garbage.

So to cheer us up and with Easter coming we are having a party on Easter Sunday to celebrate....well... having a party! Fraser's sister Jan and her partner John bought us a pukkah dart board so we are going to have a pub style darts and boules party on Sunday with sarnies, beer wine and easter eggs too.

Fraser is organising hanging the darts boards (we also have a cheap and cheerful one from the local Chinese emporium) as I write. Hopefully the weather will hold for the day.
Hope you all have a great Easter wherever you are and that the sun is so hot that it melts your chocolate!!!!!!

Raindrops Keep Falling.......

February is here and seems to be almost gone before we can even take a breath somehow. Time to get the land sorted and de-weeded and prepare for the mega activity of spring planting. We realise that in England and other northern parts the snow has been a huge feature but weather is strange here too since we have had very little frost so far (enough to kill off a few plants though) but continuing with shedloads of rain, which just saturates the land. We've just had the most tremendous hail storms and high winds just a few days after the disaster in Madeira so maybe it was the tail end of the system. Scary to watch the pine trees around us bend so dramatically towards the house in the gales. We are also discovering leaks and leaky guttering that will need fixing this year. Ho Hum

The dogs have the right idea and when not rushing round beating each other up they enjoy collapsing as only they can.The water diversion done in November have helped somewhat but we still have so much water in the soil it has been hard to work. Friend Mark has rotivated my vegetable terrace...thank you Mark, and also created two other beds in the field next to the pond for the squashes, pumpkins and sweet corn that I hope to grow this year. Problem is the dogs think it is a great area to excavate so we have had to fence it off. Fraser worked hard to put up field fencing at least, although they can still get access from the terrace above but at least it is not available from the field side when they are out playing.
Bugsy has dug over most of the terrace banks creating holes everywhere so we will have to buy a load of cheap hardy plants and fill up the holes I guess to keep the terraces intact. He is a little bugger with digging and is a chewer!! He has made short work of two seat belts and part of the roof lining of the car. But our fault for leaving the dogs in there too long. We live and learn.

The olives have been trimmed down again and another two dead pine trees removed and processed thanks to the tree team, Steve, João Pedro and Vanessa.
We have started to plant more trees on the terraces and around the pond, Beech, Maples, Liquid Ambers and hope to plant more.

The lake is low since they have kept the dam open to help ease the torrents flowing in the Mondago. There have been plenty of wonderful misty mornings though and a pair of cormorants have taken to fishing regularly there. It's a grand site to see them albeit briefly.

The spiders are out doing their stuff and the Mimosa has started to bloom.
Fraser has broken through a rather blocked spell and is painting abstracts after much worry and thumbnail chewing. It is great to see him working so enthusiastically. Hopefully there will be some ready for the exhibition in 3 weeks time. We are very excited about that and hope there will be some interest in his work. My final news is that I have become a Great-Great-Aunty. My Great Nephew Bradley and his wife Nina have produced William Jack weighing in at just over 10 pounds!!! Congratulations to both and welcome to William Jack.

2010 and All That

Happy New Year to one and all.

Sylvia writing.We had a great Christmas in the UK despite the BA threatened air strikes which prompted me to book Easyjet and forego the BA flight until next year, then had Easyjet canceling our outward flight from Faro due to UK snow and having to book yet another flight with Monarch! Cost over £1000 all in all although we will get £93 back from Easyjet.....eventually. But the expense was worth it.
Before we headed for Faro we hosted Fraser's sister Jan and partner John overnight as they were traveling by car down to Lagos for the Christmas period.We then met up briefly with John's son Josh, Fraser's niece Hannah and husband Steve and their two sons Finlay and Ruben, when they arrived at Faro Airport to spend Christmas with Jan and John.
Then having deposited Scraps into the capable hands of Steve, Jenny and Skaigh we flew to the UK in time to see the snowy landscape!
We stayed with my sister in Blackheath and caught up with family chat and shopping before heading for James and Adela's in Willesden Green for a Czech style Christmas Eve and then Christmas Day. Richard and Jo were there too so we had complete family, thoroughly spoilt with oodles of prezzies, great food, booze and lots of laughter and games in a totally chilled atmosphere. Just how Christmas should be.
Boxing Day we decamped to Richard and Jo's flat for the day, while James and Adela headed off to Wiltshire and after a lovely pub lunch treat and watching the latest Wallace and Grommet movie on TV (which was ace) we topped off the festive season by going out in the evening to see Avatar in 3D. Mind blowing and thoroughly enjoyable. More fairy tale with allegorical storyline than science fiction and a real visual delight.
So a huge thank you to the boys and their girls for looking after us so well.

The day after I met up with brothers, inlaws and family at my sisters house to celebrate our Mum's birthday.

Brother Dennis, me, Sister Pat and Brother Don with Great Nephews Greg, Kieran and Nicholas and Great Nieces Kelly Marie and Caitlin.

I met great - nieces and nephews that I have rarely seen and the house was packed with my grown up niece and nephews and it was a rowdy and raucous event. Just like always!!!! My best friend from College days and the boys' godmother...Malc come up to London to share in the bustle and stay over! So Happy Birthday Mum!

We had a couple of days with my sister to re-coup and be spoiled even more, before we headed back to rainy Faro to see how Scraps had fared without us (which was very well indeed) and to spend New Year with friends Steve and Jenny........ and Jan and Martin, whom I hadn't seen for 9 years! Watched the fireworks on Albufeira beach, despite the rain. So all in all a lovely Festive Season and lots of thanks to Steve and Jenny for looking after Scraps and us so well.
Meanwhile back in London the boys and girls spent New Year dressed as superheros and notable characters for what looked like a great fancy dress bash. Guess the characters!
I miss them all already!
Handing over to Fraser now for the rest of the news about the start of our new year.

Came back to Portugal to discover it was still raining (a lot) and still cold. The field resembled a rice paddy - minus the rice and water buffaloes. The fruit trees were standing in water as well and we can only hope they recover.

Two weeks ago Sylvi spotted this -
on the local e-want adds. Another foundling needing a home, so.... convincing ourselves that what Scraps really needed was a playmate, we brought him home. He's got blue eyes and will probably grow to be larger than Scraps (which she should bear in mind when she's bullying him) and has pale blue eyes. As he's a little bit of a gangster he's been dubbed Bugsy, after Bugsy Malone... The two of them seem to be bonding well and he's growing apace.

And yes, Scraps is sucking her foot in that last pic... Bugsy is much more laid-back than Scraps. He's also an accomplished thief and escape artist. Interesting times ahead, methinks.
A lot of time has been spent this month, framing my paintings for a one man show in March at the Casa Cultura in Santa Comba Dao, just north of here. I don't expect, knowing how tight money is, to sell much - any would be good - but it's good to give them an airing and see what people think of what I do.
On Sunday we went up to Steve and Vanessa's Village for the St. Sebastian day airing of religious statues accompanied by the local Philharmonia -marching band. St. Sebastion was well peppered with arrows, one of which looked excrutiatingly painful!



This week Steve, Vanessa and João Pedro are pruning the Olive trees with a bit of help from us. We're hoping to plant some more trees in February as the ground dries up a bit.
That's about it for this month. Stay tuned