Casa Neroli

Well unfortunately it was that time again, yes time to pack up the suitcases and make tracks back to the UK, but as we had the car we were not going back empty handed. There was a lot of fruit of all types that was just about ready, well ready enough for eating.

The day before setting off, we raided the crops. Raided seems the wrong word as they are “ours” but that’s what it felt like. Anyway Quince’s, Red Grapes, Green Grapes, Peaches, Oranges, Mandarins, all picked and packed into two large and two smaller crates ready to be packed in the car.

Hope I can get them in, maybe I will have leave something behind, hum Teresa do you think? No better not!

Anyway I did manage to get everything in car, including Teresa and we set off home. The trip back was very much the same as the last few trips with the car, stopping off in Bordeaux overnight and getting to Dieppe about midday on the channel-crossing day. The only thing worth mentioning is that we wanted to make the most of the trip and as we were coming back on a UK Bank Holiday weekend, so we had decided to take the ferry on the Sunday. This is fine, but we didn’t realise that France, well Dieppe still recognise Sunday as a religious day and all the little shops are closed and the large super/hypermarkets close at 12:00 noon, so we have just missed them.

We had planned to fill up all the last little crevasses in the boot and back seat with wines and croissants, but everything closed this was not going to happen. Plus our crossing was not until 6:00pm so what were we going to do for the next 5 hours. We spent about an hour cruising around and eventually found a small private bakery on the outskirts of Dieppe that was open, so we pulled over and brought Croissants for all the family.

We spent the last couple of hours walking around and eventually sitting on the harbour wall.

As soon as we saw the ferry docking, it was time to get to the car and make our way on board.

Whilst staying at Hotels is nice, it does cost alot, not that I’m tight but, it is important to keep a fine balance between having a holiday and a bit of luxury against spending too much on holidays when you are trying to build a property.

Teresa and I had spent many an evening assessing, discussing, but never arguing, that’s one thing we don’t do. What alternatives were there? and balancing all the pros and cons. We like to self cater, but we also like to eat out. We like hotels but they are a bit restrictive and mean that you have to eat out.

Maria and Paulo from Remax in Castelo Branco had given us details of some people who had set up self catering accommodation in the area, maybe we should look into these. We spent some time searching maps to find which ones were closest to our property, all were not too far away but one stood out from the others, maybe just because they had created a web site and we could see the property.

The property was called Quinta Ponte Nova in the village of Atalaia do campo, which if I calculated it correctly was about 20 minutes away from our plot, so about the same as the first hotel we had used but a lot closer that the one in Covilhã. After a couple of emails it was booked for our October trip. The prices were very reasonable, in fact about half the price of a hotel. We could come and go as we pleased and cook or not cook, as we wanted. We really felt this was the best option; it had everything going for it. It would save us some money on, accommodation, food and fuel.

Lets give it a try; watch out for the October blogs to see if it works out or not?

If you have been reading this blog for a while you will remember an earlier posting were I wrote about the couple we had met earlier in the year who had now completed the purchase of their property. Well Jules and Andy had become very good friends; we had kept in touch whilst back in the UK. I guess we got on so well because we were sharing a similar experience but we had a lot in common and we really enjoyed their company and I think they did ours.

They had managed to co-ordinate their trip around the same time as us, and where at their property during this trip, so we just had to meet up for a beer or two, Well during the course of the trips we did meet up several times, a couple of times at their place, once to have the most wonderful bar-b-que and another time for afternoon and cakes. Apart from the organized meetings we also just seemed to keep bumping into each other in the local stores and villages. Fate playing his cards again, we are obviously just meant to be friends.

Whilst the whole project was to get away from the hustle and bustle of the world of instant gratification back in the UK, it was not to cut ourselves off from society, in fact quite the opposite was what we hoped for and was happening, we were finding some real friends and all enjoying the social side of life.

Don’t underestimate the value of good English speaking friends, they will help you keep your sanity and I am sure you will all be able to and enjoy helping each other out at times.

Jules and Andy may we be friends forever and a day!

Making calls on my O2 UK calling plan on my iPhone was proving quite expensive. I expected that if I needed to call the UK or the UK calls me it would cost, but I hadn’t thought about the calls I would have to make to Portuguese numbers. Daft really as that’s where we were, so I had decided that this trip I would face the challenge that I had put off last time to actually go and buy a pay and go Portuguese mobile phone.

