Casa Neroli

We were already a year into this project when in discussions with friends and colleagues it was decided that this blog could be a good source of information for others thinking or doing something similar as well as a good documented account of our adventure for us. It has taken me until today to catch up with all the items so as of today we are now completely current with the project and I can update as we go.

It’s a brilliant point to get to as tomorrow we are back off to Portugal again, just a short trip this time for around 6 days. We wanted to squeeze one in June as traditionally it’s the peak of the cherry season and there are normally a lot of festivals and feasts. Typically this year due to the late snow I am hearing that the cherries are poor so maybe we will have to wait until next year. “Never mind eh!”

According to the little app on my phone, I have seen the temperatures rising and the sun coming out, so hopefully we should be good for next week. Oh! I do hope so; I think we are really both in need of some warmth.

It is also an experiment for Teresa as it is in the School Term and normally she would not take any time off until the term breaks, but the cherries won’t wait, if there are any, until the term break. So she has had to organise cover etc for the days we are away. We have split the trip over two weeks going on the Thursday and back the following Wednesday evening. This way its only 4 days out for her from the school, one day in the first week and 3 in the second, which has helped with the organisation of the cover and the days the cover is required. It has also had the side benefit that we are going midweek to midweek out of the school holidays so the flights and car hire are a lot cheaper.

All that said we just have tomorrow morning to get through and then we are up, up and away.

By the time it came to set off home, we felt we had both achieved a lot and had also had some relaxing time, although more relaxing time would always be welcomed. Still plenty of time for that when we have the house completed. This year we had decided to have the two weeks at Easter to see if we could clear the bulk of the clearing, would it make it easier in the summer? The idea was sound, but not sure how it is going to work out, last year I am sure it would have worked, but the weather for 2013 was not good, well certainly not as good as 2012 and therefore it may be that everything keeps growing until later as the summer drought may not happen.

We are intending, well more than intending, we have booked to be back again in June, we have heard and read that the area we are in is famous for its cherries and we have seen miles and miles of cherry trees. In the first weeks of June there is a cherry festival and a cherry feast and we really hoped we could experience it.

The Portuguese mobile phone seemed to be working well, I had used it a couple of times whilst in Portugal and also a couple of times back in the UK just to make sure I keep the line in tack. On returning to Portugal this time I checked how much was left on the phone by using *#123#, I’ll note that here so I don’t forget it again.  Also you can only use this service when in the home country of the network provider, so in Portugal for this phone.

It turned out that I have just over 10 Euros left so whilst enough I thought I know I will just top it up while I am here, so popped into Worten and got them to do it over the counter, seemed easier than trying to work it out using a cash dispenser or on the phone its self. That was easy enough and as I walked out the store the phone bleeped away telling me that it had added the money. By the time I got back to the car and did the *#123# again it was down to just a few cents, what happened?

I walked back into the store to have it out with the guy. He explained that the tariff I was on as soon as they saw 20 Euro they would take the 20 Euros and give me free calls to other tmn numbers and free texts for the month. Now I understood the tariff, I really hadn’t got it before to make this work for us I need to keep the balance on the phone between 1 Euro and under 20 Euro. That way it operates as a Pay and Go, you pay for all calls. If you want free calls and texts for the month then put on 20 Euros.

You still have to pay for incoming texts from an international number so with just a few cents there wasn’t enough to pay even for an inbound text from my UK O2 phone. So I ended up putting another 5 Euro’s on the account, at least then it would then work.  I could receive and make international calls and texts which I would pay for from the money on the phone and for this month I could make free calls and texts to tmn numbers, great that cost me 20 Euros and I don’t need it. Oops!

So the moral here I think is pay more attention to the tariff, make sure you understand it. I was lucky, it didn’t cost me too much, I did waste 20 Euros, that’s all. From this point forward I must not put more than 20 Euros on the account!

Well I hope thats right; I will let you know as time passes.

On the Tuesday the meeting was changed to 6:00pm, which was fine, Teresa and I spent the day at the plot doing little jobs all around the place and were taking bets on whether they would be early or late. I think we both hedged our bets on them being late, but 6:02pm they appeared, I think we can allow them the 2 minutes don’t you?

We had cleared the patio table and chairs that we had and made room for us all to sit around and got the beers in, a good bottle or two of Sagres always goes down well. I seem to say that a lot!

