Quinta das Abelhas

A super new feature of the Quinta das Abelhas Blog (insert fanfare here)

Current residents at Quinta das Abelhas:
Me, Andy, my son, Andy’s daughter & her friend from England.
Only 5 today!

We might even think up a prize (possibly some surplus cucumbers or maybe something even more exciting) for anyone who can guess correctly the next body count. Leave a comment with your guess and email address.

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Nearly tme to return to UK after 5 glorious weeks at Quinta Da Abelhas. So different from my first time at Easter when I only stayed 2 weeks and time was gone beore had tme to get used to place. This holiday has been very much more ideal, plenty of time to settle in and make new friends and join up again with ones from Aprils visit.

Its been great to be part of a major project and the retaining wall has cetainly been very major. I had only been here a day when two young lads from Somerset arrived after two months on the road through France and Spain. We got on great and made a good team supporting Stuart the builder, often working out in over 40+ degrees we very much got into the job and looked forward to our daly visit to the cold tank.

In fact the tank has been a saviour these past 5 weeks, after getting hot and sweaty grafting all day the submersing of body into deep cold water is an experience to behold. Such was the enthusiasm one day we turned the tank into a water drum and the three of us created some very interesting rhythms and sounds, at same time as getting soaked and splashed with lovely cold water, the boy child in all of us came out to play that day with total freedom of expression.

George and Brendon the two lads are keen musicians, with guitar and djembe which was fantastic, as I teach and play djembe in uk. We went over to the next door neighbour one night and jammed with them for several hours. I had met Dave and Suma at Easter for the first time in about 20 years since their Prana days. A couple of nights we also went out with them as Dave was playing in a local rock band. They did not start until after10 o’clock at night and we would not hit the sack until after 4 am. This is the way it is over in Portugal with the cool of the night.

George and myself also booked in on a weeks course with local teacher Conny who is an excellent Djembe drum teacher from Germany who has lived in the village for over 12 years. At the end of the course my brain was very much boiling and on the saturday the workshop group were invited by Conny to play at her bands performance. We were very much the warm up act and were joined by several other local players which was very exciting. The vibe was brilliant and when the semi-professional group came on with Conny the place was really rocking with fast drumming and excellent timing. We had passes for free food and drinks all evening so you can imagine we were pretty happy and merry by the time we climbed into sleepng bags in the wee hours.

My land purchase has not gone through as hoped, Portugal in August is very much holiday time and to get anything done at all can be hard work. I am looking forward to building up my little paradise and semi retiring and then retiring here. I am very fortunate to have made such good friends with Sophie and Andy, Dave and Suma, Conny, Neil, Stuart and getting to know many others helps to make the future more easier to settle down here. The only down side there could possibily be is the fires, where people have looked after land and kept it clean the fire has even come right up to he house and then gone around. Where land has been left to get overgrown then when the fire takes hold it is very fast very destructive and nature at its most powerful and cleansing. I do not feel put off by the prospect of fires as I know its up to me to take reasonable safe guards, like clearing trees away from near buildings etc. Green grass is an ideal fire break so a nice kept lawn around dwellings is probably a sensible idea.

Andy has kept up his excellent creations in the kitchen, with sometimes a dozen of us tucking into great organic home grown vegtables prepared in many different ways. The other night we had fresh stuffed Pumkin which was just full of succulent juices and tastes. I will miss his cooking when I get back as I am not the most adventorous cook, but I am sure after a few more visits I will be preparing my own meals on my own land.

My last day here is tommorow and Stuart and myself are determined to construct the fresh water tank before I go back to uk. The digging out of the ground in preperation for the concrete base was one of the projects I undertook at Easter. It means the family can look forward to soon having running water and that means! a washing machine and the end of eighteens months of scrubbing and hand washing all their clothes and bed linen etc. So hopefully I will be drinking in the cafe after celebrating the next stage of that major project, with just the pumber needed to complete the whole project.

Its been great to retrurn here again, and help the place move on by bringing some energy and enthusiasm. I have benefitted a huge lot, I have had my shirt off for nearly every day for 5 weeks so am a bit tanned. I am fitter and probably lost a bif of weight. I am more knowledgeable of building work which will help me in the future. I have eaten organic food for 5 weeks so am sure am more healthy, as well as breathing in very clean air. I feel refreshed and ready for work on Monday, although have worked very hard most of my stay, the change from my usual work has been as good as a rest.

