We Love Moses!

Moses at Sunset

2012-01-27T19:25:00.003Z

Found this wee gem of Joshua's photos in the archives from back in June 2009. Nice one Josh. We love you Moses. xxx

Happy Birthday Eloise

2012-01-25T17:50:00.001Z

A Day of Yoga

2011-12-17T08:02:00.000Z

We found this truly beautiful video of yoga posted up on the web last week by Enrique Espinoza.

Enjoy...

A Day of Yoga from Enrique Espinoza on Vimeo.

Gloriously Sunny by River

2011-12-10T10:02:00.001Z

It is a gloriouslysunny day today. Though the calendartells us that Winter is fast approaching I have been working all day in shortsand a t-shirt. I am alone, well without human company. Just me and Moses and our new puppy Safira. Angel my wicked cat is around somewhere,probably trying to tease hibernating voles out of their holes. The children are already at school and Memphis has gone to work on the roof of some friends. It is a good day, a quiet day. (photo Yulia and Safi on yoga retreat)

It has beenalmost a year since my last entry and I know some of you have been wonderingwhere is Von, thanks for the emails. Tobe honest, I have been working and this year has flown by. We have had the great pleasure of housing,feeding and watering a number of Woofers (Willing Workers on Organic Farms),visitors, family and friends. A great deal of work has gone into thevegetable production and with thanks we have eaten well all summer and into theautumn. (Bill, Becky and Ollie round the Nov 5th bonfire)

We are still learning the art oforganic vegetable growing, and believe me it is not without challenge. This year we have met the challenges oftomato ad pumpkin blight. Littlehorrible bugs I have never had the horror of meeting eating the broccoli. I have had to sow all of our winter veg twicedue to some naughty get away chickens and a frisky puppy, even now the horriblecaterpillars are munching away on my lovingly watered and fed cauliflowers and nothingorganic I seem to try really works. Rightnow I am preparing to begin the disgusting task of picking the buggers off oneby one, perhaps this will be futile but gardeners are known for the obsessivelove of perfect plants. (Entry in our Guest book by the frisbee throwing wwoofing gals of Kansas)

I know the caterpillarswill be back and we will laugh through this just as we have learnt to laugh atall the trials and tribulations we have had here so far and press onregardless. (Jonny battling Memphis at scrabble)

On the lighter and brighter side, the chillipeppers have been sublime and after two years of trying to grow perfect chillipeppers, the chillies this year have been my crowning glory! Hallelujah red hot chilli peppers by thebasket full. It is still warm enough forthe Calendulas and Californica Eschlotzias to be flowering. Their iridescent orange colours are greatlywelcomed at this time of year. Strangelyenough my Red hot Pokers are rising valiantly out of their sword like home ofleaves , their conical flowers just beginning to bronze, I look forward totheir ever increasing reddening, perhaps we will have Red Hot Pokers forChristmas. (Eloise and Joshua, the most established of all the plants in our garden)

The Oliveharvest was speedily completed with the help of one of our very muchappreciated German Woofers, TK, big thumbs up to TK! It was great fun being up in the trees withyou. We are now pleased to have our ownOlive oil again this year, only half that we made last year as the trees aresemi biannually producing. 1 year bumper, 1 year low.

The otherbig news this year has been yoga. Afterthirteen years of grabbing practice time when and if I can it has beenwonderful to wake up before the sunrise and practice. I believe this is how I have managed to keepsane, this year, mind you. Before wecame here, yoga was largely about the relaxation of the body, busy Mums need tofind ways to relax. This year however, ithas been wonderful, delightfully centering to simply be within myself, despiteall the plants that need watering, and the clothes that need washing, and thehurts that need cuddling and the house that needs cleaning and the people thatneed feeding. It is from this state ofstillness of meditation that all else has been given invitation to flower. Or, maybe I am just middle aged and needingto be still a great deal more. Eitherway I can safely say that meditation is a revelation. If you have never tried it, do, it willchange your life.

This year Ihave also had the pleasure of teaching our first yoga retreat in Portugaland also teaching some Woofers. Howwonderful to wake up in the morning and just watch lovely young peoplestretching, earnestly trying to relax. Very sweet. I hope to do more ofthis as the years unfold here. It is abeautiful place to meet oneself face to face. There is something about yoga that invites the bubbling up of thenaughty happy child within us, and it is that child that will bravely go forthto face the most gruesome of challenges, such as horrible caterpillars.

My firstChristmas present has arrived from Memphis, a tractor load of goat poo! Hooray. Not the glamorous handbag or necklace kind of present, but it is justthe thing to put a smile on my face. Big! Big! Big pumpkins next year. 2012 big! (Memphis relishing the battle with Jonny)

I guess one could say we are simply living anormal life now. The builders have longdeparted. The furniture, paintings andphotographs are largely in place. Thedays are now made up of morning yoga, gardening, cleaning, sewing (I learnt tosew this year, thanks Aunty Sally). Thenights are still nights of bonfires outside and music but all in all it is justlife. There are still an infinite numberof projects we hope to complete, chicken houses and barns and the little Adegaat the end of the hill. All in all thisWinter 4 are still bobbing and jumping and jiving their way through life withall the enthusiasm we can muster, maybe we are getting older but somemeditation and silence is creeping in there too.

Off tofinish the Christmas tree. Happyshopping to all… Thanks for the newtunes Ian, digging the classical music. However,I must say that Chase and Status are wonderful for chopping firewood too,thanks Aunty Helen. Getting older isbetter…

(Josh on da karaoke)

Peace andLove

River

Wine, cakes and olives

2011-11-22T19:47:00.001Z

Quick post to say 10 litres of the 50 litre barrel of wine we made last month, is now drunk. Tastes amazing, thanks to some wizened guidance from José our neighbour. I'm so looking forward to giving our vines some love next year. If wild grapes make wine this good, imagine what tendered and sweeter grapes will make!

Just a couple of videos today. One of cake making which seems to becoming a way of life here. Lost count of the kilos of cakes we've baked and eaten this year. Outstanding.

Second is of picking olives with our favourite Dona Laurinda. We picked ours last week that are now waiting to be sacked up ready to take to the olive oil press on Monday. We made 35 litres last year, this year our trees produced a lot less. Which is normal in these parts. 1 good year, 1 poor. And so it goes.

Do have a glass!

2011-10-09T19:02:00.000+01:00

It's October. And that means round these parts, wine making. For the 3rd year on the trot we've eagerly helped a couple of our neighbours do their vindimas, 500 litres in the first one, then 600 litres in the next. Over the last fortnight, our closest neighbours have once again between them made over 1000 litres of wine. In years gone by they have made much much more. But now they don't have the time to look after that number of vines. 30 years ago, the families living on the 2 farms on the land here at Moses used to make 8000 litres of wine every year. Not a typo. Eight thousand.

You should have seen for yourself these vast vats (which unfortunately collapsed when we moved them outside and now exist as various cupboard doors, walls and panelling) that were here in the basement. Steeped they were, steeped. In history, in stories told and songs sung and moments of friendship shared in front of them. And, of course, in the colour and smell of a century's worth of wine. Which, if I hadn't already mentioned, was rather a significant quantity.

For over a hundred years these farms have been flowing with wine. It's an intrinsic part of the Portuguese culture. To make your own wine and offer it generously to anyone at every possible opportunity. (Last 2 pics we took in Sep 2007)

Finally last weekend, 4 years after we arrived, we did our very own vindima at Moses with the wild grapes picked from the vines still left over from yesteryear. We took up the grapes in buckets to our neighbours João and Eugenia and crushed them with their grape crushing machine to produce 100 litres of the sweetest grape juice. 40 litres of that we used to make 50 litres of Jeropiga, by adding 10 litres of Aguardent (strong local moonshine). We'll open that 50 litre barrel in a month or so to taste and hopefully it won't have fermented (which is why it has the moonshine and is in an air tight barrel. The remaining 60 litres is fermenting right now in its journey of becoming wine. Videos below.

This week, as a result, has been quite an emotional one for me. Wine is, as I said, important here. We've helped others make and drink plenty of theirs. But we have never had any of our own to offer visitors. For 3 years we've admired grapes. Watched them grow up and into the trees along the streams. Written a couple of blog posts about them. Taken photos. Videos. Trained one over a pergola at the guest house, watched it get covered in bunches within the year. Eaten kilos. Never made wine. Until this week. It's not 8000 litres. It's only 100. But it's a start. The first 100 litres.

I bloody hope it doesn't turn to vinegar.

October has also been the month of putting our kitchen garden to bed for the winter, bringing in the last of the summer harvests. The tomatoes, peppers and chillies have all been sauced and bottled in various concoctions. Onions pulled and hanging drying. Peas and beans dried and stored.

Alongside 3 lovely wwoofers we have at the moment from Kansas, Kristen, Naseeb and Jenna, Eloise and Vonetta have been cooking up a storm in the kitchen with the rest of the summer veggies and also baking every other day.

We have had to buy the eggs for all those cakes though as a fox ate the chickens.

Last but not least, October means firewood. Our wood shed (which if you remember I had to rebuild in July, cos it collapsed murdering 6 innocent pumpkins on the terrace below) is now choka bloka stacked with ready to use firewood, and kindling galore, plus the old stone chick shed in front of Joshua´s bedroom door on the right of the kid´s house is also rammed with a dozen sacks of big pine cones, the perfect Portuguese fire starters.

It's 35 degrees outside, hasn't rained for 3 weeks and isn't looking likely to until November, but we know the winter is coming and that stacked wood shed means we ain't gonna be cold. It's only a couple of months worth but I'll cut down some dried dead pines (eaten by beatles we think) and chainsaw them into logs next weekend to store under a tarpaulin somewhere. We'll chop them when we need to sometime in January.

On my list of things still do to round here is build a way bigger wood shed. Probably a barn on the car park terrace above the houses. Next year. Maybe. For now though, our cute wood shed next to the house is full. Once again, it's a start.

We're trying. We're practising. We're playing really. We're working it out. Patiently. How to live a life a little more self sustainably. We're learning. First hand through our own mistakes but also from our lovely neighbours always ready to share their rural wisdom earned over years and years of working these hand carved out terraced slopes and gardens in the middle of a forest.

A big thanks to all of you have being plugging our new retreat website www.yogaportugal.co.uk. We've had enquiries and bookings. Hoping the advert on Green Traveller also works. Any other publicity suggestions gratefully received. And if you get the chance yourself to visit us, I do very much hope to be able to offer you a glass or two of the finest of home made wines ever. Though I suspect that might be more likely to happen if you drop by in 2042 rather than 2012.

A good vintnor, like a good fisherman, stonemason, father or husband is not made overnight. Takes a lifetime. Undoubtedly one well spent I would wager.

Memphis

River by the River

2011-09-04T12:36:00.001+01:00

We live in a fairy tale

2011-08-27T21:28:00.003+01:00

It sometimes feels that way. That the mystical and often abandoned valleys of this beautiful Portuguese countryside, have in days gone by been the scenic backdrop to many a valiant tale of elves, dwarves, princesses, gallant princes, ogres, trolls, wicked stepmothers and magical helpers. And now they are the backdrop to ours.

We watch the unfolding bloody stories of humans on planet earth in lands far distant from these peaceful hills. The riots in London and the UK, the invasion of the middle east by our resource hungry governments, the unabated ravaging of our old precious cultures as in Tibet, by ruthless neighbours. The list goes on. We watch. Recognising that our own small story is taking part within a much much wider context.