We had anticipated that we would probably need about 30 minutes or so, thinking we would just be talking the basics, but there was so much they wanted to cover, from the different ways they could do the foundations to the types of taps we would like. We just were not prepared for this level of detail. Pedro was great, explaining that none of the decisions we were making at this point were final; they were just an idea that would allow Marco to be able to compile a quote.

Many of the items discussed it was very difficult for us to say one-way or the other; it is difficult to balance the difference between cost and requirement. So many times Marco indicated he would quote for both options, the simple but cheap option against the nice to have but dearer option. We could see that some items it would be really advantageous to go for the dearer option, but not knowing how much it is impossible to make that call. The whole process was also hampered by the fact Marco didn’t speak hardly any English and our Portuguese was really none existent and Pedro was translating everything both ways.

Well the 30 minutes turned into an hour and the hour turned into two and a second and a third Sagres. The light began to give out as the night drew in. By 8:15pm I had to resort to some form of lighting, it was getting difficult to see each other yet alone the examples they were showing us. I remembered that I had an old Camping light tube in the car that ran off the car battery; remember we don’t have any electricity so can’t just “turn on a light”. This worked well, but we had nowhere to attach it, so for the remainder of the meeting Teresa and I took turns to hold the light in a suitable position for all.

It was gone 9:00pm when they both left, Teresa and I felt good that we had gone through so much and had a much better understanding of this, but we also still felt a bit shell shocked. So if you are going to enter into something like this for yourself, take note, then you will be prepared. It wasn’t an unpleasant experience, but it was a bit weird

Using the apartment, as a base was probably one of the best decisions we had made, not that I think we made any really bad decisions but some are better than others.

Marc & Mieke were brilliant hosts, they left us very much to ourselves but were always there if we needed anything.

The place is clean and spacious and an ideal place to come back to after being out all day. We had everything we needed to be able to relax.

They always seemed just too just add that little bit extra to make the stay more personal. This time we were greeted with 6 very fresh ducks eggs, they keep ducks on the quinta and they were delicious. In fact we devoured them within a couple of days, and after returning the empty box, received another dozen, I think by the time we left we had eaten our way through two and a half dozen and they gave us another 2 dozen to take home.

We knew they have about 19 ducks but they are very active layers and we knew Mieke only used them in baking as poor Marc was allergic to them. Hey we didn’t mind, quack, quack.

It was lovely just to get up when we wanted, we still tended to get up around 7:30 to 8:00am just because it’s nice to have a relaxing start, yet still be able to make the most of the day. After a slow start and a lazy breakfast, supported by the compulsory coffee, we would set off out for the day, not returning until the early evening, and rustling something up on the cooker, whilst we showered and cleaned up, before sitting and watching a film on the laptop.

Next door to the Quinta, there was a plot where the owner was extending a small house, but he also kept a horse. Each day we would see him let the horse out and put it back in the stable at the end of the day. Mieke had told us that the horse liked apples, so one day when shopping we picked up a small bag. Before giving the horse any, we did check with its owner. He was fine with it. After this every day when we came back the horse would greet us back, not that it had anything to do with apples!

One evening we sat down and planned out the rest of the trips for the year, we reckoned we could get a short week in June, a couple of weeks in August plus another at the end of October (Half Term). Once we had agreed the dates, it was on the Internet and book the flights and ferry crossings. June and October as they are just around a week would be flying and the summer two weeks driving so a ferry, Newhaven to Dieppe, never the Dover to Calais or channel tunnel again, unless there was no choice.

We also gave Mieke the dates to see if we could book the apartment for dates. At first it seemed that the summer might be a issue, but after a few calls etc it was all sorted and we were set for the rest of the year.  Brilliant!

Life’s Good!

It was Teresa’s birthday again, I guess one of the more fortunate our unfortunate things about Teresa’s birthday is that it always around Easter and Easter is a school holiday so is always the time we are away from home. It’s nice in many ways to be away, so we can celebrate without the day to day life hassles getting in the way, but not so nice as we can’t be around family.

One the up side we could be with some friends, Jules and Andy had managed to schedule their trip so we did at least over lap for a while, which included the day of Teresa’s Birthday, so we set aside the day to go out (don’t do working on a birthday) and then meet up with them at their property for a bar-b-q and drinks. We had done this last year and really enjoyed it, as we didn’t yet have the facilities like a loo, we agreed to do it at theirs but we would supply the food and I would do the cooking.

We had a wonderful afternoon and evening, far too much food and beer again, but superb company and its was great to see how much they had done in the past few months, and they had some fascinating stories to tell of their episode of their car breaking down on their last trip and fun and games in getting home and getting their car back at a later date.