So if you are thinking about a project like this is any country, do give the business of phones calls etc some serious consideration, it can soon run away with the pennies and there are much more important things to spend your money on, like a new house.

Several times over the course of the week I scanned the shelves mainly in the Portuguese equivalent of Curry’s called Worten, you seem to be able to find them all over the place but mainly associated with the supermarket chain Continente. They are not the only supplier but it was the most convenient.

Seems silly really but it took several trips before I eventually I plucked up the courage and faced the sales person. I just wanted the cheapest, simplest phone they had and an even simpler pay and go calling plan. The first bit the phone was easy, as I could see them in the display case along with the prices, but the calling plan proved to be a bit more of a challenge.

I had tried to do a bit of research on the Internet and had tested the phone signals around our plot before actually visiting the store and it seemed that tmn, who are the national carrier was the best option and gave the strongest signal and I think seemed to have the best coverage around the area.

I opted for a Nokia 100, probably the cheapest and simplest phone Nokia or anyone make, but it still did more than I probably needed. I really only needed to be able to make and receive texts and phone calls. It did all that plus has a torch and a radio, but it was just €26 so good enough. I had also to remember that it was probably going to get knocked about a bit when working on the plot, so the cheaper the better.

The guy in the store didn’t speak much English, but he did kind of explain that the calling plan on the phone maybe not what I wanted but I could visit the tmn store next door to change to something better suited. That said and done I paid the €26 and headed next door.

After working out the unusual ticket and queuing system in the tmn store I eventually got to talk to an assistant. He spoke good English and explained that it was fine, just put money on the phone, as I needed it. That said I asked him to add €10 to the phone off I went. Was it really that simple, I guess time will tell? Anyway it seems to ring, I seem to be able to make calls and I can see the amount on the phone going down at a reasonable rate.

I did keep getting Portuguese texts, which I couldn’t understand, but on one of my visits to the architects I showed Paulo the text and he just explained they were saying that if I put €20 on the phone I would get my calls and texts to other tmn numbers free. Don’t need that so just spend what I have and next time we come down to Portugal I can top it up again. Just finally need to remember to make a call once every 60 days when back in the UK to keep the number alive.  I can manage that. Job done, or was it?

I had heard that we should allow a fair amount of time to sort out opening a bank account and Maria and Paulo had advised us that the bank would need passports and a small amount of cash to open the account, about €250 should do it.  Its worth noting that €250 is written with a comma when writing cents as well e.g. €250,00. Nothing had really prepared us for the amount of time it took.

The process is actually very easy, especially if you have the help of someone like Paulo and Maria, who had a very good understanding with the local Bank Manager. Liliana, the young lady that worked on the front desk at Remax, showed us the way to the Bank, The manager had been warned we was on our way, but when we arrived he was out. I think it was getting close to lunch and he had to do some shopping before lunch. We sat in the office for what must have been and hour and half, we had nowhere else to go, but I think both Teresa and I were feeling the need for the toilet.

Eventually the manager, I think he was the manager appeared and sat at a nearby desk, at which point the young lady who had been serving others whilst we waited called us over. One can only imagine that the manager had to be on site, but didn’t have to actually handle the work.

Once we got going it only took about 30 minutes, but it’s worth noting that you have to really ask for everything. We wanted a current type account that we could transfer money into and pay bills online as well as having a Visa type card that we could use to buy items and draw cash from the cash points. We also wanted Internet access so we could manage our account from the UK. Everything was possible and arranged, we also logged on to our new account from the banks office as well, so we where good to go, but you must remember to ask for all the bits you need, else you may have to come back.

It is important to get a bank account if you are doing something like this, it did make our life a lot easier, especially as some of the self service machines, e.g. the petrol stations when unmanned will only take Portuguese Visa cards the UK ones will not work. If they are manned you can usually pay inside but never at the pump.

We had the additional problem that as we had brought a plot of land, we didn’t really have an address, and the bank will not accept a UK address. Lucky for us Paulo and Maria where happy for us to us the Remax office address and the bank was happy. The draw back is that any post would go to the Remax office, including our cards when they were ready. We overcame that as Remax agreed to send them on to us as and when, all we had to do was to refund them the postage. So again you see how useful and helpful a good Estate Agent can be to you.

Later in the afternoon Pedro called Marco and it was set for us to meet in a village not too far from our plot, Orca. It turned out the Marco was also the mayor of Orca, this could be useful, as we all know its not always what you know, it is who you know.