The unprecedented rate of change humanity is now experiencing, has meant that more of us are becoming increasingly uncertain as to what the near future holds. Not fearful, just uncertain. This year we have had the honour to host some wonderful Wwoofers from quite a few far away lands. China, New Zealand, America, Australia, Morocco, Hungary, Holland, France, Spain and England.

Wwoofers bring their own stories. And in them we find the similarities of shared sentiment. Desires for living more simply, more in harmony with nature, with the seasons, with the fruit of the land and their labours. Hopes that we can be less dependent on the relentless stripping of the earth's resources that is our current global economic model of civilisation.

It makes no sense really to have hope in times of such immense change and unpredictability. But there it is nonetheless. That's what makes it feel so akin to a fairy tale. When the rich and powerful corrupt kings get wealthier and more influential everywhere, the day dawns for a new era of humble heroes to defeat them.

Maybe in the tales of history recorded for this time, it will be written that an army of unknown nobodies from nowhere fought the system simply by ignoring it and lived as much as possible outside of it, until the wicked kings lost their power. Oh I know this is just the talk of a foolish idealist, the ramblings of an Englishman living in the mountains of Portugal with way too much time to muse, and the reality for those living right in the midst of troubles is altogether very different.

Yet there is a surprising profundity in having the freedom to grow and eat your own potatoes, tomatoes and pumpkins and grapes. The freedom to wander through a valley such as this watering newly planted orchards, kitchen gardens and woodlands, whistling with birds and crickets as we go. It's not difficult to see why Disney and Pixar so often present peaceful paradise as they do. Peace is a great environment in which to grow, even if not to grow up.

Here's hoping your fairy tale is full of adventure and magic and ends happily ever after.

Thanks for popping by the blog,

Memphis

A few photos here at Moses...

2011-07-17T08:18:00.002+01:00

Kitchen Garden in July

2011-07-15T22:13:00.000+01:00

We're back in Portugal after 3 wonderful weeks at Glastonbury with our friends putting up and taking down their handmade tipis. We'll post up something on that adventure soon along with more of Josh's photos of Saphira and Moses, cherries, roses and sunsets, but for now here's just 3 videos. Latest walk round the kitchen terrace and herb garden with River. And 2 vids at our neighbour's 150 year old orange tree courtyard learning how to make delicious Portuguese cornbread baked in a bread oven as well as filhõs, a cross between a donut and a yorkshire pudding.

Peaceful and harmonious vibrations to you

Memphis

Cloud Spotting

2011-06-12T20:58:00.000+01:00

My favourite pastime these days. Cloud spotting. With the summer thunderstorms over the last fortnight, the skies have been fabulous. Here's just a quick 2min video of a cumulonimbus, the might mac daddy Zeus of clouds, which appeared on the horizon the other day. But if you want to be really impressed, check out the clouds and storms over the recent Chile Puyehue volcano currently spouting, triggered interestingly for those interested in these things, by earthquakes. The increasing frequency of volcanoes triggered by earthquakes seems to suggest those who expound the Expando Planet cycle theory, might be on to something. Photos are stunning whatever you think.

Enjoy

Memphis

All aboard the Bilderberg Bus...

2011-06-04T07:57:00.001+01:00

If you can, follow our friend Charlie's hilarious and satirical Guardian blog over the next fortnight or so. And catch up on the ones he wrote on the 2009 and 2010 conference if you know nothing about Bilderberg. Bravo Charlie. We'll be with you in spirit(s).

Bilderberg 2011: All aboard the Bilderbus

As the Bilderberg conference heads towards Switzerland there's still time to book your seat on a minibus to St Moritz

Fishing in the Rio Zêzere

2011-06-03T07:14:00.002+01:00

The Gardens of Abrantes Castle

2011-05-21T20:51:00.000+01:00

After many months we finally got to meet up again with our good friends Francisco and Raquel (and baby Manuel) from the lovely old Portuguese city of Abrantes. It's about an hour or so from our place, but always worth the drive to see them. This time Raquel showed us, including new puppy Saphira, around the castle and gardens. Divine.

It was particularly inspiring to see many of the trees we have planted at Moses, and how they will look in 30 to 40 years time. We walked through the gardens catching up with Raquel and imagining the ladies that would have paraded around in long dresses and parasols next to the swans in the days when the castle was the centre of life in Abrantes.

And those flowers. And cacti. And prickly pears. Simply dripping. Thanks for the tour guys. Let's do another one somewhere else later in the summer eh?

Fishing season opened once more in Portugal on Monday. With license in hand (3 euros for the year!), I flew down to the River Zêzere a couple of times with our neighbours this week. Caught a few local tips of how to improve my fishing, although no joy in catching anything to eat, but what a blessing it is to sit and ponder on such beauty. I'm hooked. Will let you know when the fish are too.

This morning we said goodbye to two delightful French Wwoofer sisters, Laure and Emma from Bordeaux. They have diligently weeded and dug and planted and mulched beds for more tomatoes and cauliflowers. Merci! We now have a week alone until Bridget and Alison arrive at the end of the month. And not so long now before we head off to Glastonbury.

The Wwoofers have been fantastically helpful this year. Very much appreciated. And will be again for Olive and Wine harvests later in the year. But we sense that the time has now come for us to open up Moses for a retreat space. I've updated the Booking section on this blog with more details of the gardening, yoga, massage and acupuncture available here from September. If you're interested let us know. It should be a lot of fun and rewardingly hard work. Which is the reason we love gardening so much.

That's it for now. I'll leave with a quick tour of one of my favourite places in the parish of Amieira. The Olive Press. "Today on Playschool, we go through the round window..."

Peace and love as always

Memphis

Terraces planted with potatoes

2011-05-14T20:40:00.000+01:00

Saphira Arrives

2011-05-11T22:40:00.000+01:00

I'll let the young lady speak for herself....

Lines written in Early Spring 1798...

2011-05-09T22:15:00.002+01:00

William Wordsworth

I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And ’tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure,
But the least motion which they made
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature’s holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?

Thanks to my Aunty Sally for sending through this poem. Wordsworth was a British poet who spent his life in the Lake District of Northern England. Wordsworth, along with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, started the English Romantic movement with their collection LYRICAL BALLADS in 1798. When many poets were writing about ancient heroes in grandiloquent style, Wordsworth focused on nature, children, people, and used ordinary words to express his personal feelings. His definition of poetry was "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings arising from emotion recollected in tranquillity"

"Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge; it is the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all Science."

Lyrical Ballads, 2nd ed., 1800

Ready to play

2011-05-07T15:32:00.002+01:00

We began writing this blog 3 years ago, after our Poop in Europe tour blog had run its course. The whole blogging experience has been invaluable. It's been like a rudder through the meta narrative of the story we find ourselves in. By telling the story to those that drop in once in a while to hear it, one constantly re-orientates oneself. Our blogs are also, obviously, a personal record, albeit in public journal form, of our adventure together since we jumped out of the Matrix of London back in Feb '07.

Walking in Yokes and Chains through England, touring southern Europe in a motorhome, magically discovering the once fruitful and now almost forgotten and abandoned mountain way of life of the Portuguese interior, and some houses nestled in a fertile valley that carried the same name as our dog.

How we bought Moses. How we found such kindness here. Such generosity. Such humanity in the Portuguese people. We fell in love. With the people, the culture, the language, the food, the music, the air, the water, the land, the stones, the roses. The blog is a record of how we also tried our best, although unfortunately unsuccessfully, to set up a yoga retreat together with 3 other yoga teachers from England that we invited out to join us.

After which we threw ourselves whole heartedly into restoring our own houses, with the outstanding help of local artisans, stone masons, carpenters and blacksmiths, who together with our ageing neighbours, have taught us so many things.

Skills we were desperate to learn; how to build in stone and clay and lime and straw and wood, how to look after the land in this valley, how and when to plant everything we need to live in this very particular micro climate and so so much more.

Flicking through the scrapbook of our lives that is this blog, I realised something quite clearly today. We're tooled up. We're ready for the life we have chosen. And we're full of gratitude. For all of it. The ups and the downs. The happy times, which simply could not have happened without those sad heart breaking times. It all had to happen exactly as it happened. That's just the way it is.

Being connected into a land as beautiful, as mysterious, as powerful as this, a human can actually live in harmony with planet earth. Seriously. Life works like this. It's enough.

Yet, if you believe the soothsayers, independent economic analysts and other pesky bloggers, our current dominant global civilisation known as the monetary market economy, finds itself on the verge of pending doom and collapse. I reckon they're probably right. I hope they're right. I can't yet see how it can be fixed. It's set up to keep rewarding the most powerful, the most wealthy, time after time after time. While enslaving millions in debt so they have to carry on earning cash to pay for the life essential food, water and services that we are more than capable of providing for ourselves.

And contrary to the very definition of economy, this current "economy", is anything but. It is the most wasteful, polluting, non sustainable, murderous, species annihilating version of a human civilisation that this old planet of ours has ever seen. If we survive it, which I am certain we will, I suspect history will remember this particular human epoch simply as Democratic Capitalism.

Wake up.

Before it's too late.

If you have any land in your family, however distant in relation or miles, go. Go now. Learn how to build. Learn how to cultivate food. Learn how to live in harmony. Learn how to love the earth. Learn the old ways before we lose them. Convert all you have, it's alchemy. And it is a whole heap of fun.

Do it! Jump! Blog it as you go. What's the worse that could happen?

In peace and in play,

(Just off to pick up a little black Labrador cross German Shepherd puppy from Joshua's friend Paulo. We'll let you see her shortly I'm sure...)

Memphis

Woodland flowers at their best

2011-04-08T12:46:00.004+01:00

The wonderful thing about flowers, is that flowers are wonderful things. And this Spring there are loads of them here at Moses. Everywhere. All along the river banks and the flatter parts of the mountain hillsides, the prettiest, most magical of tiny yellow, blue and white flowers pop up between rocks and moss, in clearings away from the heathers and gorse, which respond to the little carpet of woodland beauty, by themselves blooming in purples and whites and yellows.

The wee flowers took my breath away this week. Here are just a few snaps, but as always with this place, impossible to capture the feeling that the colourful firework display of Spring brings after a cold wet winter. It's as if you stumble into another world where pixies could easily by running around, flower height, in plain sight. Tread carefully.

River has her potting shed. Finally. I built it for her last week. I suspect she'll be spending months if not years of her life in that little shed. Loving baby plants and trees into existence. Once she has it all neat and tidy and tools and photos hung up, I'll get the kids to do an interview with her in it. It's their last day of term today, easter break next week when my parents arrive. They'll see Moses in the Spring. And like us, we'll be smitten.

Half a sack of potatoes is also in the ground. yet we bought 2 sacks to plant this year and have already used up all the beds allocated for them. So, very glad that we have a young Aussie wwoofer coming this weekend called Con. He'll be hoeing and digging over the fruit orchard terraces next week in readiness to plant the rest of the potatoes. Can't have enough potatoes. Apart from hunger busters, the plants themselves are beautiful and worth it for the flower show they'll produce in June.

River is also sowing sowing sowing. In the bedroom, in the kitchen garden beds, in the long terraces at Moses, in the herb garden, and in the courtyard. Feels a bit like we live in a national trust nursery, surrounded on all sides by little veggies and annuals in pots, trays, vases and plastic gutters. What a show it's going to be in Summer! Can't wait.