Happy Birthday Hun!

Whilst I was strimming away down in the valley, Teresa was slowly working her way across the 2^nd terrace removing by hand the old vines; it was certainly giving her plenty of exercise. Each vine she had to cut back to the main stump, then dig around the root as deep as possible, at least until you get to the bottom of the main stump, then saw through as many of the roots as possible before rocking the stump back and forth until it snaps. The last bit was just to fill the remaining hole with dirt and next to the next one. It was so funny watching from the valley up to the terrace to see Teresa sitting down rocking to and fro; I really thought she had lost the plot!

Along with the ever growing pile of old vines that Teresa was creating we also have about 4 large mountains of old vine cuttings from the previous year lying around the plot. Until now we have had no way to get rid of them as we don’t have any electricity to plug in the wood shredder and there are very strict restrictions on having bonfires. However at this time of year Bonfires are allowed, I think the law allows them up to the start of May. Be very conscious of these laws they do carry heavy fines if you are caught breaching them. Hopefully by the time you have finished reading this posting you will realise why. It was certainly an eye opener to us.

To break up the monotony of digging out the vines Teresa decided that a bonfire was in order. Not being sure of how this would work we found an old 50-gallon oil drum around the back of the hut, which had the end, cut off. Perfect we can burn the rubbish in here. It took ages to get it going, it just keep going out, but eventually probable after about an hour and 10 attempts we got it going. Once alight I left Teresa to work her way through the pile of vines cuttings and roots.

Later in the day I returned to find the pile reduced by half, significant flames leaping from the oil drum and Teresa with a big smile on her face. She then explained that she had found the knack and was now a fully registered pyromaniac. The knack she had found was to use the fresh Olive Tree cuttings between the vines debris. When you think of it the logic is there Olive Cuttings, Olive Oil. It was certainly a technique we used over a few days to burn at least 3 of the plies we had created over the previous months.

The important point for you to note is that is why the Portuguese have these laws on bonfires. We have around 70 Olives trees spread across our plot, just imagine if a fire got hold of that and then think of the bigger picture, this is a major Olive growing area, just think of the devastation that could happen, it just doesn’t bear thinking about does it. So be careful and abide by the law it’s in everybody’s interest.

Preaching over – Pyromaniac extinguished.

Today the weather was on a down turn so we decided to head to Castelo Branco. We tried to pop in and see Paulo and Maria at Remax, but they were out of town. Never mind we could make good use of the local shopping centre for food for the next few days and make a visit to Maxmat. Well that’s the proper name, we always referred to as Mad Max, well you had to be mad to go there, it’s the Portugal’s equivalent of the UK B&Q.

We found a different food mall this time called Jumbo it was about the same as most other supermarket type shops but it had free wifi. Using the opportunity while Teresa was hunting down the fire lighters I hopped onto my email and found an email from the architect, Plataforma that the projects had all been approved by the council, so we now had the permission and certificate to build. That is the next big hurdle completed.

Phase 1 was finding a plot. Phase 2 was buying the plot. Phase 3 find an architect. Phase 4 get planning permission. Phase 5, yep that’s next, find a builder.

So where do we start on this one? We knew that the architect had been working with Marco to get the design of the house to fit roughly in our budget, but we really need to get several quotes. We also remembered that Paulo & Maria had earlier offered to find builders and get some quotes for the construction.

We met up with Paulo and Pedro at Plataforma a few days later and went through all the paperwork they had assembled, they explained all the various projects that had been completed, from the actual construction through to the electricity supply and dirty water supplies. Most of it went over our heads as not only was it in Portuguese but it was all in construction or technical speak. However we did get the gist of it, enough to understand the basics. We asked them about finding builders to quote for the work and they seemed more than happy to help. One of course would be Marco and they would find one other for us, they also said it was fine for Paulo and Maria to get builders in touch with them so they could provide all the specification details of the build for them to quote against.

In a attempt to make the most of our time in Portugal this trip, Pedro called Marco and we made an appointment for Marco to come and see us at the plot to go through some of the finer points, not the final selection but to discuss some options which would allow him to be able to formulate some kind of quote. The plan was to meet up at the end of a day as our plot was on both of their ways home.

The meeting was set for 5:00pm on the Wednesday.