Pedro was on a scooter and we set off in hot pursuit. He was like a demon, I know scooters are quick and can negotiate the traffic (not that there’s much of that around this area) but it was very difficult to keep up.

We stopped off in Vale de Prazeres on the way to look at another project that Plataforma were working on, which was not with Marco. Pedro pulled up just on the outskirts and jumped into our car to drive the last bit to the construction site. Now this was interesting, the streets in the village of Vale de Prazeres are extremely narrow and maneuvering my Hyundai ix35 around these streets and extremely tight corners was, well to say the least, interesting. Several times I had to fold the door mirrors in to get between the buildings, yes that tight. It wasn’t to far, thank goodness, but one did wonder why Pedro had got off his little scooter to get into a big car and not got us to walk, but hey ho, we made it in and back out again without damaging the car.

After seeing the site, there’s not a lot to say, it was interesting, but just to get some idea of sizes and construction methods, we moved on to Orca. We met up with Marco in a small café and had a drink before setting off around the local area to see several projects that he had either completed or was in the progress of completing.

It was extremely interesting to see the various designs, construction methods and finishes that can be achieved. I guess it not sort of thing to detail here, it would be very boring, but again, if you looking to do something similar to us, this is a part of the process that it is important you complete. It starts to help formulate your our ideas for your own project.

During our day, Pedro had talked a lot about himself and his family, the Portuguese seem to like to do this and in many ways it was very comforting to us, without going into all the details his family had very close ties to another village nearby, Alpedrinha.

The village, as does many of villages and towns in Portugal, organises an annual festival and tonight was the first evening of a three day event. Pedro invited us to visit and at least witness the early stages of the festival. In the main these festivals are religious based, but involve lots of food, dancing and beer.

We followed him once again, to the site of the festival, which was just outside the village, opposite the somewhat redundant village swimming pool. The site itself had a number of market stall like buildings, along with tents, scaffolding constructed stages and outside function units, candyfloss vans etc. It was about 6:30pm and there were a lot of locals setting up the various stalls, but of course the beer stall was already open and serving.  We spent a further hour or so here, watching as the locals got themselves organized and we supped a beer or two before calling it a day.

On of the things you will find with the Portuguese is time is not important, as I have already written; meetings are “Ok some time this afternoon” never a defined time. Also you will note as this blog progresses, meetings take as long as they take, it is never a problem to extend well in to the evening especially if it involves socializing as well and maybe, just maybe the odd beer or glass of wine, cant be bad can it?

One of things we really wanted to do whilst in Portugal this visit was to check out the architect, Maria and Paulo had recommended them, but to date we had only met them either in our hotel or in the Remax office. We had of course conversed via email a fair amount and checked all their credentials out on the internet, but we still had never seen their offices, for all we knew they didn’t have one. This is the British coming out again, that mistrust thing, but everyone tells you to be careful and check everything and everyone out, but you have to trust as well. Its hard to find the balance.

I emailed Pedro and Paulo (there seems to be a lot of Paulo’s on Portugal J ) at Plataforma shortly after arriving and they were happy to meet up, however once again they seemed very keen to come to us at the hotel, this did make us feel a little uneasy, but trust, remember trust, the truth of the matter was they were just trying to make things easy for us.

After a few brief email exchanges it was agreed we would meet at their offices in Covilhã on the Wednesday at about 3:00pm.

On the Wednesday it took a little while for us to find their offices, they were in what and in fact we later found out was, an old industrial area of the city, which due to the decline in industry had been refurbished and was now all part of the University. On arrival the office was locked up and all shuttered where down, um!

The brain started to work overtime again. About quarter past Pedro arrived and unlocked the office, and we entered, it was fine it was a fully functional operating office, very modern and fully equipped.

We had a long discussion in the office about all things related and a lot of things not related, but it became apparent that their business was very closely associated with the University and at the time of our visit all the students were on recess so Plataforma take the opportunity to take some holiday as well. Yes they had come in special all three of them to open up the office and met us.  So remember if you do something like this yourself, take a deep breath and give them a chance.

Its strange you know, this project is all about doing something different and taking things in our stride, yet when it happens the way you hope and expect it is still alien to our nature. It is getting easier and we are getting used to the way of life we want, but actually making the change is hard, and we haven’t really started yet!!  Human nature, wonderful isn’t it?