Arlene is settling in really well to the pace of country life, looking after us and the wwoofers, cooking inventively and intuitively with what comes out of the garden every day and planning dishes for the veggies that she's watching River sow. A bit like planning their execution before they've been born! But that's what they're for. Eating. Consuming. Savouring. The big challenge, will be for us to grow, harvest, store and prepare enough food to last through the winter.

Hope your Spring days are full of life and hope.

Peace and love

Memphis.

Hi Ho Hi Ho, It's off to WWOOF we go.

2011-03-26T11:45:00.003Z

What a wonderful thing is Wwoofing. It has been so lovely working, eating and spending time with the Wwoofers that have come to Moses this year. Linwei, Peter, Liz and now Julie and Damian. A beautiful exchange of energy. They provide manpower and good company. We provide hospitality and great food that Arlene is cooking up every day.

This is Moses, our 3 bedroom cottage that we first restored and lived in for 18 months as a family while we were restoring our farmhouses up the hill. We are renting this cottage out for holidays and retreats later in the year, but for now it is providing super Wwoofing accommodation.

Here's Peter the Hungarian. "Egészségedre" amigo! We miss you already pal, and do so very much hope that we will meet again. Hopefully we'll go one day to your place in the Hungarian mountains and you can arrange a pálinka tasting tour, like the one I subjected you to around the Adegas of our local villages. I look forward to bouncing little hungary hungarian peters up and down on my knee while you catch a fish.

I am also most grateful to Peter for introducing me to the notion of Wabi-Sabi. The Japanese art of imperfection. In one masterfully hammered 9" nail in the roof structure of this new herb garden shed, his only nail in fact, he managed to reposition the perfectly vertical door post to a most imperfect 20 degree angle. One nail and his mark is left with us for us always to remember the man and smile!

Liz left us on Thursday. She threw herself into anything we asked her to do and to listen to her evening pre dinner piano recitals waft through the house out over the terraces was simply divine. 2 new hedgerows on the terrace (where we are slowly creating a cricket net garden) and one new line of conifers and rosemary bushes on the path down from the farmhouse. Thanks Liz. Thanks for the pictures too and the song you wrote for us. Fabulous. Hope all goes well in Morocco and beyond. (Follow Liz's travel blog here.)

On Monday an English couple, Damian and Julie, arrived from a 3.5 months trip round Morocco and wanted to stop at Moses to repay some of the generosity they received over there. They've industriously cleared one section of forest from the rock roses, small pine trees and straggly cuttings of the gorses and lavenders, enough for Liz and I to shred 33 bags of woodchip . Our own pot pourri for the dry toilets. Nice.

They've helped plant trees including three beautiful living sculptures on the water garden terrace above the sugar maples at the top of the land. In 3 big holes that River dug out last year, there are now several huge upturned pine tree roots. 3 or 4 birch trees are planted right next to them at angles from the centre. Over time we hope the birches will thicken and mold into the roots, creating a strange gnarled sculpture all by themselves. It felt like a big Art Attack in the forest. Like an installation in the wilderness. One that wont be ready to truly appreciate for another 15 years or so. Just when the maples start to leak their syrup.

And as they had the know how, we let them prune the old pear trees in the kitchen garden. Yesterday it was a bit rainy, so Julie linseed oiled the stairs in the house and Damian lime painted red the courtyard walls, digging up the old fig tree for good measure. It's all go, every day. All those little jobs that are on our endless mental lists of things to do here. Well, with these lovely wwoofers, it looks like we might get a good crack at getting quite a bit of that list done. How do you spell relief? WWOOF.

At last the hammock Michelle gave us a few years back is up on the yoga eternity deck. My days. No better way to relax as the sun goes down. We've also had a couple of yoga classes from River on this deck, when the afternoons have been sunny enough, it can be mid twenties. Delicious temperature to unfold our mats and ourselves.

Kids are good. Been a bit end of termy poorly with snivels and coughs. But as they say round here, "é normal, é o tempo". Ellie had a music concert at school this week for their Founders Day. Played the Titanic splendidly with her class on the recorders. Josh got himself elected President of the Pupil Association as well to boot. Cinco estrellas filhos! Make us proud dont ya just!

Far from the maddening chaos of rising global revolution, crashing economies, earth expanding quakes, radioactive volcanoes, we know how extraordinarily lucky we are to be here, living simply like this, in the middle of the Portuguese forest mountains and valleys. Yet our hearts go out to all of our fellow earthlings who are suffering unimaginably at the moment with what looks to all intent and purpose, like a vortex of death and destruction over our planet.

Hang on in there fellow earthlings. Hold tight. It's gonna be a bumpy few months ahead. Somehow we gotta come out the other side of all this in love. And if you have not yet done so already, sell all you have and buy land. Love and land. That'll do.

In respect and peace

Memphis

Caught from Freefalling. By River

2011-03-11T12:02:00.000Z

Sometimes, just sometimes the spirit falls, falls into poverty. Sometimes we see the signs of death of loss of all that we have lost along the struggle, for personal freedom and integrity at every turn. This falling to me feels very much like a dance, a leap and a freefall into sadness, fear and despair. I fell recently, I fell so hard and so fast my head spun. In truth, it span and fell with love. It’s funny when that happens when we walk with the soul bare and stripped. Recently, my tears just fell and fell unheeded sometimes with love, sometimes in fear sometimes in just having lost my compass.

It is at these times when we feel our most alone, when we feel that the sun will never shine again. When we feel the dying pains of the earth and those around us that help is required. And, oh what help has come to me.

Today, my Memphis came home from a trip to see his family with my old car from London full of my Mummies life and presents from his Mum, Dad and Aunty Sally for the kids. How to explain the feeling of receiving a car load of soft velvet curtains, and string, and knitting needles and all the lovely soft aspects of the feminine, of the womanly? We Winters have moved 8 times in three years, we have spent some hard winters here in Portugal and some glorious springs. This winter was most definitely the hardest for me, we arrived in our home so to speak and I unpacked and saw all that had been left behind. What grace, what joy to still be here, to be finally indoors and playing with soft things. To be reminded that though I may belong to the clan of the wild woman, a woman who gardens on the edge of wilderness and fights with all her strength to provide for her family that I am still someone’s daughter, daughter-in-law, neighbor, friend, niece, sister, cousin, lover, mum and of course dog mum.

Finally the great deep depth of earth we will use for our vegetable patch is drying out and I have dug over 5 beds now. My heart is so full of gladness to still be here, to finally be here. To be here with my Mum and my kids and to have so much of Memphis’ family all over our walls and in the kitchen cupboard and on the kitchen table. Yes Pete, all we do need is love and an infinite amount of patience.

I still hope for everything we came here for. A thriving vegetable patch, flowers at every turn, repaired stone walls, chickens, ducks, sheep, more dogs and of course people. Will those things happen? Who knows, but how can we live without dreaming, without hoping beyond hope. At the end of these days of daily action and single steps, step by step, the only thing I can now do is bow to devotional love, the love of karma of joy of fulfillment in each day, irrespective of the actions taken or the success of individual projects.

Thank you for the encouragement Sally, Papops and Aunty Sally.

Om shanti, Peace and Love. Beloved.

River xxx

Wwoof Wwoof!

2011-03-11T11:40:00.004Z

Hey ho peeps.

A couple of updates on the restoration work and then a piece from River I'll post up after.

Our third Wwoofer arrived yesterday. Liz from Kentucky, via Oz and Dublin and Edinburgh, who is new to Wwoofing. As is Peter who arrived direct from Hungary on Sunday, via New Zealand and Germany. As was Linwei, our very first wwoofer who came for a fortnight in February from China via Florence Uni. So our first 3 "willing workers" have all been first timers. As are we. And its going well.

Linwei helped us gather eucalytpus branches from the midst of the forest to make posts and fences and gates around the kitchen garden. Pruned one section of our woodland bushes then shredded the cuttings to make 22 bags of great woodchip to replace the sawdust we were using. And cooked the best egg fried rice ever!

Peter this week has helped put the soil on the green roof (finally!) ready for seeding shortly, dig over the new herb garden, countless wheel barrow trips with bark chip and compost and rabbit poop for the veggie beds, and an afternoon sawing down the young pine trees in the woods above the house. Plus a cheeky fishing trip to the Zêzere last night.

Our bedroom looks like a greenhouse as River has begun her annual seed push. Little veggies and flowers are in the process of taking over the house. Which is good cos we like veggies and flowers. Alot. And outside we've been busy preparing the beds to plant out the seedlings currently growing inside.

The wee mezzanine storage area is up in the treatment room, the new wood brushed with linseed oil and pigment, and fresh mimosa yellow lime paint caressed onto the walls. My first massage on that table was bliss. And boy how the back holds 2 years of physical labour. Looking forward to giving and receiving regular treatments with River.

And meanwhile Springtime relentlessly pursues her inevitable arrival as the Mimosa explodes in patches of yellow out of the forest heralding to all of nature around it to consider the possibility of allowing themselves to flower at some point soon. Stuff to soothe the soul.

May the Spring sunshine warm all your hearts.

Memphis

"Anyone can sing"

2011-03-01T10:39:00.002Z

Lots happening here at Moses. We'll put up a proper blog soon with more pics and videos of the forest and gardens restoration work. But read this poem today sent by Panhala. They have some great poems and accompanying photos. (If you fancy subscribing to Panhala, send them a blank email to Panhala-subscribe@yahoogroups.com)

Anyone can sing

Anyone can sing. You just open your mouth,

and give shape to a sound. Anyone can sing.

What is harder, is to proclaim the soul,
to initiate a wild and necessary deepening:
to give the voice broad, sonorous wings
of solitude, grief, and celebration,
to fill the body with the echoes of voices
lost long ago to bravery, and silence,
to prise the reluctant heart wide open,
to witness defeat, to suffer contempt,
to shrink, lose face, go down in ignominy,
to retreat to the last dark hiding-place
where the tattered remnants of your pride
still gather themselves around your nakedness,
to know these rags as your only protection
and yet still open - to face the possibility
that your innermost core may hold nothing at all,
and to sing from that - to fill the void
with every hurt, every harm, every hard-won joy
that staves off death yet honours its coming,
to sing both full and utterly empty,
alone and conjoined, exiled and at home,
to sing what people feel most keenly
yet never acknowledge until you sing it.
Anyone can sing. Yes. Anyone can sing.

~ William Ayot ~

And if you're struggling to have anything to sing about, watch even just 1 part of this documentary on the Monarch butterfly and be amazed. Surely we are the same as butterflies....

There is no movement without rhythm.

2011-02-12T17:15:00.001Z

Thanks to our friends Martin and Rebekah for posting this piece of heaven on screen.

Arcs of Light in the Forest. By River.

2011-02-05T16:03:00.001Z

Nature’s fluffy softness begs us to forget that we are tender and fragile. Inch by inch, step by step we seek to learn a new way to live. Every every stone laid, every wall plastered, every nail hammered, every seed sown we hope leads us closer to home and the illusive, corner of the eye vision we seek. We breathe in and out and appear brave, while caution pricks on like a thorn for Eve’s rib. But ashes to ashes and dust to dust it’s just us the Winters playing and singing and shredding and feeling the firm dark earth.

