The Big Picture
And a large new Post-It note wall of good intentions
The first sign of summer is when planting a tree turns from simply picking a spot and digging up a bit of soil...to battering through concrete.
It took just two days of mid-20s Celsius for the ground to turn from being soft and simple to dig, mix in with compost and happily plant, to needing a medieval throwing spear to break the surface and leave us longing for a pneumatic drill to finish the job.
It’s also a sign it’s now probably too late for us to do much of our planned landscaping.
Half the lavender planted in front of our new villa is thriving, while the other half is struggling...the difference being three days and one light shower.
Thankfully our great friends Ed, Rachael and Daisy were visiting – they brought along their great pals Medwin and Emily – and we roped them all into a little plant-off to get in the fruit trees, a few olives, figs and medronhoplants...and even twisted Ed’s arm to design us a new logo.
We have so many more trees and plants to place, but delays to the building work and so much rain lingering in the clay has limited our planting window.
For our first season we will do what we can by laying a lot of gravel and mulch, starting on a cactus garden and mixing in all the cover crops on the vineyard area to improve the soil before we plant next March.
After so much rain we almost got sick of it (we didn’t, of course), but the sudden arrival of ample sunshine and high temperatures also brought a rush of workmen bursting back on site like a field of daisies.
Once the Easter break was out of the way, our hilltop was filled with cars as on one extraordinary day we enjoyed the company of the builders, carpenters, electricians, painters and our water consultant. All on one day.
The pool preparation people even arrived a day early...brilliant, but it created another layer of complication requiring a wild goose chase to track down our plumber whose attendance was courteously requested.
The post-it note wall is back and is as packed and full as ever...but the order of achievement priority has been recalibrated from “quarter one” through “quarter four” to “today”, “tomorrow” and “yesterday”.
Things are certainly happening...I had to go through photographs and the diary simply to remember all the stuff which has been done since my last despatch...and that’s a very good thing.
We have stairs in both apartments and the metal handrail makers will be back on Monday to measure up the safety barriers; the cork floors have arrived; the pool pump is in, and its concrete structure has been prepped for its final pebbly layer which is due next week.
The discovery that our infinity pool overflow tank was too shallow required some quick cement-block action, but that ended well.
The water infrastructure has taken a couple of major steps forward towards flowing – even if our key borehole has for some strange reason stopped working right now and our house supply is dwindling (well, I did want the tank empty in order to paint it with a drinking water seal anyway!).
The solar pump, on neighbour Daniel’s land, is now bringing irrigation canal water hundreds of meters up the valley to mix in with our salty borehole supply (when available); and the house and panel rainwater capture system is almost finished...just in time for the summer drought.
We need about 60,000 litres of mixed and treated water by next Thursday...but that requires electricity to run the pumps and the softener...and clean tanks to store it in.
I messed up on the tank front by asking for soil to be piled onto the sides without properly reinforcing the tank first needing some extra bulldozer hours to undo and redo that job.
And the power grid appears to require the kind of focussed attention not supplied by the occasional drop-ins by the electrician checking on his worker.
At least we found the electrical cable that connects the current guesthouse.
You may remember months of random digging, detective work and the unsuccessful deployment of Niels’ 1980s metal detector to track down the power cable before it reaches the house...and save us a huge rewiring job.
Some carefully selected hand-digging uncovered the illusive little blighter...to great acclaim and relief all round.
That means we can now seamlessly integrate everything into the new system.
Ana celebrated yet another 29th birthday and her morning birthday sandwich illustrated the gift we both want...in fact it’s the same thing I wanted for my birthday...oh, and it’s what we both asked Father Christmas for as well...DOORS AND WINDOWS.
It’s a small thing to ask. No, actually it’s a large thing to ask...and require before anything can be effectively done inside the new buildings...but we did order them last year.
The promised deadline keeps slipping...please, please, please can it be this week??
While our daughter Oda has introduced a new family rule that birthday sandwiches need to be edible, I gambled on the current intermittent fasting regime of “no food before midday” to get away with mixing cheese and corn tortilla, fishpaste, carrot and cucumber with cake decorations.
After two consecutive years of proper surprise trips to Atlantic Islands (Madeira and then the Açores) I totally blindsided my wife this year by not taking her anywhere!
She didn’t expect that!
It wasn’t that much of a surprise...given that we have so many things on the Post-It note wall, but thankfully dinner was more palatable than my sandwich.
We’ve been meaning to go to the fine dining experience place nearest to us – the Michelin mentioned Näperõn in Odeceixe – and at least that was something of an unexpected element of a birthday which also involved a visit to the aptly named Birthday Beach.
It was great...carefully thought through and created “moments” with a great wine list.
Of course the absence of doors and windows hasn’t stopped us cracking on with the interiors...we haven’t got time to waste.
We finally managed to wrestle the cork oak planks – heft from our ancient fallen tree – from the local carpentry shop.
After weeks of waiting it was a pretty disappointing job, but we transported them down to Ben in nearby Aljezur for him to weave some magic and turn these scratched and scraped, slightly warped planks into a stunning 2m long bar and some fabulous bathroom vanities.
He selected the best of the bunch – the rest will be a possible wine rack and a couple of tables which we will turn our own hands to.
We still have to work out a good solution for the countertop legs, but the stunning wood will be an amazing addition to all the bathrooms and we will mount handmade pottery bowls as sinks.
Our most recent acquisition trips to the Algarve took us to the workshop of Leonel Telo Cerâmica up the mountains of Monchique.
Leonel was so enthused about the project he started making the first sink before we’d even left the shop!
I made a little video of stage one of the process: do check it out!
The Facebook Marketplace runs also resulted in the collection of two huge electrical cable spools which we’ll convert to dining tables, old iron farming tools we’ll turn into coffee tables and a beautiful old crockery dresser for the main building.
Slowly, slowly we’re collecting some beautiful things and Ana is spending hours poring over chairs and poolside furniture, umbrellas, crockery and décor.
In the race against time that is our hillside, everything we plant from here on in is going to be a challenge, but with water on its way and power coming for the pumps soon we will be turning our attention to irrigation once again.
Hundreds of metres of drip-pipes and a new submersible pump and floating platform for the lake will hopefully help us keep our hedge of two hundred olives alive...and the ones on the hill...and the lavender...and the fruit trees...and...
...and why am I still writing when we have sooooooo much to do.
Até proxima as they say here...see you soon.
What a glorious adventure is unfolding
What an enormous project you have undertaken but how extremely rewarding to see it coming to life despite the roller coaster journey at times
It’s really looking incredible and the hand basins alone are beautiful
I can see many more stories being shared as new chapters are opening
Amazing what you have created
Best plant even earlier than March say Feb, easy dig, time for plant to settle and adjust so can begin to move internally as light, and weather begin to change