Identity Crisis
Fed up with doing it ourselves
With all the talk about gender at the Olympics I’ve been reassessing how I identify.
I’ve spent the last few years trying to move towards something approaching the Oxford English dictionary’s definition of handyman: “a person able or employed to do occasional domestic repairs and minor renovations.”
I’ve slowly being moving towards the “Mr Fixit” label my mum used to have for my dad when I was growing up – I’m actually still using some of his tools from the 1950s box with his initials on it.
But my attitude towards our project recently is making me reconsider.
Now I think I identify as “unhandy man” or a “Mr Fixit-NOT”
I am so totally done with D-I-Why. I’m so over it. I don’t want to Do It Myself anymore. I’d like someone else to do it.
Hours spent trying to work out how to do stuff has allowed me to ponder the alternative meanings of this TLA (Three Letter Acronym):
Died Inside Yesterday
Dammit. Idiot. You!
Done? Isn’t Yet.
Drilling Incomplete. Yawn.
Daily Incompetence? Yes.
Don’t I Yearn...to do something else? Darn It, Yes.
Hopefully this is just a passing phase...given the amount of tinkering time, drill-skills and general knowledge about our solar and water systems I am going to need to keep this show on the road.
But right now I really can’t face putting up any more lights, filling the remaining gaps between the skirting boards and the wall, or faffing about with wood and hinges.
I’ve thrown everything at a long running battle with the kitchen sink, hopefully have found the final solution to a leaking industrial dishwasher, and we have secured all the headboards.
But then there are the coffee tables and the wooden benches to make and varnish and fit and finish....
I make almost daily trips to the nearby agricultural supplies store and the hardware place because I haven’t bought enough nails or the right sized pipe or the correct tap.
But a lot of what we need involves a day trip.
The local DIY superstore down in the Algarve is Leroy Merlin – pronounced in Portuguese with an odd fake French accent: Leh-roh-ah Mare-lahn.
But I’m now comfortable just calling him Leroy – not even Senhor Merlin, or O Leroy – we’ve spent so much time together we are definitely on first-name terms and converse in the tu form.
I almost know what all the different silicones are for, what kind of paint you use on what and where everything is in most stores.
I even felt let down when one of his people refused to let me buy an air conditioning unit for the adega (wine cellar) because I didn’t have the name, licence number, date of birth, mother’s maiden name and inside leg measurement of the person who was going to install it.
It’s the law apparently...presumably thanks to a well-connected and strongly lobbying AC Fitters’ Union (perhaps known as the “AC-FU”?).
The car happily drives itself the hour and a quarter cross-country to visit the Holy Trinity of IKEA, Leroy and Makro.
I’ve overdosed on Swedish meatballs and hotdogs and burned hours pondering different sized parafusos (screws...up there on my list of favourite Portuguese words with rodapé or skirting boards...why use two words when you can do it in one?).
We’ve bought so many flat-pack things which need assembling, that we have spent hours just putting waste cardboard into recycling bins.
The annoying thing is that after all this I am still rubbish at it.
Lists of things to “just finish off” take hours – many of which are spent walking from one building to another searching for missing tools or drill bits which I’m sure I left somewhere.
The place is looking great – and every day it gets a little closer to being “finished” – a technical definition indicating “the placement of essentials allowing the rooms to be habitable” while other things are gradually added and finessed over time.
Of course to be officially habitable we need a licence...and little happens here once you hit August.
Businesses close, people head off on holiday and the town hall kicks the can down the road by asking for some additional signed piece of paper which we were categorically told by our architect we didn’t need a month ago.
Endless regulations, high taxes and several six-month long delays – which have twice been resolved with the official response of “oh, I forgot” – have left us financially and emotionally drained.
Both the town hall and key professionals have been unresponsive for months throughout this process. The lack of accountability from all sides is far more exhausting than we could have imagined.
Ho-hum. Let’s just hope the tourism authority are generous when they read the letter our bank manager sent on our behalf asking if we could put off payment of the loan capital until we are actually allowed to open.
We were hoping to make money this summer to get us through the more fallow winter months so are hoping to put off repayments until next Easter when tourism picks up again.
After all, compared to others in the area we’ve done things very quickly for Alentejo, but so very frustrating to spend so much time and effort to do things above board, when many people here take the approach of asking for forgiveness rather than permission. It’s often faster and cheaper.
Friends and visitors are generous with their praise for what we’ve achieved in the four years since we arrived here in the Valley of the Stars.
That’s quite an important number for me, because for all the years spent bouncing from country to country I have never lived in one place for more than four years since the 1980s when I left school in Newcastle.
Breaking an adult-lifelong nomadic habit hasn’t been as hard as I might have thought, probably because we’re so busy I suppose.
But I am happily settled in the place where we have settled and am looking forward to the next four, by which time I hope we will be running a successful business...ie one that brings in more money than it spends (very much against the current trend).
A thousand boxes of linen arrived the other day, the cutlery is on the way, you can never have too many vacuum cleaners and Ana hitched a lift north with our generous neighbour Daniel to order the crockery which we picked up a day later (at 6am) at one of the monthly markets in the area.
We’ve had a few friends road testing the facilities this weekend and while we grabbed a bit of downtime.
Ed, Rachael & Daisy were back for a week...officially our best return guests (we think it’s nine trips so far); Tim & Trish came with a camera...but we aren’t quite ready for the glamour shots just yet.
Their water was cold – but that’s just because I forgot to turn on the heatpumps – and it smelt a bit plastic-y, so I need to run a lot of water through the system.
But the pool was “amazing” and the clubhouse has the seal of approval as a great place to hang out.
And we had the first visit of our sommelier/acrobat/dancer neighbour Candace and her husband Geoff, who arrived generously armed with some wonderful wines for us to throw into the mix for a lovely wine tasting dinner with endless views over the hills.
For those of you wondering, yes the wine podcast has been on hiatus in lieu of all the other stuff we’re trying to do...but the next episode is almost finished and is coming soon. If you haven’t heard the first half of the season check it out:
I just keep remembering things and panicking about not getting them done...the LED lights in the bathrooms!...the website!...the fan system for the adega...the woodwork!
We have achieved a huge amount against the odds: out lack of experience of building, of Portuguese bureaucracy, of knowing how to do things...but we are so nearly there.
While the place will never be finished, it will be nice to be able to have time to think again...and to plan the vineyard, the marketing, the retreats...and learn how to run a lodge.
But for now, I suppose I need to haul myself up the hill, try to gather all the possible tools I could need today into one shopping bag and try to spend more time doing it myself than looking for missing tools myself.
Great piece full of humour and humility- keep going it’s been a superb effort and we hope to stay there one day - do you have a brochure or website we could look at ?
Haven't checked in for a while ...you have made soooo much progress. Amazing! Almost there👌👏