Each new detail brought into focus clarifies a little more of the picture. Each picture we see shows beauty and perhaps the need for a little more effort, more work, and more projection of will or is it subjugation, surrender? Inside we are moving and slowly tuning into a smooth groove. We now see clearly where effort honours will, in this grounding, wisdom like a Forest grows, but on the other hand let’s call it what it is a thrill, a joy to be here right here right now.

Nature weaves her seasonal tapestry around us, we become more attached, interwoven. In a swiftly fleeing arc of revolutionary light we glimpse ourselves connected to an ill formed but nonetheless growing body of people seeking a new way of life built on old foundations and places forgotten by the many but held by a few. We seek not an escape from work, for here there is work a plenty. Instead, we seek another kind of release, a break free from the title of slave, wage, slave, a new tune of living, jungle book style for a little while at least. The boundaries of our golden vision are linked, chained and fenced in by joy. In this context of links growing, connections forming, relationships blooming we feel a little more secure, rich in green fields, blue skies and roses out of stones.

Within this glorious light of courage there remains a sense of disconnection of not yet rootedness. “What can I contribute? How can I earn and stay out of the business scheme? Will my children receive all that they need? Am I enough or do they really need all that stuff the advertisers say they need?” Ripples of consternating sensation prostrated in the face of a beautiful dawn or sunset but heard, in the dark when we lay awake and wonder, “Are we crazy? Should we return to the city? Are we more secure here or there?” Here. For sure.

If you should ever come this way may we suggest a little game, better than counting sheep or hiding the head in sand. Stretch your eyes over the land and set a square vision. Try with all your might to replace every tree with a sky obliterating tower block. It has never been the case that we have managed to replace even one tree. So, though fragile we may be we dance and play on to a life of creativity, learning and await the call of revolution beyond what we here can offer. We shred Olive leaves and get ready to cover the earth for this year’s garden. An old skin, of an old self is dropped, a wet, heavy, suffocating coat to be stripped off and thrown.

A new celebration, where pictures are on walls and the firewood in the new shed. Where time has been spent in family and in friendship; where at the end we will still feel warm, not coldly enslaved but free to learn over a slower pace, thank God. I hope we minions take our festivals back. I hope, we return to tribal unity, brotherly affection and sisterly love and the bosom of light bringers wherever they are to be found even if it all seems upside down.

Strike up the band and play a new blues. Let the Light shine through the impenetrable undergrowth of debt. Let the snakes run to their holes of commerce and we earthlings, return to our Forest homes or to the nearest still alive tree. We are cashing in our coupons, checking out of the swelling need to buy something, taking our toys home and refusing to play. We are fragile, tender and bravely trying to save our souls and honour the complex rich family life of us, just us and yes indeed yes it helps when you fall and there are so many lovely friends and family to help you get back on track. Spread a bigger net, enlarge your tent and coppee down to the daffodils, tinkle on the piano, read nice notes from Aunties, O + Live, O + Love, honour the oneness all around.

The depth of a wiser gaze

2011-01-27T09:15:00.000Z

Thanks to our friend Toby Leetham for pointing out an amazing series of videos by Nic Askew called Soul Biographies. Truly beautiful. Beautifully human.

A LIFE BEYOND from Nic Askew on Vimeo.

Happy 12th Birthday Eloise! By River

2011-01-23T13:15:00.003Z

As those of you who have been reading our blog might well know, I have not been very well over the Christmas holidays, but it’s a New Year, 35 litres of olive oil pressed and today is my daughter’s birthday. I never knew that there was so much love in my life. I am the kind of head down get to work sort of girl, with a tendency to skim my eyes over the tops of trees and feel the blue skies endlessly stretching over head. It’s the light here that I love the most, it sparkles and bounces off every surface and calls me awake every day.

Today began with a warm fire on and frozen pipes, after all it is still winter time, my favorite season. The sun is rising over the little village of Amieira and the mist has already passed over the river and been on its way.

My daughter came into this world ready, blue eyes steadily gazing at us as if to say I have been waiting to meet you. Why does everything take such a long time? She was desperate to get out and stretch those beautiful long limbs of hers. After an hour and a half of labour, there she was and next to me alone in our bedroom my beautiful husband and best mate. When we crawled into bed and awoke Joshua such a feeling of completeness took over me that I knew I would never recover from this kind of loving.

So we called her Eloise Grace Winter. Eloise, warrior of light and the name of my grandmother Grace a state of loving kindness which we all hope to live under and Winter, the family name of my beloved husband and his beautiful family.

This morning, while the children were still sleeping, I took a walk around our frozen patch of heaven and felt the ice and stone crunching under my boots. Moses our dog is all too keen to get going in the morning and I can never resist his eager dawn greetings, so, slightly frozen I ventured out. I am now walking in my daughters’ shoes of two years ago, she is twelve but she is bypassing me so fast that often my mind is in a blur. Slow down girl, I always want to say but how could she when there is so much beauty and laughter she wants to share each day.

We Winters have finally moved into our home and are finding our rhythm, the daffodils planted by the previous owners of our house over 40 years ago are flowering, soaking up and dragging each drop of sunshine to the ground. I have started clearing the vegetable patch and the forest s as green as anyone can imagine as green as my little girls eyes today. The sky is blue and crisp and I know I will see this in her eyes too. How could there be anything else but joy in our lives today? Another day of play.

I have always loved the children’s birthdays best and today we will be hanging out with our gorgeous friends Shanti B from Angola and Emma from Ireland and Ellie’s lovely Portuguese friend from school Joanna, and the cacophony of heritage that we the Winters represent. Praise and love be ever present. Today, on my daily walk in my daughters’ shoes I am reminded yet again of the many actions that needed to take place in order for us to be here. I see the sign of my daughter to remind me that I am home, “Moses”, I see the boat of some friends waiting for their return, I see Olive leaves and upturned trees, the hard crunch of stone and the ever-present sound of the river below combined with the wind in the trees and the birds chirping the morning sound remind me of how grateful I truly am that we are finally at home, again.

Thank you all my friends for your loving kindness and the big net you have all spread to help me come all the way back round to the same rising lights. Obrigada.

Here is a Poem for the Girls who will Rip your Heart Out and Show You How to Love

Her colour vibrates

She awakens and enlivens

Every moment with Sound

Intuitive

A spiritual gift

In her I see

Healers

Empathy

Mission

Connected numbers

Chronic pain of a toxic world released in laughter

Physically, Emotionally

Environmentally, Spiritual

Remarkable

When,

schooled in love

Every emotion is held in her presence

Crystal light is this child

All the while still the same as she came

A veil is pulled back in each generation

Her every utterance s a heart string pulled

She sits pink, divinely feminine

Unabashed energy held within a structure

All power, all gravity and light

She sees sickness before the tide swells

And vibrates, shake and tell

Loving forgiveness

Cuddling touch, kiss and hugs

This way to play

Her mass of rare precious light will not be

Patronised, manipulated or lied to

Give me beauty and truth

Telepathic or just switched on

Come into the world as royalty

And act that Way

Fearlessly sensitive

Not afraid to feel and live

Draw to the light

Moths die at the heat of the bulb but still come

A multi- coloured dress enters my world
And I forget to breathe

Thank you Ellie

For the heart song you give to me

Introducing Eloise Grace Winter, 12 years of age, princess of Moses........

The Joys of a Simple Wood Shed

2011-01-07T10:19:00.004Z

Happy New Year one and all.

After the olive picking, 2011 came upon us in a whirlwind of chaos and confusion. John, Caroline, Maya and Violet had to cut their year long stay with us short and return back to London. Many many rivers of tears shed. A sudden, rapid shock to our lives and theirs that has left us reeling. Arlene, Annie & Nathan arrived shortly afterwards to a tumultuous reception and Christmas crashed passed our eyes in the flashiest of flashes with days and nights interchangeable and sleepless.

It feels a lot like we just took a long sea voyage through the roughest of tempests. Coming out the other side and arriving in much calmer waters, although the relentless sheeting rains outside our newly restored Portuguese stone home, remain a constant reminder that winter is truly upon us. Engulfed by water and wind on all sides. The energy of it all is staggeringly powerful. Transformatively so, sem dúvidas.

The weather here on the edge of wilderness, just like the landscape, often offers a reflection of that which is apparently occurring in the very depths of our souls. Through the sunny days of summer and autumn there is time and space to see far. Outside. Always outside. The scorching heat stirs the fires of our passions as nature sings her enchanting tunes and the drums of life beat their vibrational dance. In those days, if you sit, observe and listen, everything is revealed. Oh what contrast is this season of yuletide song!

Inside we retreat. Behind the newly built walls and doors and windows. Inside to the books and the films and the memories of a kitchen garden full, abundant and glorious, of a garden that fuelled the lunches and the dinners and the pizzas and the conversations and the games with the friends who are no longer here.

We go inside to remember. Inside with ourselves. Inside we must retreat. For outside in the dramatic valley landscape the storms rage. Midday is dusk. And yet we see. We even feel the reflection. Because those same storms, those same relentless rains, they somehow rage and weep deep within us.

January 1^st 2011, I woke up in a determined mood.

It is, if you didn’t already know, the International Year of the Forest. We have already made it our focus this year to look after, with as much love as we can, the forest where we live. To prune the wild shrubs, the strawberry fruit trees, the rock roses, the heathers, the gorse, the lavenders. But before we start on that we need to clear up the mess around the houses. The flotsam and jetsam of 2 years of building work. Piles of wood. Piles of tiles. Piles of stones. Piles of clay. All of which we have already begun to reuse, reform, recreate into other things like sheds, cupboards, shutters, garden walls, composting structures and furniture.

January 1^st the clouds parted and the sun shone and I rode out to face the new year. Still determined.

And what I wanted more than anything else in that moment, was somewhere dry to store firewood. Just a simple wood shed. Nothing more. I looked around the land, at the materials at my disposal. And one pile of left over materials after another, I gathered the stuff needed and began that familiar slow creative process of making something. Josh joined me. Together we built our wood shed. Stone wall foundation to level the base. 3 cement beams and filling blocks to make the raised floor. Chainsawed a 70 year old sweet chestnut roof beam rotting on the ground for last 3 years, to become 4 majestic pillars. Off cuts from our new eucalyptus roof beams, to tie in the pillars. Old wine vat slatted chestnut wood, nailed to form sides to hold the logpile in place also doubling as a strong trellis for River’s roses to plant.

4 chunky wooden planks, once scaffolding boards, with floor boards sawed perfectly to size by Josh, form the generous roof structure upon which old thigh crafted clay tiles, carefully put aside at the start of the restoration work, sit atop their new abode, basking once again in the joy of doing what they were made to be. Tiles. For a roof. To hold off the rain. So the firewood can dry. And the hearth can burn its hottest. Thawing our toes and soothing our hearts.

It’s not a great piece of engineering or architecture. But it serves its purpose and I am proud of it. It’s just a simple wood shed. Built by my son and I in a day and half. Out of the debris left over from the creative journey of 2010. And for that, each time I look out at it, or sit under it, or pass it, this simple wood shed is a ray of hope, that even in the midst of a bleak winter, paradoxically fills me with much hope and joy for the year ahead.

May your 2011 be full of adventure and love. And the simple things that bring you joy.

Memphis.

How to really love a child

2010-12-30T11:36:00.000Z

We found this little piece in an old journal. Sorry we can't attribute it to anyone, if you know, do tell.

