Moving Mountains

The builders have gone: now it’s up to us...and to you...

In the end they left with a whimper rather than a bang.

Almost un-noticed, things on the building site gradually started disappearing until suddenly there was nothing left – except for a large pile of building rubbish and some unfinished digging work.

Decked out: Wood and calçada cobblestone decks surround the pool and the main building

We’d agreed to pay for some of Justo’s digger time by the hour, and just as I was stressing about which work we needed him to do in what order he started loading it on the back of the truck.

“Broken” he shrugged and headed off to the mechanic.

He came back with an empty truck and as if by magic the last builders’ cabin disappeared. We haven’t seen them since.

I suppose that’s when we realised it was up to us now, and that all the things that still needed to be done...need to be done by us.

And there’s quite a long list.

The gradual departure of the builders passed us by because we were just so busy.

Cleaning the land with a strimmer within 50m of every building needed to be done by the end of May, and having prioritised other things I found myself facing quite an uphill (and downhill, and uphill, and downhill again) task.

With huge thanks to volunteer helpers John Rourke and Hugh Jennings who took some good chunks out of the work, I have been rising at dawn to get out on the land before the heat really hits.

(Although I wonder if there’s a connection between John’s Scottish roots and the propensity of remaining thistles? I do hope you’re recovering well John!).

Summer has arrived and strimming after 11am quickly becomes a very energy-sapping endeavour when there’s so much else to do after the work out.

Weed whacking: the Alentejo work out regime

Weed-whacking might be a great weight-loss programme, but it steals my thinking and writing time.

This is the longest I’ve left between delivering despatches from Vale das Estrelas since I began, and the early morning exercise along with the bi-weekly podcast episodes have nipped my creativity.

By the way, if you haven’t started listening to the podcast yet please go over to our other Substack page – or search on Spotify or Apple Podcasts for Ana & Al’s Big Portuguese Wine Adventure. We’re up to Episode 5 already!

In print: I wrote about our podcast series in this month’s column in the Portugal Resident newspaper and actually found a copy!

Help us, part 1…

The first way you can help us is to rate the podcast and leave us a review to get the algorithm working for us…and getting more people listening.

The other big deadline was saving the lives of our 250 olive trees, scattered citrus and newly planted rosemary and lavender bushes in front of the new houses.

They were all starting to seriously sag and even though we started the process of replacing a broken irrigation pump early it was a close call.

We decided to install a submersible pump in the lake to provide all the irrigation water for now – until we have a full house at the lodge and the waste treatment plant starts providing us with ample nutritious agua.

Made a voyage: Cristiano launching a great raft, sunk by a leaky barrel

The brilliant Cristiano and his brother Eduardo built an island out of an old pallet and four second-hand blue barrels bought for the occasion, but sadly the island sank and we had to switch it for a bright orange buoy.

The guys laid out the 300m of pipes in the blink of an eye, because they are experts in what is an undervalued, but hugely valuable skill.

Then the thief of time became the drippers.

You can buy ready-to-install systems with a connector to the main pipe, a tube and then a spiked dripper which you push into the soil near the tree or plant to deliver water directly to the roots.

My decision to buy the constituent parts rather than the whole thing, and then put them together ourselves was meant to be time saving not money saving, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth.

It took us hours and at the cost of blisters and holes in our fingers which have still not recovered.

And then after Ana connected them all, they didn’t work - water was just flowing out and not reaching half the plants.

We realised we were supposed to have installed regulators as well so each plant receives a certain amount of water and everyone gets their share.

That took hours more of blistering bother.

Irrigation systems do need regular care and attention and there’s a lot to monitor, but despite a few losses they’re broadly doing well.

Cobbling it together: it took four days for three calçada artists to lay the limestone deck, including stars and compacting the surface

The calçada guys know all about working under an unforgiving sun – it took four days for the white limestone blocks to all be carefully chipped and placed by hand and tightly tesselated. The result is stunning.

The pool, the deck and the calçada all look amazing, we put some wooden poles in to stop people falling (the protective glass is under construction), and after weeks of looking at the water we finally found the time to take the plunge. Lovely.

The lack of Sr Manuel’s builders doesn’t mean everything is finished – a long line of his and our contractors are still coming and going as the deadline for “finishing” drifts ever into summer.

The electrician occasionally drops by with complaints about his worsening gout while his mate takes up the slack; Rui the water guy pops in for a few hours here and there to keep our plate spinning while he juggles 70-plus other jobs; and the carpenter, plumber, glass people and metal work guys still have a few things to finish.

We’d brought in some help in to hammer in wooden posts, cover the pergolas with willow and waterproof roofing, and to make our old water tanks drinking-water ready by emptying them and scrubbing them clean (much harder than it sounds).

Then things need doing NOW:

• get LED ceiling lights after the Amazon delivery never turned up (drive to the Algarve, realise later we didn’t buy enough)

• pick up finished handmade sink basins from Monchique (drive to the Algarve, realise later the plug holes aren’t big enough)

• fight with angry cork furniture delivery guy (he actually knocked me over with his van as he left)

• pick up new Starlink dish because the old line-of-sight internet providers unexpectedly pulled the plug and left us on EDGE (rather than fibre or 5G) pretty much overnight

• deal with a dramatic water pipe leak here, a demand for a big decision there

But all efforts are currently focussed on the landscaping – the literal moving of mountains...of earth and gravel.

The removal of the construction cabins revealed just how huge an area we have on the top of the hill behind the houses. We need trees, but can’t now plant much until the autumn, so we need ground cover to beautify our eco-luxe lodge.

The process involves breaking up the already baked-hard soil with a giant tractor, then moving and levelling and rolling it with enough of a slope to help water runoff next winter.

Extreme gardening: landscaping with gravel, tout venant…and wood chips to come

At least three truck loads of 23 tonnes of white tout venant were delivered – a mixture of gravel and rock dust which compacts well and will surround every building, make paths and the pétanque court.

Grey tout venant will follow with some gravel, wood chips and mulch...and felled pine trees and white stones for edges.

And with every machine hour - and truck-load of material - our landscaping budget has a big chunk excavated out of it.

The payments have been flowing out as the spending curve accelerates to the end of the project, and amid it all the tourism authority who has given us the loan blocked our final (and pretty significant) block of funding.

“No money until the work is finished” they said.

“We can’t finish until we get the money,” we replied.

After weeks of back and forth, our legendary bank manager Wilson worked some more of his magic and secured an agreement...the cash should arrive this week.

Even with the rest of the loan, we were worried about whether we had enough money to make it over the line.

Three dogs: Simon, Albie & Garfunkel don’t seem so worried about the accounting, so why should we be?

We’ve thrown all our savings into this, and I’d been putting off the full audit because I was scared about what I might find.

But with a strict landscaping budget to define, we needed to know how much money is left.

I’m glad to report that despite some big and unexpected hits like a broken borehole and spiralling water system costs, the figures just about add up. It’ll be tight, but we should make it...as long as we can welcome guests this summer.

Help us, part 2…

So, for those of you who couldn’t make it here to volunteer...please help us by coming to stay.

With our last burst of helpers expected soon, everything should be open-ready by the end of June, and while the online booking engine is still on the really-must-do-now-but-haven’t-got-time list, please let us know when you’d like to come and stay as paying guests.

It’s a soft opening year, so the prices will be good! Come and visit and claim your free bottle of Alentejo wine...with a story.