All packed and ready for the journey home, feels hard to leave this time. I have had such a great time and weather today here is sun as usual. Still wont be long before am back here again. Not looking forward to arriving in Stanstead tonight and getting off into the cold night air! shudders to think of it. I leave contented though as my time has being well spent helping to develop this beautiful place so others who follow may benefit and enjoy. Rod:-)

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duck, originally uploaded by pureportugal.

Derek the wwoofer catches (suprisingly easily) one of two ducks we roasted for dinner tonight as a special treat for Derek as he is leaving us tomorrow, headed for Honduras. Thanks Derek for all your help, it’s been a pleasure having you stay with us. (Poor duck!)

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fire1, originally uploaded by pureportugal.

And it’s about 40km away. Big Fire.

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8am: wake up far to early after late night when Mick & Stuart arrive for 2nd day of mammoth retaining-wall building. Lovely husband brings me coffee in bed and heats me up some water for a wash.

8.30am: groggily get out of bed & wash. check emails and i’m still not awake enough to deal with them so half-heartedly play ‘civilisation’ on the computer while i drink 2nd cup of coffee.

9.30am: go down to old kitchen (started moving into new kitchen yesterday - chaos & mess). empty compost bin. check on my garden and pick lots of ripe giant tomatoes. make big pile of rubbish & recycling ready to load into car. try to prise andy off his computer (he’s installing linux) so we can go into town. try to do some work on the computer - saving important stuff cos i fear computer is in its death throes - i am right because it keeps crashing so i give up and turn it off before it totally expires.

10.30am: load up car. get builders to move their car so i can get out. go into tabua. dump rubbish & recycling. do some shopping - bought a mini chest freezer the other day and the local mini-preco has 45% off all frozen goods! eat some biscuits & yoghurt we just bought cos i haven’t had breakfast yet. go to builder’s merchants and buy more paint to finish new kitchen (ran out with only a tiny patch still to paint - typical!). go to bank to get dinheiro for builders to buy materials but arrrggghhh money not transferred from uk yet. clean out all 3 bank accounts and manage to come up with 500 euros. order more cheques.

11.30am: back home. give builders 1/4 of money they were expecting and they go off to buy more sand & gravel - they’ve already put 2 tons of cement into foundations for wall. unload shopping into spanking new gleaming white freezer in horrible messy dirty old kitchen soon to become slightly cleaner store room. take rubbish & recycling bins down to the spring and give them a good clean. finish painting in new kitchen. builders come back and i make them tea. kids appear briefly for lunch and then disappear back up to the village with their friends. i eat another yoghurt.

1.30pm: check & answer emails. upload photos of new property for sale to server so i don’t lose them before i can resize & rename them and put them in a gallery page. make tea for builders. move more stuff into new kitchen.

builders say no water coming from well and pump won’t turn on from house so andy goes next door to get dave the electrician to help sort it out. i make tea for builders with last of bottled water in kitchen.

get andy to help me move cooker, fridge & table. argue a bit about what’s going where and andy retreats to his computer leaving me to sort it out how i want.

dave sorts pump (was a loose wire) and builders get back to work.

i get on with new kitchen - put up hooks & hang saucepans. do lots of walking back & forth between old & new kitchen putting stuff in its new place. clean fridge.

6pm: make more tea for builders & phone uk to find out when money will be here. drink tea & chat with builders.

6.30pm: go with andy for a walk around neighbouring land that we want to buy.

7pm: start making new property listing. portuguese woman phones to see if she can come round to look at properties on computer. frantically shove dirty clothes etc under bed as computer now in bedroom until we get new office room finished. she arrives - scrambling down treacherous slope where steps now destroyed by wall-building - but we don’t really have anything suitable. she likes the new property i’m just putting on website but it’s a bit further from here than she’d like as she wants to be in or very near to tabua/povoa de midoes. she goes off with phone number for someone who has lots of places nearby for sale and i get on with doing the new property listing & answering more emails. kids come home about 9pm, raid the kitchen, andy yells at them that dinner’s ready soon and they disappear down to the yurt.

9.30pm: new property listing uploaded to website. eat lasagne (cooked in spanking new oven). whinge to andy that i’ve overdone it last two days and now my glands are up and i’ve a headache and worried i’ll be ill tomorrow. back onto computer to update pure portugal blog with new property. read acl forum. update this blog.

11pm: off to bed!

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