"Be there. Say yes as often as possible.

Let them bang on pots and pans. If they are crabby put them in water. If they're unlovable, love yourself.

Realise how important it is to be a child. Go to the movies inyour pyjamas. Read books out loud with joy.

Invent pleasure together. remember how really small they are. Giggle alot. Surprise them.

Say no when necessary. Teach feelings. Heal your own inner child. Learn about parenting.

Hug trees together. Make loving safe. Bake a cake and eat it with no hands. Go find elephants and kiss them.

Plan to build a rocket ship. Imagine yourself magic. Make lots of forts with blankets

Let your angel fly. Reveal your own dreams. Search out the positive. Keep the gleam in your eye.

Mail letters to God. Encourage silly. Plant licorice in your garden. Open up. Stop yelling.

Express your love. A lot. Speak kindly. Paint their tennis shoes. Handle with caring.

Children are miraculous."

For my River.

2010-12-25T00:49:00.002Z

For you
From whom such sweet sweetness flows
For you
To whom our faces irresistibly follow as sunflowers to the sun
For you
Always you

Flow not into the sea just yet. For there is more.
Much more. Here and to come.
To soothe. To soften. To see.

For you

Always you

Waiting. In hope. Look, the buds on our planted trees wait for Spring.

And we for you.
Always you.
For you. For you. For you.

Quantitative Easing

2010-12-09T21:05:00.001Z

For those still unsure just how ridiculous the state of global government debt is, watch this. You'll get it.

www.thedailyshow.com

If you're still interested in these type of stories not usually screened on average mainstream media, do check out George Ure's blog Urban Survival. Nice. If you're interested in official definition of what Quantitative Easing, check here on Wiki, before the net shuts down completely. Some day shortly. Unless the revolutionaries win. And we get more Diaspora stuff where information doesn't actually "live" anywhere at all so no one can control it.

Peace to all our friends in London right now with the Student Fee Rise just passed. We hear there are horses crashing through student protesters. Time for the peacemakers to make their stand.

As I keep saying, get ready. Be prepared to wage peace.

Love from the mountains. Memphis.

Interjecting noodle bakers on Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T14:08:00.001Z

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I don't really get what Thanksgiving is, but that's OK cos we have American friends who have showed us its about the best food and the best friends and family available getting together for a wholesome thankful time. So we're looking forward to popping over to our friends today for some of the good old American loveliness that exists in so many American homes right across the world today.

Big news in creative wonderland of Moses is that John is front page of the internet gallery Eyestorm. Purdays are also in chats over possible show in this Sintra gem, showcasing their new views of rural Portuguese life. Go Purdays!

Right, about baking your noodle. We've been pootling about on You Tube watching various lovely things. This one is for all those who have kids, work with them, or preferably are them. "Well bake my noodle!", as we say round these parts. We'll put more up over coming days. Get a cuppa tea and enjoy. It's an hour...

Finally a wee autumnal view from the road to castelo branco where incidentally I took my level 1 ECG Cricket coaching course last weekend. All the way out here in Portugal. In Portuguese to boot. First Cricket Coaches Course in Portugal to Portuguese speaking Portuguese. Twas most cool to have been there. At the start of a cricket revolution. The vid is of the trees not the cricket.

Inklings and Eric Cantona Rabbit Holes

2010-11-17T15:43:00.000Z

Just 3 links for y'all today based on my inklings over these recent interesting days. Will leave it to you to make up your own mind. Be warned. Engaging in this 3 part little journey may prove to be a rabbit hole that drops you out in Wonderland. Enjoy.....

Now, take a view from the Clif on these 2 obscure videos released this week.

Peace and love and all the beautiful harmonies,

Memphis.

Eyescape Dreamscape

2010-11-09T19:28:00.002Z

"You got time to kill, ain't yer?", he said. A fair accusation I thought. Precisely why we're here and not there. Time to kill. Time to talk. Time to listen. Time to be. With friends. Alone. Time to imagine. And that peeps is where we are headed today. Imagination.

Lets start with a wee perception shifter that took place here this week. River and I went for a walk one day to the opposite side of the little valley on the north side of our house. We've been here 3 years now and never walked it. Mainly cos we didn't know it was there til a bulldozer went down it in the summer (as part of the biannual road cleaning they do here for ensuring fire engine access in the forest).

Now 3 years is a fair bit of time to spend in the forest. We walk a lot. Found many paths. Beaten a few clean only to be scratched to pieces by newly grown brambles on return the following year. Investigated. Stopped. Stared. Marvelled. Gave thanks. In many many places across the land. A thousand different vistas. Up down round. Thought we had a pretty good idea where we lived. Until this week. Until that path. Until a single view from 250 metres away blew us away.

We have spent all our days for almost 2 years gazing west and south. Never seen a sunrise over the horizon, only over the hill mid morning. We've consumed every single sunset down cascading far away valleys. But we've never looked from over there back up. Back east. Like this.

As you can see from the pic, our house is situated half way up, what is actually, a perfect hillock. After a series of other equally revealing views from along the 500m path, River and I had our breath taken away and simply sat on the edge of the path for a very long time feasting at the wonder of the eyescape that was laid out before us in every direction. Hearts and spirits wide wide open in absolute surrender to the majesty of this place, in awesome thankfulness for it all, and total utter gobsmacked surprise that we had no flipping clue for all that time where we had been living. We live here? We live here.

A return to the house for a cuppa and a quick look on google translate for the name of our houses, Cabeço. Always thought it was some kind of derivative of Cabeça which means head. But no, in fact it has one very specific meaning. It translates as "Knoll". I must have seen this translation at some point but ignored it cos it failed to resonate as a description. So seeing that we do in fact live on a splendid knoll, was a tremendous treasure to discover after all this time.

What was so outstanding for us about this little revelatory walk of ours, was that no matter how aware we think we are, no matter how well we think we are doing in understanding the context of who we are and where we are, a trip to another viewpoint, another perspective, even one that is very very close to where we have always been, can immediately reveal we never really had a clue! Truly a type of revolutionary perspective shifter. Now that one name, Cabeço, the name of our house, will always be for us inextricably linked to this wake up call that there is far more beauty in this world than we have yet seen. All we need to do to see more is change our point of view.

In the context of our new found titillating eyescapes, we have also been reflecting much recently on dreams. Our own dreams, those we are sub consciously experiencing while asleep and more interestingly those visions that we are consciously pondering in our daydreams. Night and day, day and night, these movies running in our minds eye somewhere, are our dreamscape. We commonly accept that dreams can often, particularly the lucid ones, feel extremely real. We touch, we smell, we see, we talk, we hear, we fear, we love. We reflect on the past, we try to resolve the present, we glimpse the future. But where are we doing all those things? In our dreamscape, of course. It's not real. It's just dreaming in it?

But what if our dreamscape is real. As real as the phenomenon known as the material world. What if? What might that mean? Could it mean we can actually imagine the future into being. Visionaries often do don't they. And artists. And writers. They imagine what is not there in the material world. They imagine it in the dreamscape. Then seek to bring that reality of their vision, into the real physical world. If the dreamscape is real, then I have a feeling I have absolutely no idea how to navigate my way in it. We just might have an extrordinarily powerful tool as human beings. Way more powerful than we have ever imagined to date. Our Imagination.

If that's true, then what a time we are in folks, to imagine our way through the coming days. Let's do it. Let's ignite a revolution. Let's imagine, seriously imagine, a more beautiful world for ourselves and those around us and for those further afield who really need to be able to escape their own physical realities right now. I know this sounds all so familiar. But again I say, what if it were possible? Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams, and your young men will see visions and all that.

Anyhow, there's some perspective shifting going on around these parts. And I think it has something to do with all the wonderful friends we have been sharing time with this last month. John and Caroline obviously, with their elegant artistry with the brush and the camara, have both inspired with their enthusiasm and their work. (Their exhibition is on in town next week by the way and trust me, they will be putting on quite a show. Do check out their blogs - great photos, great paintings, great haikus.)

Also been hanging out with Ian and Merle and their tribe, Anna, Oliver, Jonny. Went up to the Serra da Estrella with them last week. Such outstanding beauty all the way on the winding roads through vale and ridge and villages and paddling in river beaches in hot sunshine, until you arrive at the summit, the highest peak in portugal at 2km above sea level, with snow all over the place and crystal clear views for eternity.

The light, the rocks, the moss, the colour, the magnificence. Almost felt like we were on another planet. And again, not very far, only hour and half. Took Moses and Perry for a walk into the snow. They rolled, they jumped, they frolicked and ate way too many snowballs. The dogs, just like me, were in heaven.

It's Autumn. It's breathtaking. It's where we live. It's been full of lunches and dinners and fires and music and conversation and games and laughter. So much laughter. And of course pumpkins. Lots and lots of pumpkins. Relishing the eyescapes that are our nearest and dearest. Taking note of what is passing through our dreamscapes. Waiting for the rains to pass.

Peace and love. Dream a little. Imagine.

Memphis.

Sweet Sixteen...

2010-11-01T10:01:00.000Z

Photography by Caroline Purday. Haiku by Jon Purday. Thanks guys.

"Vortexual"

2010-10-24T10:51:00.002+01:00

Thanks to those who commented on the last post. Lovely to start some new conversations with people contemplating similar things at this time. Continuing on a similar note, there seems to be a central theme recurring in our reflections and dreams at the moment. That is the nature of energy itself. At the smallest level of what we consider to be the material universe, energy just keeps spinning to keep matter in form. At the largest view, the galactic view, the whole thing is spinning interrelatedly in ways we can't fully comprehend. Doesn't really matter which lens you care to look through, the microscope or the telescope, the data is telling us the same thing. It's all spinning in the same way: vortexually.

According to the Websters online dictionary, the word 'vortexual' doesn't actually exist, although 'vortical' does. However, given the prevalence of the phenomena on so many levels, the omission rather surprised me. Or maybe not. Maybe in fact it's a new way of not just how we are currently describing what we see in relation to the interconnectivity of all things, but also, just possibly, how we are seeing it. More simply, how we feel about seeing things move, including us, more spirally towards an unspecified moment in time.

Now, this all might be some random playback of influences, and I am happy to concede that the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy read in my teens, might just be affecting this.

The Total Perspective Vortex is allegedly the most horrible torture device to which a sentient being can be subjected.

When you are put into the Vortex you are given just one momentary glimpse of the entire unimaginable infinity of creation, and somewhere in it a tiny little mark, a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot, which says, "You are here."

But I doubt it. Our new view of the entirety of it all I suspect is arising from what we are actually seeing with our own eyes at this present point in time, rather than through an inculcated lens. If that makes sense. Our eyes on the material world interlaced with images from our dreamscape, both in our sleep, and more interestingly, while fully awake.

What if, we all are spinning vortexually. Always have been, granted, but what if we are on the place in the vortex, (obviously in all the vortexes on every level all at the same time), where the spinning is getting closer to the centre, with exponentially increasing speed. The reason we might be more aware of the interconnection of things, more able to see past, present and future events with increasing clarity, is in fact that it's all getting much 'closer' together. Maybe this singularity at the centre of the universal whirlpool, feels a little more inevitably possible, because it might, of course, truly exist. If so, the notion of vortexualisation (OK stretching it here a bit but bare with me), of which as stated we are becoming more aware of and affected by, is indeed a developmental process leading to a moment in time evidently hurtling towards us with all its accompanying chain reactions, really rather quickly. At which point I assume, everything, including us, will have been vortexualised.