We were pleasantly surprised at how the plot and the hut had weathered over the five months of winter. There was a thin layer of dust everywhere, which you would expect. The land was overgrown but actually looked very pretty, with all the meadow type flowers. We now just had to decide how much and what we did first.

The weather for the first few days was very changeable, so difficult to know what to do. When we arrived it was lovely and sunny the next few days, seemed to go from one extreme to the other, rain like you have never seem it to lovely warm sunshine.

Teresa started by tidying the inside of the hut and I got the Honda strimmer serviced and running again, then started the cutting of all the grass and weeds on the drive. By the Tuesday we had cleared the second level terrace and Teresa had done a great job on removing the next lot of old vines.

One really nice thing to see was the few flower bulbs hat we had planted last autumn had flowered and we had timed it about right to see them at their best. We will definitely be planting more later this year, a small success and our first plantings.

Over the course of the two weeks, we did clear / strim the whole plot again, it really does look nice when it has all been done.

The one thing we did decide to leave was the stream. In the past we have spent time clearing the stream of all the weeds etc, but in the summer when the hot weather comes (hopefully) the stream dries up and the weeds die. It then just takes a couple of hours with the strimmer to run up the stream and clear it all. So we decided that maybe we would leave it and see if the same happens this year.

Watch out for the summer posting to see if this is the case or if in fact we have a forest to try and remove.

After the long winter it was at last Easter and time to head off to Portugal again, hurrah! We had decided to try a different route this time. Although we had always to date gone Newhaven to Dieppe on the ferry, this was a four-hour crossing and would the sea be rough at this time of year? Anyway it’s good to try something different. We had decided to try the channel tunnel, it was a couple of hours from home to the tunnel entrance but the crossing was slightly cheaper which compensated for the extra time, also the crossing is just 35 minutes against the 4 hours on the ferry, but remember we are only five minutes from the port of Newhaven.

We had also thought about in the French side as well, the route from Calais to Portugal was still fairly direct although it seemed to head more towards Paris than from Dieppe. I had roughly calculated that we could make Bordeaux by about five of six in the afternoon if we got the six o’clock in the morning crossing. If we had a good run we might even make Bayonne on the French Spanish boarder again.

Again as in the summer and as we weren’t sure how far we would get, we took the risk of not booking a hotel for the stopover on the way down. Remembering too that in autumn of 2010 we took the risk and t was fine also in the summer of 2012 although difficult we did the same and still managed a room even if it was bit more expensive.

We left home at about 3:00 am just as we was leaving our son and his girlfriend were just coming in from a night out. How the different generations live eh! The drive to Folkestone was trouble free, but just as well that we left enough time as there were several spots where there was speed controls. We arrived with enough time to get an early morning coffee, yep we are on the coffee again.

The SatNav told us we had about 22 hours to go and started routing us towards Paris, this it did say was the fastest of the three routes that it had calculated, so who was we to argue. Well maybe we should have told it to avoid Paris, yep on to the Périphérique we went. Nose to tail with traffic, cars coming from all directions, this wasn’t supposed to happen. It took a good hour to get round Paris. Well we won’t be coming this way again. Please take note of this comment, if you are travelling south from the English coast to the south of Europe, DO NOT GO VIA PARIS.

We stopped for the usual copious brews of Colombians best, coffee that is; by about 6:00 pm we hit Bordeaux. Our timing even with the nightmare of Paris was on point. Could we make Bayonne? Um! Well it’s about hour, that wouldn’t be too bad would it, that would be about 7:30pm, ok let’s go for it! Big mistake! We must have hit the biggest traffic jam in living history and the rain, well rain it was like someone pouring buckets of water over the windscreen. We were tired too, so with the rain, the traffic as well we were getting very tetchy.

It was 9:00pm by the time we got to Bayonne, we were starving , tired and a little irritable, so we headed for the McDonald’s; at least we knew where that was from previous trips. After a very quick burger the next job was to find a room. Well much to our amazement that wasn’t as straightforward as we thought, it took three motels before we found a room at the premier class motel.

We got up at about 3:00am and headed off; the rest of the journey went well, filling up with fuel both diesel for the car and coffee for Teresa and me. We crossed the Portuguese border just before Midday. The sun was out and the sky was blue, what a very welcoming site.

We arrived at the plot at about 1:00pm. Needless to say, apart from having to return the same way, with maybe the expecting of trying to find a route away from Paris, we will not be going this route again. We will stick with the Newhaven / Dieppe route, even with the four hour crossing and maybe a rough sea it is a far more relaxing journey.