Casa Neroli

We got to the Quinta as expected late in the afternoon and met Marc & Mieke at the gate. There was of course the usual continental greeting and update on things in general.

The biggest item of news was that they had decided to start another project for themselves, so had put the Quinta up for sale. If you are interested in moving to Portugal and don’t want to go through the whole process of a build like us and would like a self contained apartment that you can rent out then this has got to be a bargain.

Take a look at the following links; it’s quite possible that it may have been sold when you get to these links as it’s a real bargain, but take a look anyway, it may still be available and you wouldn’t want to miss an opportunity like this.

Quinta ponte nova – Website.

For Sale details – Expat Website.

For Sale Details – Remax Website.

Whilst discussing our plans they also advised us that they knew a local builder who they trusted and felt they could recommend for building our house, so we agreed to meet at some point over the coming days. You can read more on this in a later blog about the builders.

They also invited us for dinner on the Saturday evening with them in the apartment courtyard which of course we accepted without hesitation. Marc and Mieke are wonderful hosts and are always extremely helpful where they can be.

Hurrah at last it’s time for the off! For some reason it seems to have been a long time coming around this trip, but the car is washed and clean and suitably packed, with the essential supplies of eggs / bacon and coffee, oh yes and I suppose some clothes as well.

We are travelling via the Newhaven to Dieppe ferry again this time which we are both much happier about. The ferry arrives in Dieppe at 4:00am and then its on to Bayonne for the Sunday night, and push on through Spain and Portugal Monday, we should arrive around 1:00ish on Monday, which will give us a bit of time to see how the plot has fared over the last couple of months and unload some of the stuff we are taking down before going to the apartment.

8:00pm and its time to set off for the ….. , no not the port yet, first things first, KFC for the compulsory 3 piece variety meal, and then it’s time for the ferry.

See you there!

Hurray! Its nearly time for the off again. Just one more week and we will be on our way again. We are driving down again this time, but going back to our favourite route, Newhaven to Dieppe in the night and then straight on down to Bayonne for the stopover and then on into Portugal the next day. All being well we should be they by early afternoon on Monday next. 

Check back soon and we will give all the latest updates on out project. In the meantime lets hope the weather stays good and we get a smooth crossing.

Well just a very quick update. We have received the first quote for the build of the house, from Marco. It is as expected a tad higher than expected and completely in Portuguese.

The guys at Plataforma are doing a basic translation for us and I am going to work through it in the next couple of weeks and google translate everything. That will be fun eh! Still we have time, this is just the first of at least 4 we are intending to try and get.

Google Translate here I come.

Only been back just over 2 weeks and only actually have 6 weeks to go before we go back, but watching the temperatures gradually rising and the summer coming at last to Portugal only tries the patience to getting back and getting on with the build.

We are still in the waiting process for the builder’s quotes, Plataforma are telling us that Marco has done his and they are just waiting on it being delivered. Not sure how they are with a second quote. I do ask but I guess because they have no news we don’t hear anything.

We know form Maria and Paulo at Remax that it’s at least 15 days from out last meeting before we hear from the builders they are in touch with and its only been 10 (working days) so far. Not sure if that’s one or two, I suspect its only 1 at this point.

That’s one thing I have definitely noticed with the Portuguese unless there is any news they just do not update. I guess it makes sense in many ways, but it is always nice to know that at least they are top of things.

I guess I am writing this as its raining again here in UK and one just thinks, sighs, moans and then gets on. I guess on the plus side it is Friday and the weekend is nigh.

May be Ill just drop another email to guys at Plataforma and see if there’s any news.

All too soon it was time to set off home again. As we have travelled light it didn’t take us long to pack up in the morning. After a chat with Marc & Mieke, who were sitting in the garden enjoying the mid morning sunshine we set off to our property to pack all the bits that we couldn’t take with us.

We said goodbye to the trees and the hut (sad aren’t we?) packed away the thermometer and set of for Castelo Branco to see Paulo and Maria at Remax, you will remember they are the estate agents that we brought the land through and that they have been helping us in a whole number of ways with the project. Currently they are working with a couple of builders they know to get us some comparative quotes for the house. Again I know I keep saying it, but if you do anything like this yourself, I would recommend you find a good estate agent and if you do look in this region I would recommend Paulo and Maria at Remax.

We got to Castelo Branco around lunchtime so after eating we popped in to give and received updates on the project as well as a general how’s everything, with Maria and Paulo before we left for the drive to the Airport. The trip to the airport was fairly smooth arriving in plenty of time. Then the fun began!!

The first little hiccup was as we checked the car back in, the agent pointed out some damaged on the sill below the driver’s door, which wasn’t marked on the documents when we picked the car up. After reassuring her that we had not done it, she checked back with the office and sure enough it had been picked up on a previous hire, so problem averted we headed into the terminal. Phew! That could have been tricky.

Of course we had still arrived In plenty of time, so headed off to get some dinner before our flight which was due to leave about 8:25pm which would get us back to the UK about 11:00pm so by the time we got the car and drove home we should be indoors about midnight.

Well that was the plan! We knew that we would get called to go through the boarder control about 7:45pm so we waited nearby, by 8:00pm there was still nobody there so we walked back down to the main area to look at the flight screen. Yeap you guessed it, delayed! Can you believe it until 23:45pm and no explanation to why.