Alright enough. You get my point. "Vortexual" is, whether we like it or not, already here in our cultural vernacular at Moses. Arrived a week ago. But as you can tell, already pretty forefront. What I really want to know, is if this little word is resonating with anyone else out there.

Let me know.

Memphis.

p.s. found an online definition for vortextual, which ironically, is a fair description of my piece, but not in a way I would have imagined. suggests verbosity and annoyance for friends subjected to listening. so i have, obviously suggested the urban dictionary publish an alternative version for vortexual. once published, i feel a fair balance will have been made to the info cloud. but you can decide for yourself.

Wage Peace. It’s time to get ready.

2010-10-10T23:10:00.001+01:00

What a time we are in. Today is the 10^th of the 10^th of the 2010. Those dates don’t come around so very often so I hope you will allow me the moment to share something of what drives us to do what we’re doing here, in the middle of the forests of central Portugal. I wrote the following script for a video I was intending to submit for the “Life in a day” project earlier this year. Too much was happening back then with our restoration work for me to do the job justice, but re reading these words this morning, I felt I’d like to still put it out there and see if we can start a conversation through it. Feel free to submit your thoughts and/or links to cool articles around these issues that you have found helpful. Somehow I feel the time to get ready to wage peace is close at hand. I don’t have much of an idea what this will look like. Just that it’s time to get ready.

Mankind finds itself on the cusp of an extraordinary time of change. No one really knows what the change that’s coming is going to look like. Just that it’s coming. Most of us, in fact, are completely unaware that things have already begun to shift. We are, if you like, asleep. Collectively asleep.

Busy, really really busy, but sleeping nonetheless.

Our beautiful home of planet earth seems to be going through one of its regular (for Earth we’re talking every few thousands of years) seismic shifts. Weather patterns are going crazy, polar caps melting, sea levels rising, ocean currents altering, ferocious flooding, city destroying hurricans, island crushing earthquakes, continental wide ash cloud volcanoes, deep sea oil volcanoes. None of which are new. Just right now are happening all so very very fast, in Earth clock time.

Instability, that some say, begins to take place on Earth before momentous change – ice age scale change – stuff that wipes out species like dinasours. Maybe it’s humans next. Maybe not. Maybe it’s just happening as it always has happened and always meant to have happened. Maybe we’re not helping matters.

There are a lot of us humans. Billions. We’re polluting and destroying our planet’s resources and each other with such relentless vigour, that it is a little tricky to see how things can carry on for much longer. Our life on earth, our way of life on earth, doesn’t look to be that sustainable.

Let’s talk oil. Our civilizations right now are based on the black stuff. We use oil to drive our cars, trucks, trains and aeroplanes. We use oil to make the cars, trucks, trains and aeroplanes. We use oil to power the electricity supply. Oil to manifacture a vast array of products and clothes and foods. And we know, oh yes we do, that oil is running out. We just don’t know when. Sooner than we collectively think, probably. So we’re tinkering around here and there with alternative sources of energy, with bio fuels, with wind, wave and solar power. With nuclear power. Not a thing that responds well, I imagine, to tinkering.

Ironically we will consume vast quantities of oil just to make the machines and infrastructure required to harness the energy from these alternative sources. Will there be enough? What if there’s not?

The other big unstable foundation of our civilisations today is money. We’re busy busy busy making money. Working to earn bits of paper or numbers on screens, to pay institutions for food and services that we are more than capable of growing and providing for our very own selves.

3 years ago, sensing that ‘times they are a changing’ our little family of 4 plus dog set out on a journey to find a life less ordinary, a place in which we could quickly acquire the skills we had never learnt which enabling us the chance to live a little more self sufficiently. We found it here in the forgotten mountains of central Portugal. In some old abandoned stone houses on some terraced land with rivers running through it.

In the midst of all the talk of cataclysmic planetary change, we’re tending our garden. Growing our veggies, vines and fruit orchards and hoping we can survive in nature’s abundance after the oil and the money run out. Maybe we will. Maybe we won’t. Either way we’ll be looking after this little piece of land and the people we find ourselves with, until the storm that is closing in passes or consumes us in its wake.

(The brief for the video project was also to answer the following 3 questions.)

What do I fear?

I fear that my children grow up in a world where humanity continues choosing to destroy itself and their days will not be filled with the peace and safety and beauty of this day.

What do I love?

My queen of a wife River, my 2 gorgeous children Josh and Eli, good music, tasty home grown food. I love sunrises, sunsets and the stars that follow. I love watching the wind make the trees dance in the forest. I love picking grapes with old people who have spent their lifetimes living in their landscape in a culture that is not my own but is quickly becoming so.

I love love.

What do I have in my pocket?

Pen knife. Pencil. Mobile. Lighter. Fags.

What a time capsule this film is for those that follow. If you’re watching this years into our future, maybe post some kind of apocalyptic change, wanting to find out what life was like for man on earth back in the days of 2010, know this. There was hope. And there always will be.

There’s hope in every seed you plant. While there is a sun in the sky, pure water falling from the clouds and earthy soil at our feet, everything is possible. Living off the land in harmony with the seasons is a good life. You really should have been here to see it.

Green Tomato Chutney and more wine making

2010-10-02T22:22:00.000+01:00

I have a sneaky suspicion based on the arrival of a new wind today (and on hard evidence from online weather sites) that tomorrow the autumn rains will commence. We've felt and known that for a week or so now and like little mice scurrying around before a storm, we have been gathering firewood and pine cones, staining the last bits of wood around the house which are exposed to the elements, and daily harvesting and preparing more of the delicious fruits of River's labour of love, her 'horta bonita'.

Tarpaulins are on, covering a number of stacks of wood dotted around the houses on all sides, under which now reside a variety of tree trunks, branches, old floorboards and beams too rotten to salvage for building into other things and mounds of off cuts from all the new wood we used to build 2 roofs, a veranda, a green roof and 4 floors this year, all of which we will burn in the stove to keep ourselves warm and heat our water this winter. We've not gathered it all in, but enough for us not to have to worry about dry fire wood probably at least til Christmas.

Now the rains can come and wash this land anew with its autumnal promise of a new season away from the harsh scorching heat of the summer sun. Warm, wet and windy. Boy, will the forest love it.

A few videos below from the last week or so. Guest starring Carline's brother Steven and his beautiful and expecting wife Sophie who flew in for an action packed weekend mostly involving the harvesting, making and consumption of quite a fair quantity of wine. Come back for olive harvest soon guys. You were great.

Hope all your encounters are full of lovely vibrations this week. It's much easier to feel less afraid if you turn off the TV and don't open a newspaper. Seriously.

Yours tomatoly,

Memphis.

We Love Eska!

2010-09-14T08:29:00.003+01:00

Sitting this morning with coffee as sun rises over the mountains listening to the woman who brought Vonnie and I together. Stop, listen and let your soul fly to another far higher place. Eska...we love you.

Inside Out | Odyssey (Live Cover) by ESKA

"The Best Pupils of the Year". 'Course they are.

2010-09-12T12:50:00.003+01:00

On the eve of returning for the 3rd year to their lovely local school in Oleiros, Josh and Ellie found out last week that they both won prizes for being "O melhor aluno" (The Best Pupil) in their year group. A tremendous effort on both their parts. Moving to another country, learning a completely new language from scratch, adapting to a new culture so far removed from the one they grew up with in London, is an achievement in itself. But to do so with such ease and grace, making some really lovely new friends along the way, and topping it off with the best grades in their classes resulting in winning a prize at the school diploma day? I could not have written a better script for them myself. Done us proud, didn't they just?

Our old friends John and Caroline and adorable girls Maya and Violet arrived 2 weeks ago to spend a year's arts residency with us here at Moses. John is a painter and Caroline a photographer. River and I spent 3 weeks in August finishing the restoration work on the Xisto cottage that we had ourselves been living in for a year and a half. The house looks gorgeous and the Purdays have quickly made it into a home.

To find out more about them and what they will be up to, they're already blogging. http://purdaysinportugal.blogspot.com/ is the family one. http://www.touchwood-portugal.blogspot.com/ is Caroline's photographic journey and http://www.mayasportugalparadise.blogspot.com/ is Maya's very special own addition to the global blogscape. Watch those spaces and mark my words. Another beautiful story is being written here. And there is more to come. Much more.

Summer break is ended. Tomorrow kids return to school and we start the routine of long school days (kids leave for bus at top of the hill at 8am returning 6.30pm) and continuing work on the land and our own house at Cabeço. This has been a pretty full on year for us. Restoring 3 houses in stone, clay, lime and wood, planting and watering over 300 trees up and down the land, starting and establishing 2 beautiful and productive vegetable terraces, installing irrigation systems from the bore hole and the water mine, all of which were governed by some pretty tight timescales based on the seasons and the arrival of people at various points. My Mum and Dad in June, Helen, Anthony and Cleo in July, Nathan and Annie in August and then the Purdays, all of whom needed accommodation ready. Feels like the season of deadlines has now finally passed and we are moving into a new, calmer, less pressurised way of working.

The list of jobs and projects to start is still fairly huge - decorating the houses, building storehouses for all these potatoes and beans harvested and jars of jams we are about to make, building barns and a workshop for me to make all the shutters, flyscreens and cupboard doors required, a new greenhouse and potting sheds, restoring the Adega by the newly planted orchards to be a fruit storehouse, cider press and studio space for John to paint, possibly houses for chickens, sheep and a pig, pergolas for the roses, grafting of all the old grape vines, river damns to create cascading natural swimming pools, forest clearing, more terrace clearing and more, much much more.

Yet River and I are sure in the knowledge that this will all get done. Sometime. Probably sometime fairly soon as well. It is, after all, why we are here. To expend the energy of our thirties and probably some of our forties, on creating a more sustainable life for us and our children. We are getting there. The food from River's 'horta' this year has been outstanding. Plentiful potatoes, phallic courgettes, the sweetest tomatoes, yard long beans, corn right off the cob, peppers, onions, cucumbers, carrots, beetroots, herbs, squashes and my days, those pumpkins. The 'sweat hours' as the Americans say, are so worth it.

And all this comes with such an incredible feeling of accomplishment, in particular because we came out here from London fairly ill equipped for this way of life. I never would have imagined when we first found Moses 3 years ago, that in 2010 I would be able to build houses and terrace walls in stone and clay, put on wooden tiled roofs from scratch, plaster, plumb, be proficient in the use of a wide range of power tools including chainsaws, pneumatic drills, band saws, grinders, cement mixers and tractors, while at the same time teaching over hundred children to speak English in 3 local primary schools, properly becoming a part of our wider community. Awesome, simply awesome.

Autumn is approaching. Even though it's still hot and blue blue skies, we know when the rains come, they come to stay. All our lovely old neighbours have already begun, ney some already finished, bringing in their fire wood for the winter. We're already late. The grape harvest is round the corner and we want to help our neighbours make their wine again this year where we can. Then it's October and our dear friends Ian and Merle and tribe arrive over the hill at Eiro de Miguel. Then it's olives, picking sorting bagging pressing into oil. Then its Christmas and the long awaited season of rest, reading and reflection that we already know to be a Portuguese mountain winter on the edge of wilderness.