Pedro explained the process as best he could and that to get the design within the budget set, he had to liaise with a builder. This made sense, their skill is the design, but the builder is the one with the idea of what things actually cost. We had of course already met the builder that Pedro wanted to work with, Marco, you will remember him, if you have read earlier blogs. We met him when we first met up with the architects at the Remax office earlier in the year.

The team at Plataforma had already organised that we meet up with Marco later in the day, to visit some of the projects that he was already working on.

I think it was on the second day, whilst cutting away at the weeds I heard a shout over the noise if the little Honda engine beating away over my shoulder. I stopped to greet a middle aged gentleman making his was done the path from the upper terraces to where we were working. He introduced himself as Richard and was obviously English. He explained that there was a lot of chatter in the village that an English couple had brought the land, but nobody had seen them. He had seen our car with its British number plates so guessed we were there and had decided to say hello.

It was great to meet someone else, it just amazed us that we had brought a property in one of the most rural parts of Portugal, and we were finding so many English people. Richard explained that he had come over from the UK a few years previous with another guy, Luke, who lived a bit further down the lane and he was on his way to see him. Richard himself lived in the local village, Cortiçada, right next door to the café and the top of our road. We chatted for a while before he set off again and we carried on with the jobs of the day.

A few hours later, whilst taking a well-deserved rest under the gazebo, we heard another English voice; this time it was Luke and his Girlfriend along with a gorgeous Labrador puppy. We had heard a lot about Luke both from Richard and from Maria and Paulo when we were looking the previous year, so it was great to meet them.

So never be surprised at who will turn up on your doorstep, or in our case gazebo step.

A quick survey of the property revealed that the drought of the past few months had taken its toll on the stream, it was now bone dry, along with the work we had done at Easter had all helped to keep the weeds down and they had not grown too much. The land itself had also weathered well, although it was very dry, the weeds had stayed short. We had brought the petrol brush cutter with us, so I felt this should be a reasonably easy task.

Stage 1 was to start clearing the first terrace in the lower section, so we could get the gazebo we had brought with us erected, so we had a place to get out of the heat. After fueling up the strimmer, it was time to get all the protective clothing on and fire it up for the first time.  I started simple just clearing the path outside the hut, but was soon on the lower terrace tackling the weeds.

The weather was amazing for a holiday, but maybe a bit hot for working on the land. Over the next few days we would get to the property around 9:00am and be working by 9:30am after the compulsory large mug of Columbian, Coffee that is! By midday the temperature was hitting 36 + so it became impossible to work. Thank god for the factor 50 sun cream else I think I would have ended up like a bit of deep fried beetroot.

We also both made good use of the large brimmed hats we had brought in Peru a year or so earlier, these were perfect to keep the sun off of our necks.

It took about 4 days to clear all the lower terraces, it seems strange but I found it very satisfying and relaxing, just waving my brush cutter to and fro for hours on end. For a few hours each day all I had to worry about was cutting the next weed, and how long before I would have to refuel my machine. All the work problems and challenges were completely brushed aside. It was amazing that at the end of each day, we were both tired but felt good, hard work was better than any gym work.

I was even able to use the brush cutter in the dried up stream, which made it a lot easier than at Easter when it was a hand-cutting job, up to the ankles in water. Teresa was working as hard as me, pruning back the overgrown vines.

We arrived at the hotel late afternoon; it was about 25 minutes drive from our property, so we got that right.  Finding the actual hotel in Covilhã wasn’t too hard either, there only seemed to be one main road up into the town and everything was very well sign posted. We soon saw signs for the hotel and after a quick 360 at a roundabout we were pulling into the car park.

Checking is was easy and we were lucky in getting a room on the 4^th floor. The room was fine, clean, tidy and air conditioned, and we had a lovely view across the town and the valley. Closer inspection we found the swimming pool, well we will certainly be making use of that and on route we found the gym, right I don’t think we want that eh!!

The next thing on the plan for the day was food. We found the hotel restaurant; everything looked good, very nicely laid out and from what we could see they operated a buffet style meal for a quite reasonable price. The decision was maybe not tonight as we felt we wouldn’t be able to do a big meal justice.

On the way up to the hotel we had noticed a shopping mall close to the hotel, and in fact we could see it from our room. It didn’t seem to be too far away so we decided to make our way across town to find it. In fact it was only about 5 minutes and we were soon looking around the shops. There was a cinema and a very nice food hall, including the usual Burger King and Pizza Hut. We didn’t need much so it was a Burger King, a quick visit to the Continental Supermarket and back to the hotel to sleep.