After resigning ourselves to the fact it was going to be a late night, I hooked up the phone and started to investigate what may be happening. It soon became apparent that the French Air Traffic Controllers had gone on strike, how dare they! Don’t they realise who we are? Your right, no they don’t and no they don’t care.

Around 23:30pm we where being told that we should be leaving around midnight and the agents started to hand out food bags. Just after midnight we were called to start boarding, so we proceeded through boarder control. Our flight was the only one left, so we were all soon through and waiting to board the aircraft.

We were all queued at the door when the Captain of the plane came through and told us that he had been advised that he wouldn’t get a flight slot for at least 3 hours. Moan, groan, you can imagine, but most of the people understood that it wasn’t his fault. Some didn’t, need I say more?

The was certainly games being played by the staff at Lisbon airport as they wanted to close the airport for the night so they could go home, which is why they pushed us through boarder control, as we now had officially left the country! They wouldn’t let us back through, and as there were no seats where we where, the decision was to put us on the plane, at least we could sit down. Well sit down, kinda as you know you don’t get a lot of room on EasyJet.

Luckily around 2:30am we got an earlier departure slot, so we were up and away. We eventually got back to our house at 6:00am, just enough time to have a shower and change and set off for a days work. I do have to say that we both were very understanding and kept a smile and good humour during the whole episode.

So not a good end to a good week, but a couple of early nights and we were fine. The Elliott motto came in to play again “Never mind eh!”

Apart from the cherries the rest of the fruit on our property is in the very early stage of development. This year we heard that everything is a few weeks behind the normal, which seems to bear out as last year we saw all the blossom at Easter, but this year we didn’t and some of the trees still had a little blossom left now.

Much of the fruit was in the next stage where the baby fruits were starting to develop. I have put a few pictures here to show some of the various trees at this time, hopefully I will be able to add some more in August and October to show how they have developed.

Above – Young Oranges, Lemon Blossom, Baby Mandarins.

Below – Pomegranate flowers and young fruit.

One of the main reasons to make the trip this time was we hoped it would tie up with the Cherry Festival. We had been told many times in previous visits that it was the first full week of June. We were lucky we picked exactly the right weekend, the main festa (festival) ran from 7^th to the 10^th June, not only that we were not more than 20 minutes away from the main festival village, Result!

June is the main month for the cherries, we were worried that because of the bad weather this year everything would be very late and maybe we would miss it. We needn’t have worried.

We did a couple of hours on the plot in the morning. Teresa started clearing part of the stream; I think the rather large weeds were annoying her. She cleared a good 50 feet, it was hard backbreaking work and I think her arms ached just a little when we stopped. You can see the rewards of her efforts in the photos here.

We packed up around 1:00pm, cleaned ourselves up a bit with baby wipes and a good spray of deodorant and jumped in the car and headed off for Alongosta. It was amazing as we turned off on the road up to village; there were cherry trees everywhere and so many cherries on each branch. We had driven around the area a fair amount but hadn’t realised this area was so prolific for cherries.

We had to park a good few metres away form the centre of the village as there were a lot of cars and the centre was shut off to traffic. The festival was amazing, you could get Cereja / Cherries by the crate. You could get them in as many different ways as you can imagine, Dried, Pastel de nata, cherry style, Cakes, well every different type of cake you can think of, but with cherries added.

There was cherry wines, cherry sangria, cherry liqueur, cherry fondue as well as all the bits that go with them, like baskets, jewellery and of course T-shirts.

There was no choice of course we had to buy a crate of cherries, not sure how much there was in a crate but at €5 they were very cheap, all I know is I think the crate was one of those magic bottomless crates, it seemed to keep refilling itself. I do have to say they were amazing they were so flavoursome.

It was fascinating walking around; it is a very pretty village with many narrow streets all seemed to have some kind of stall or eating establishment selling something related to the cherry. Many locals had just opened their windows that faced the street and were selling their wares.

We do have a few cherry trees on our plot, but a couple of them are very young and I think they really need a lot of watering in the run up to June to get a good crop, which we are unable to do, but maybe one day. There are also 4 very old trees, which we are unfortunately going to have to lose when the house if built, these had a few but not many.

Pedro, the architect had advised us not to worry about loosing these trees as they wont crop well and if we plant new they will only take a couple for years to produce a good crop.

We spent most of our first day, cutting the undergrowth on the drive and 1^st terrace, I wasn’t going to but once there, it seemed the right thing to do and once started, you can just zone out and just worry about the next bit you need to cut and it helps to forget all the stresses and strains of the normal working world.

In the afternoon we had to go and do the usual trip to the supermarket to stock up with supplies, you know Sagres, milk for the coffee and oh yes food and water. I also took the opportunity to add €10 to the mobile phone. You will be pleased to know the plan worked, keep enough credit on the phone to use it, but don’t let it get to more than €20 or they will take the €20 and give you free tmn calls and texts for a month.

Over the week we did the usual clearing of the land and tending as best we can in such a short period of time to the trees. I know we could only water for a couple of days but any water has to be better than none, doesn’t it?

You will see the brilliant job Teresa did on the stream, although the only evidence I could find on camera was me clearing the stream and Teresa sitting under the trees reading!

Whoever did the most doesn’t really matter as the result speaks for itself.

I have put some photos which show the before and after, so you will see what we mean when we say it looks a lot prettier once it has been strimmed and tidied. 

Above – Top row is before any work, Second row is the same view after the tidy up.

Below – A few more photos after the tidy up and the watering started.