But today is Sunday. And I plan on doing nothing. Except this blog of course. And cooking up a lunch of freshly harvested roasted veggies. And maybe a game of chess with Josh while I can still beat him and scrabble with the Purdays. Maybe just a wander down to the adega with River and Moses to imagine what we will do to the place. We recently decided that is where we will retire to one day, tending the orchards, living even more simply and let the kids have everything else. They deserve it. We will diminish, and go into the west, and remain Memphis and River.

Thanks for tuning into the blog. Videos up below in a bit...

Peace and all good things.

Memphis.

Ellie gives her first interview with Moses TV since her return from London.

The Purday family give their thoughts on their arrival at Moses and show off the new improved cottage they will be staying in for a year.

Ellie and Josh pick up their Best Student medals at school.

A Harvest to Share. By Memphis.

2010-08-14T21:03:00.001+01:00

Oh my days what a summer! Sooo much happening all at the same time. Still in the process of moving into our new houses, boxes everywhere, building cupboards and storage as fast as I can. My cousins Helen, Anthony and Cleo came for a delightful and entertaining week’s stay (come back soon guys you were great!) River’s sister Annie and her boyfriend Nathan arrived this week and will go back to London, with Josh and Eli as companions for the journey, next week. River and I have started the final phase of restoration on the house down at Moses in readiness for the Purdays arrival at the end of August after their camping trip round France, Spain and northern Portugal. It’s all go.

And then there’s the heat! 45 degrees plus on some days with no decent rains since early June. That means a whole lot of watering every day in various parts of the land. Watering the veggies on the kitchen terrace, watering the trees up and down the roads, watering the orchards down by the stream, watering ourselves drinking 4 or 5 litres a day.

With this level of heat, inevitably comes fire. As I write, Portugal is suffering in many parts with forest fires. Some huge. And some also not too far from us. 2500 hectares burnt just this week in the Serra da Estrella National Park. The smoke that lies down the valley here some nights is a somber spectacle. I will write more on fire once the summer has passed.

In the midst of all of that, as you will see on the videos below, River’s garden has exploded and we dug up our first potato harvest. There seems to be some innate sense, as River says, that a harvest is best shared. What a pleasure it was then to have had Helen Ant and Cleo to dig together in the earth for potatoes then devour the chips that followed. I hope we can share the grape and olive harvests similarly with others this year. Any volunteers for November and December olive picking, bagging and taking to the press?

I’ll sign off with this photo of River holding her first courgette of the year. A young one apparently. Of the Italian climbing variety I understand. Tricky to find in shops as it doesn’t journey well. Which is a shame cos they’re rather sweet and tasty, especially when roasted.

Memphis

My cousin Helen, partner Anthony and goddaughter Cleo pull up the year's first main potato harvest for storage. Great work guys.

Helen brings in the potato harvest on our tractor, expertly driven round the hairpin terraced roads.

River takes up the first potatoes from the kitchen terrace. And Nathan & Josh clear another bed for more veggies.

Ellie karate chops chocolate

2010-07-23T17:44:00.000+01:00

One month ago the kids moved into their newly restored stone cottage. Yesterday River and I finally moved in to our house and spent the first of what we hope will be thousands of nights in our new bedroom.

We have one house for Josh and Ellie. One for us. Our children have therefore, in effect, suddenly become our closest neighbours and what lovely ones they are too. I do hope they pop over for a cup of tea every now and again.

Grandparents have come and gone and left us lots of joy, some expertly pruned roses and quite a few soft fluffy veggie beds that River has already filled with more delicious things to eat.

Everything is chaos, obviously. Yet there is an unmistakable stillness flowing that comes from the knowledge that we have finally arrived in the home that will be ours to love for the rest of our lives, God willing. It's been a trip to get here. Travelling then moving from one temporary dwelling to the next 8 times in the last 2.5 years has taken its toll. Now, at last, we feel like we are breathing out. One long sigh.

After months of imagining, planning, procuring and building, I can't tell you how great it feels to be actually cooking in that kitchen, sleeping in those bedrooms, eating in the courtyard and living altogether just as we dreamt it might possibly be. Lists of lists of tasks await us. Unending work. Oh the sweat and the toil and the blisters. But folks, I wouldn't swap this for all the riches in China.

Enjoy the videos. Memphis.

Eloise and her friend cook up a chocolate storm in the new kitchen and demonstrate how to chop a bar in two.

The kids secretly film their late night chat with my Dad and get caught on camera themselves murdering an innocent fly.

A peak at Vonetta's new kitchen 'horta'. My, how does her garden grow!

Kids move into their new house

2010-06-26T20:39:00.000+01:00

Well we did it. A bit tight to the deadline of my Mum and Dad coming out. But managed to get the house livable before they arrived. Felt very much like one of those surprise TV renovation shows where they only get a weekend to transform a place before the owners get back. On Monday, the day before the royal visit, 6 pairs of brackets hung, 13 huge slabs of granite and marble work surfaces carried down the hill and mounted, 8 sinks 2 bidets 1 shower and 11 taps plumbed in, glass and fittings for 12 doors finished off, all in a single day. We even managed to spend Tuesday morning bringing tractor loads of bark chip down to place around the house to turn it quickly from a building site into something resembling a house. Have a look...

Here's a clip from the kids Oleiros School Gymnastic show in town with every class in the local area doing a wee thing. Great night and this vid is Eli in action (she's the tall one!). Battery ran out for Josh's performance so can't show you that he nailed a perfect front flip off a trampette.

That's all for now. River and I are still sleeping in the house down at Moses until we've finished off the decorating in the new bedroom. Josh and Eli have moved out into their new place. After 3 years of temporary accommodation in which we have moved 8 times it is a lovely thing to have finally given them a permanent home. Until, that is, they fly the nest once more.

Peace and all good things.

Memphis.

Xisto Slate Floors and Bye Bye Lovely Builders

2010-06-03T15:55:00.001+01:00

Video blog of the final, yes final, fortnight of professional restoration work on our Xisto stone houses here at Moses. The builders left yesterday. Von and I are immensely grateful for them, especially for all that they taught us in the process. But now they're gone and we have the house to ourselves once again. 3 weeks til my Mum and Dad arrive and still a fair bit left to go before the house will be ready to receive them. Deep breath...

Dry stone walling begins

2010-05-16T14:49:00.001+01:00

Today summer feels like it has truly arrived. Bright blue hot hot Sunday. The mountainside and pathways are bursting with yellow and blue flowers and the wild white rock roses are ready to put on their impressive annual display.Just chilling out after a scrumptious Sunday lunch, I thought I'd upload some vids from the last fortnight. The professional bit of the works on the house is drawing to a close. Another fortnight maybe at tops. All the windows are in, just waiting on the doors.

Tiles are on in all the bathrooms and kitchen. Supporting walls are all built and rendered and tiled where required. Wooden rough cut pine tree boards are nailed in to the apex of the gable end. Just waiting for the 100 sq metres of natural cut multi coloured slates to arrive and we can lay the remaining floors. And waiting for all the sinks and taps to arrive so we can call in the local stone merchant to measure up for the granite worktops.

Built a concrete fossa (water tank in the photo) to house any grey water from the house not usable on the land - for example from the soak sink in the kitchen for when we'll need to wash out the salt from the eating olives and a second drain from the washing machine if we ever need to wash anything in bleach.

We spent most of last week clearing the kitchen terrace from all the rubble and wood mounded there and to make space to begin what we thought would be the long process of restoring the dry stone terrace walls. In fact after just 2 days with the lovely old stone mason João, we've built over half already (he tells why he likes dry stone walling in the video below).

So in a fortnight, the builders will hopefully leave and we will be able to put the finishing touches to the shell, thus beginning the lifelong task and joy of creating; for me that will start with converting the old floorboards from the house into beds, cupboards, book shelves, shutters as well as a pergola on the kitchen terrace. River will continue to be besotted by all things gardening, but her inside time will probably become more focussed on mosaics and fabrics. All lovely stuff. But that is all to come.

Right now we're enjoying the final phases of the restoration work and sensing the pleasure that awaits us when its all done and dusted ready to move in. In the meantime teaching is going well, kids are still top of their classes at school and River has staked more trees on the road (a tractor video tour below if you fancy it) and covered the potato field in more donkey manure and pine needle mulch.

I have a sneaky sensation that River might be at this very moment suggesting that perhaps this afternoon "we" could nip into the forest and cut some Mimosa trees to make the dozens of pea stakes she will need shortly.

"We could dear. Good idea. I'll be there in just a tick."

Oh by the way, Chris Stewart's Driving Over Lemons series, is a must if you've not already read them. Lovely tales from his family's adventure of a remote mountainside rural Spanish life.

Here's the link to the blog showing a video of the the day we first started back in July 2008 with the arrival of the diggers, Demolition City!

Large Leca sacks and iron oxide pigments arrive

2010-04-30T13:01:00.000+01:00

Just a couple of quick videos today. We have been manically painting for the last fortnight, as you know, with paint made from 18 month old slaked lime. Each wall needs at least 4 to 6 layers and we have a lot of walls. Arms are a bit tired as you can imagine. The tiles for the bathroom and kitchen walls and the slate for all the ground floors should be delivered this afternoon too. So next week we'll be tiling and laying floors and building walls to support the granite worktops. Not long to go now before we're in.

(In the vid above I promised to link to the blog post where Von started slaking the lime way back in November 2008 "Horses and Nuclear Waste Monkey Suits")

Von's mum Arlene finally made it on a plane back to London last weekend after the craziness of Iceland's revenge on the rest of Europe. It was so lovely to have her for one more week enjoying the grandchildren and the gardens and the cooking. Come back soon Mum.

Josh and I are off to play our first cricket game of the season tomorrow. We'll post up some video action of the boy. All very surreal. A delightful white picket fenced cricket field in the middle of the Portuguese countryside about 2 hours drive south of here with a real multicultural bunch of fanatics messing about with a bit of leather and some willow. Can't wait.

While we're away, Eli and Von will be at home having fun with the new iron oxide pigments making deliciously coloured wall paints. (I tried to make that sound like there might be some kind of equilibrium or reciprocity in this weekends' activities, but failed miserably. The boys will in fact be playing while the girls are working. "But Cricket is so much more than just a game ma cherie...")

Toodaloo. Té já.

Memphis

Green Roof, Wooden Floors and Lime Paint

2010-04-17T15:16:00.000+01:00

We can make out the finishing line, we sense the day we will live in the houses we bought in the Autumn of 2007, is just round the corner. Still an enormous amount of work left to do. But the structure is in place and the rest is really a matter of decoration: laying stone floors, tiling, building the kitchen and bathrooms, painting. And yesterday was a big day cos we made our first lime paint after slaking it over 18 months ago.

Anyway have a butchers, we're off to Tia Laurinda's Café now to buy some local goodies for Arlene to take back to London with her tomorrow.

Memphis

Grand Designs in Portugal

2010-04-05T19:08:00.000+01:00

Hey peeps. Hope you like the new look to the blog. Felt it needed a little refreshing and chose autumn leaves cos one day its gonna feel like that here with the new forest Von just planted!

Anyhow, big news this week is that Von's mum Arlene is with us. And its fabulous to have her here. The kids are stuck to her 24 7 like little fluffy limpets. Adorable. Well just look...

Other big news is that we began the green roof today. It's been so so long since we first imagined a green roof and it was beginning to feel like it might never happen. But then today came. And all doubt dissipated into thin air.

