The general blog area for the site. Articles which do not fall into a specific category will appear here.
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- Written by: rick
The sunshine has been ever present over the past few weeks and the garden has thoroughly enjoyed it, from the flowers to the fruit.
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- Written by: rick
... or at least one of his cousins.
I had difficulty accessing one of the cameras which I had set up in the workshop looking out over the garden. It had previously been working fine and I wondered if the recent storms had damaged it after a couple of close lightning strikes knocked out the power.
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- Written by: rick
After pruning and caring for the fruit trees over the past year we have had quite a few cherries from the small tree and many more from the big tree which fruited very late.
Last year it produced about 20 cherries in total.
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- Written by: rick
After last year's experience of birds nesting in the workshop I am regularly checking for similar events.
So far this year the birds have stayed away and there is little sign of wasps making their home.
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- Written by: rick
Due to the house renovation taking precedence the garden has not had the publicity that it deserves.
Janet has spent many hours clearing the vegetable patch and digging up most of the big weeds.
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- Written by: rick
After a pretty miserable, cold, wet, foggy, sometimes snowy start to the year things have really picked up in the past week or so.
We have seen much more sunshine and the garden is enjoying it immensely.
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- Written by: rick
Our first Winter living in Vale de Prazeres has been interesting, discovering just how cold it actually gets, especially in a house with minimal insulation and large holes which allow the outside to blow in. It was cold.
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- Written by: rick
We are now into the second week of 2021 and here is the first post of the year, sorry for the delay!
Today it has been snowing, lightly, for most of the day as storm Filomena passes close by.
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- Written by: rick
After a friend alerted me to a video which was published on YouTube that shows our house, among many other areas of the village, I spent couple of hours searching for more videos.
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- Written by: rick
We are not particularly high [from sea level] at our house, the GPS shows it at about 570m (1,870 ft).
We do have quite good views across the plain towards Monsanto and Spain.
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- Written by: rick
A little more work on removing the interior walls resulted in some success. The walls are unbelievably robust and heavy. I decided that the best way to proceed would be to remove the render skin from one side and hope that the remainder could just be knocked over.
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- Written by: rick
On 20th October 2020, Janet and I became proud grandparents when our eldest daughter gave birth to a little girl. Both Emily and baby Lyla Paige are doing well.
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- Written by: rick
Last year we took a river cruise break on the Duro to celebrate our anniversary.
This year we had a few days at the seaside. The resort at Praia de Quiaios is small and fairly isolated, and even though there are miles of beach to enjoy, contains very few people, a few cafés and bars, and a small supermarket.
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- Written by: rick
With the past couple of months being hot, sometimes very hot and sunny every day it's quite a shock when that ends, the weather turns cooler and, for a brief period, wet. We had some welcome rain over most of the country which helped with the fires and to some extent should prevent any more big outbreaks.
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- Written by: rick
After a short break in service due to our internet connection being relocated to the new house things are back up and running - albeit very slowly.
With no fibre internet connection in this area we are reduced to a copper cable, and apparently we are a long way from the nearest hub. Therefore we have a paltry 10Mb download speed and an embarrassing 1Mb upload - it's like we stepped back over 15 years.
But it works and we may be able to upgrade in the future.