Clearing Skies

The death of DIY and rise of the craft project

Today I’d like to start with an apology.

You’ve been very patient with me as I’ve bumbled and grumbled my way through the past few months, mostly moaning about DIY, crossing the Valley of Death, Losing Perspective and treating my despatches more like therapy sessions.

You didn’t sign up to be armchair psychiatrists, so I’m sorry...but thank you.

After a bit of self-reflection and a little “enough already” advice from people whose opinions I trust, I would like to announce the official end to my searing negativity.

I can see clearly now, the mists have gone…our valley view

I’ve been leaning this way for a little while, but a piece of important news this week has lifted a heavy weight from our shoulders.

Like the magical morning mists that sometimes shroud our valley, the doom and gloom has been steadily lifting – burning off to reveal the blue skies.

And of course they were always there – I just couldn’t see them.

But now it’s time to stop looking down at overwhelming to-do lists and obsessing with the small things, and to look up and see the big picture – the picture we fell in love with when we first came to this valley.

And it’s also time to stop looking backwards, but looking forwards to the next step in our career transition through builders to proprietors.                 

Our friends and VIPs (Very Inspiring Proprietors) Vera and Cam went through a similar construction project and have quickly grown a really successful tourism and retreat business up the road at Quinta Camarena in nearby Cercal.

“Oh, the building work,” Vera told us, “I remember that – it sucked,” she said...just six months after their hugely stressful race to get everything finished.

Of course the pressure has mostly, but not entirely, been self-inflicted.

Paw Garfie and the giant cone of shame: but his foot - also self-inflicted - is finally getting better

Years in journalism have left me obsessed with deadlines and the desire to throw myself into something, get it mastered, get the story told, and move onto the next thing.

But of course not everything works like that.

Since the building work began a little over two years ago we’ve had a singular aim in mind: to get the lodge finished and open to paying guests this summer.

A year ago we were confident that we’d be ready by May, and even after the winter rain we still thought June was do-able, while the builders, engineers and every artisan in earshot said: “what, you’re planning to open this year?”

“August for sure” we told ourselves, each other and anyone else who’d listen.

Tomato fest: and then there's the amazing things in life like our great friends Ola & Merete's tomato festival: tomatoes by Merete, menu by Ola

But it wasn’t just a hope – it was a need.

We’ve taken a big loan to do this project, and although most of it is zero interest courtesy of the tourism authority – to promote growth in remote and traditionally poorer parts of the country – it still needs to be paid back...in just 10 years.

The capital repayments were due to start next month – just in time for the winter tourism lull – but thanks to our bank manager’s confidence in our project and lobbying on our behalf, Turismo de Portugal have agreed to postpone payments.

We don’t yet know for how long, and this certainly doesn’t mean we can rest on our laurels (or the succulents we are busily planting), but it gives us a bit of breathing space.

In a few short weeks, even the dreaded DIY has been transformed into a series of “craft projects” and thinking about it that way has completely changed my approach.

I’m not sure why it all became so overwhelming, but I’ve done a full 180 and have started really enjoying tinkering with some wood, creating a couple of coffee tables and pondering how to turn railway sleeper screws into coat hooks.

Thanks to both Niels and Ola for their advice on proposing a solution to attach the heavy metalwork into the wall.

Screws & screws: Drilling down and cutting a screw thread was beyond the local metal shop, so Niels proposed a welding solution

I’ve had so much encouragement and advice from my crowd-sourced therapy – thank you one and all – but as I sat down to write this despatch, Bernard from beautiful Marvão up in the Alentejo hills, made some time between his own DIY projects to send me a note:

“DIY is a skilled undertaking and like gardening requires a lot of attention and organisation and you get better and faster at it. In rural Portugal it's there for life,” Bernard noted with a smiley-face.

He put my moaning into perspective – remembering a time before my mate Leroy (as in Leroy Merlin, the French B&Q/Home Depot) had even made it to Portugal...and how much harder it was to find the things needed to do the job back then.

“DIY is underrated, regarded as trivial, especially in Britain, so you may think it's a frustrating waste of time, especially when in competition with seemingly serious tasks like getting stuff through the [town hall].”

Well that process does continue – we’re still wating for our licenses, but each we we get (hopefully) a step closer.

My decision to embrace “craft projects” began with two planks of our fallen cork oak tree, some epoxy resin, an electric sander and a pot of varnish.

Smooth Operator: sanding down the cork oak planks in my latest “craft project”

Rather than rushing to finish and move on to the next job I did a little every day – filling in the cracked wood, carefully rounding it off and sanding it smooth and I now have two beautiful benches for the mezzanines for guests to drink at or to work over.

The next job is only harrowing because it involves two old Portuguese wrought iron ploughing harrows which need feet and a glass top to become coffee tables.

I can’t wait to get stuck into the wine label project, and my new relationship with wood makes The Clubhouse bookshelves sound like an adventure.

But the clearing mists have also made me realise we’re coming to summer a little late this year.

The whole point of this crazy adventure was to design our lives so we could live here – in the beautiful Portuguese countryside with our amazing views and the wild beaches and golden sands just a short drive away.

It’s my praia as they say around here

We love the fresh fish – I’ve spent a long time perfecting my grilled fish, butterflied and braai-ed – and we’ve not been to our favourite seafood restaurant in a while.

We haven’t even dropped by the Crabstraunt (as Oda calls it), or tried wine at our local Vicentino winery’s beautiful new tasting room

Part of that is due to what our friends in the Algarve Richard & Pauline call the “Agostinis” – the tourists who rock up with their outsider demands every August (but also perhaps could be the name of a noble and serious new martini cocktail).

Can’t complain: life’s a beach when it comes to business meetings

The beaches are already starting to thin out, the ocean water is warming and our summer sidles onwards while everyone else goes back to the office.

We have managed to sneak out to the beach once or twice for planning meetings, and the occasional working lunch picnic.

Alongside the ongoing craft project, our office currently includes Ana’s series of rockeries under construction, experiments with LPWAN technology for monitoring and automating our water supply, and gradually getting everything ready for a photoshoot for our website.

Oops: need to make sure that leak doesn’t happen again!

The pressure over opening may have been released a little, but we still need to make some money – attract some late summer visitors and try and run our first retreat.

Our villa will be toasty all winter thanks to the underfloor heating and my mind is already wandering into water collection for when rain eventually drops by.

In the last couple of weeks I had another countering-disinformation trip to Nairobi (we now officially have enough Maasai blankets to keep a full house of guests nice and warm in the evenings), and I’ve just finished narrating our friend Joanna's book for Audible...it was the first one I’ve done and it was tougher than I expected!

Getting into a good book: recording my first audiobook

It’s an amazing book for western CEOs though – Chinafy by Joanna Hutchins: Why China is Leading the West in Innovation and How the Rest of the World can Catch Up.

Once the audio book goes live I’ll post a link, but it is a brilliant insider’s account of just why China’s economy will soon be top of the world.

I’m not sure our little business is going to change the world, but it’s certainly changing our world, and with the challenges, the things we’re learning to do...and about ourselves...it’s certainly change for the better.

Especially now we’ve emerged from our summer of stress, newly invigorated to take on the bureaucracy battles which will allow us to open, and with a nice number of craft projects to work away at.