Blogging the stories of our family life on a yoga retreat in the magical village and valleys of Amieira, Central Portugal. Everyday we are tending this beautiful land and its stone dwellings in our journey towards self sufficiency. Moses is the Portuguese name of this place, meaning many mill stones. And, providently, is also the name of our beloved golden retriever, without whom, we'd never have found it. We love you Moses.
After all the preparation over the last 3 months, we finally began our new yoga season last week. It was a close one. We had to battle with constant rain for most of February and March. Record breaking rainfall. Our elderly neighbours cannot ever remember living through a wetter winter. And that follows last year's dryest ever winter. The world's weather, it sure is a changing.
For those of you new to this blog, now and again we take some very home made videos of our restoration and landscaping work here at Vale de Moses. And as a bit of fun we call it We Love Moses TV and upload them to Youtube. Below are the latest 4 episodes documenting our last building project - converting the veranda into a more appropriate space to practice. I wish I had had the time to take a video every day, but there simply wasn't the time. We were flat out helping the carpenters, blacksmiths and stone masons get it built. And boy, was it close.
We're still waiting for a couple of things to be installed, like doors and some of the railings, but they'll be in place in the next week or so. What was a big relief was that we had an enclosed practice space ready for when our first guests of the year arrived last Saturday. And what an incredible group they were. Even though it poured with rain nearly all week, when the sun did burst through, a few still managed to take dips in the white water rivers running through the land and brave a full swim in the Rio Zêzere on our river trip. Once the sun comes out in full, those waters heat up quickly and it will be a little more comfortable. But hats off. No holding back.
This Rainbows on your Eyelashes group also took some beautiful photos of their stay with us, today's post has a few but I am uploading a bigger album to a Spring Retreat album Facebook. I had forgotten how wonderful it is to see this place through other people's eyes and lenses. Special.
I could write a hundred stories of our experience this week. Each of our guests was a real character and threw themselves whole heartedly into their yoga practice, their treatments and for some experimented with a completely new diet for the week. And they did so with a joyful openness to the elements of life out here on the edge of wilderness. When the water falls like it has done, rivers and waterfalls open up all over the valley. The energy of all those rushing waters is invigorating. And obviously very wet.
It was a real treat for us to meet such wonderful people from all over Europe and beyond. They came for a week's break to our home in the forest. I was chatting to Josh the other day after his acupuncture session with Mama bear, and we agreed how amazing it is that even though we've moved so far away from the bustling multi cultural life of London, we still get to meet so many great people and hear about their tales from foreign lands.
This morning came round very quickly, bright and early at 7am we loaded everyone and their bags into the cars and drove into Oleiros to buy coach tickets from the sweetest old man in the café and had time for a quick tea and coffee and fresh home made pastries straight out of the oven at another café, before saying our goodbyes.
To Marianna, Nolene, Edgar, Sue, Bob, Jane, Oksana, Vicky, Laura and Per, that was an absolute honour to have you with us this week. God's wind in your sails you lovely, lovely people.
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