Von and I watched the Grand Design series back when we were in London, always fascinated by the way people with a passion could, sometimes against all odds, transform ruins into beautiful homes and works of art with the same stroke. Today felt like one of those episodes. Except we were the stars of the show and, thank God, no one was watching. A most excellent day. One to be cherished for a very long time. 3 vids below let you take a peak. Middle one's in Portuguese but you'll catch the sentiment.

Von will post up something on her rampant gardening endeavours. As soon as I can actually get her to come inside. She's weeding the veggie patch as I write. Don't expect to see her before sunset. A taste of things to come me thinks. And quite rightly so. She's pouring herself into this land with every bit of strength and love she has to offer. Enabling nature to put on such a show, the like of which I don't think we will have seen before.

Peace and love and all good things

Memphis

Renovation Update

2010-03-23T21:52:00.000Z

Our builders return, the sun comes out and renovation work starts up again in earnest, while Vonnie continues to open up more holes and plant more trees along the road and sow more seeds in the lounge. Snow still on mountain tops of Serra da Estrella here in the photo in the distance.

Coming to the end of term so kids and I are a bit whacked, as is River, as you can imagine, after planting for so long. We are all looking forward to the Easter hols next week in which we will have Von's mum Arlene over for a fortnight as well as John and Caroline Purday and their girls for an extended weekend.

Some videos below on the restoration update but first one is an inside view of our compost heap. Making your own soil, or at the very least improving and caring for what you've already got, feels like one of those things that is going to become increasingly important for humanity. Can't explain that. Just feel it.

I will write something more substantive over Easter. My heads spinning a bit right now with all that's going on here. It's full on, and of course it's all delicious.

Peace and all good things

Memphis

Happy Birthday Memphis!

2010-03-04T13:54:00.001Z

Turned 38 on Tuesday. Very sweet day. Eli drew me this lovely card because Von had planted me 50 plus fruit trees in all the terraces along the river at the bottom of the land here. Think she had wanted to do that ever since her and Perdi murdered a couple of plums and pears I had planted in our garden in London. That well makes up for it babe. Cheers.

Von then came with me to school and I had prepped the kids to ask her loads of questions in English. They did great and so did she. I left with a stack of birthday cards they had all made for me. Returned home to find electricity was being repaired by two guys up poles in the dark and pouring rain. Only lasted the night though as we lost power the next morning again, and found out it blew out more machines once more. Just got fixed today, but still no running water as the bore hole pump got blown out as well. Again.

Kids bought me a waffle maker which I am sure is a present with huge vested interest for them! But they've promised to christen it this Saturday morning for breakfast before we head off to Orvalho to choose tiles for the floors of their house and ours. Builders returned today to get the window frames all nice before the windows arrive next week, and to build the green roof structure and lay all the floors. I am a very happy man!

Peace and love

Memphis

Applerazzi in the new apple orchard

2010-02-25T12:17:00.001Z

Too wet to work. So fun and games with water. In the video below the applerazzi chase River past the waterfalls to the new apple orchard. Its another rainy rainy day. Building work stopped. Tree planting in breaks between showers. Lounge converted into a temporary seed shed. Love it.

Got to give a big shout out to an old friend who facebooked us last night. Becky Crow, now Gooden. Check out the stunning jewelery pieces she designs and makes in Brighton. Outstandingly beautiful.

Memphis

On the edge of wilderness

2010-02-20T22:46:00.002Z

Hey all

Very strange week just went by. Had 3 days off for Carnival. No school. Josh turned 13 and we all went to Coimbra for a day out and some Italian Pizza. Unfortunately, we came back home to find most of our electrical appliances burnt out from a power surge, including our bore hole water pump. As a result, we've had no running water for 5 days.

The strange thing is that this last episode in our adventure out here in Amieira, has kind of served as a wake up call. We live in the midst of beautiful wild mountain forests, far from civilization, on the edge of a what often seems like a vast wilderness. We made a decision to search for a life more independent of the systems of control that we were engulfed by, unknowingly for most of it, in London. When we arrived, we knew we simply weren't yet ready for complete self sufficiency. But we wanted to journey on a road towards it. Last year we had a bore hole dug 100 metres below ground and bought a thermodynamic water heating system. However the borehole requires electricity for the pump, and when that goes, no water.

Water is life. Electricity isn't. Wake up. Something needed to change.

So this morning, Josh and I plumbed in the water mine tubes bringing fresh drinking water all the way down to a barrel in the kitchen, fed by gravity not electricity, and then from the barrel to an outdoor tin bath (next to the pergola covered deck), heated simply by a wood fire underneath it. We just had our first outdoor bath and it was an absolutely spectacular experience. The water was so hot we couldn't get in it for half an hour. With towels lining the tin to protect us a bit from the heat produced by the burning embers still aglow under the bath, we bathed beneath the moon and stars gazing out down the folding valleys for a good hour. It began to rain but even that was welcome relief from the sauna level heat. The water was just as hot at the end as when we got in. A forever hot outdoor bath. Exquisite.

And such joy to know that today we've put in one more thing, and a splendid one at that, to reduce our dependence on the system and take us one more step down the road towards self-sufficiency. If and when the global energy plug gets pulled, we'll still be able to enjoy the daily luxury of a hot bath. And in these uncertain times, that feels reassuringly satisfying to know.

I'll leave you with a little vid of Eloise and Simba the puppy. As the Bajans say, too sweet.

Memphis

The Time Traveler's Wife

2010-02-04T08:58:00.006Z

Such a beautiful film this. Von says the book is even better. I've felt like this often. That we're able to travel, even if just in our imaginations, back and forth, past and future and present, choosing the scenes of our lives we'd like to play out. I felt it the very first time I met Vonetta at 19 and saw her, really saw her, as a 30 year old woman, as my wife, with our 2 kids asleep next door. It was like I momentarily glimpsed the future, (real or imagined, it makes no difference to the story) and asked her to marry me. She must have seen the same in some way because she said "yes".

And here in the land of Moses, far, far away from the metropolises of the world, there's not a day that passes where I don't journey in some way again into the future to imagine a deciduous garden forest that I'm walking in around here where all the paths are the colour of red and gold from the fallen leaves in Autumn. Or every now and again will have a little chat with my 70 year old self to hear the wisdom that my 37 year old self just hasn't grasped yet (which, by the way, regularly and ironically includes reprimands for not submersing myself in the present). What is that if not time travel? Vivid imagination? Delusional tendencies?

Or maybe it's just that time is not so linear as we have been led to believe here in the West. Maybe time is more like a pool you look down in and things rise and fall to the surface to be seen. Whatever. Watch the film, read the book. Just yummy.

Couple of videos to show. First is of Eloise's 11th (oh my days!) birthday and the next of some pine tree clearing around the houses. Electrician starts today (yipee!). Off up the hill now to brief. Sweet. Toodaloo peeps.

Memphis.

And finally, after feeling a little bad about chopping so many trees, just got emailed this little nugget about annual tree murders. Worth a look. Staggering numbers felled each year.

Return to Trace

2010-01-30T16:14:00.006Z

Hey guys just a really quick one this morning. Will try upload more details of what I am up to. But just to say I am really well. Gardening, gardening, gardening. Actually digging holes, land looks like a rather large mole has been through it. Craters appearing everywhere ready for the new moon planting season in Feb.

Best thing has been finding Tracy Chapman again. Lost her for a few years but now she is back in my life and all seems so much sweeter when she is singing. If you fancy an album to pull at the heart strings and leave you in complete acceptance of what is but a determination to do your best at living check out her album, Tracy Chapman, "New Beginning". Its beautiful man, listen and fall in love.

Peace love and all good things to all,

River xxx

P.S. Our friend Charlie and Hannah have their next blog up. Some great advice on how not to and how to pick olives for the best tasting olive oil...

The olive oil barons

If a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, then Charlie Skelton is the deadliest olive farmer in Portugal

Back on Line by River

2010-01-16T20:10:00.004Z

After Christmas, we lost a few comforts...

First we lost the use of our little lounge. A stream opened up in the lounge which meant that our wet floor was only safe for wellie boots, rain coats and salamanders. Our house is tiny. Memphis and I don’t even have our own room. And yes, for all of those of you wondering, that is a little inconvenient. Some things which ought to be spontaneous have to be scheduled, actually that does have its rewards... But I digress. Lack of use of the lounge meant that everything; two futon mattresses, several rugs, hoards of cushions and alot of firewood had to be moved upstairs to our already small sleeping area. Moses got two new cushions for his bit of the floor, he is well chuffed. Memphis and I have had the single futon on the end of our bed. We now sleep with the weight of it pressing down on our front ankles at night (good stretching). Effie Starlight and Falcon Bear promptly took the new cushion arrangement and lack of lounge as a sign that all family matters were now to occur on Mummy and Daddy’s bed. Napping, reading, interneting, playing cards, and yes, eating. This is normally sacrilegious, absolutely categorically no nibbling children on the bed. Yet for two weeks now, there they have been.

Secondly we lost the use of water. Our pipes are a serious nightmare to dig in. Memphis and Filipe did a great job where they could, but for quite alot of the 300 metres from the bore hole to the house, the pipes are sitting on hard bedrock. So at some point we may have to bite the bullet and hire a man with a large obnoxious sounding tool to dig them in. You can’t seem to hire a tool without a man in these parts, but I like that it’s more, human. However, until the pipes are dug in we have to tolerate a bit of frozen pipes now and again. The only flowing water through the house is the little stream in the lounge, great for Moses, not so great for us. And it was surprisingly sweet and tender for Memphis and I as we had to go down to the river to fetch water to boil for drinking. We set up little buckets for the children to wash. And with that job done we concentrated on simply keeping the house warm and relatively dry. The whole time we were doing this we felt like Mama and Papa birds our only concern keeping the little chicks warm and dry, watered and fed and yes, entertained. They won’t be little chicks for much longer; neither will they think our bed is the best place in the world to be. I know I will miss that, I can already see the shift happening in my Joshie. It’s don’t blink time.

Thirdly we lost the use of the internet and our telephone, due to some falling tree in forest breaking line action. Not such a bad thing you might think. But where we are its not so good. The internet has been a real blessing to us, more so than when we lived in London. We have been able to keep up with friends, and find out what is happening in the world. It has been really wonderful watching the children maintain their relationships with friends and family even more so than when we lived in London. Interesting, more connection over more distance. So the loss of the internet and phone, equalled Winters six together. It also meant having to take a 15 minute walk through the hills in the snow (loss of car) to give someone a message. It was well cool to take the time to spend 45min to give a message which on the phone would normally take 3. Loved it.

Fourthly we lost our electricity. Basically it was going on and off so much that we decided forget it. Not normally a big loss for me, since I am not a big fan of the stuff and enjoy being cut off from it. Childhood in the tropics. Further it seems right to be awake outside when it’s light and asleep when it’s dark. But for a few nights, a bumble around in the dark, dredging up candles was called for and suddenly our little bunker was turned into a dolls house size cathedral.

Fifth I lost my wellie boots, slate and thin rubber equals big hole. My wellie boots are a major loss they mean 1. I have to stay inside since it has been so wet (monsoon wet) but cold. Walking the land in any other shoe is impossible and I just don't do slate barefoot, not that tough yet. 2. It means being inside virtually all the time and that is just unheard of in my life. 3. It means being INSIDE I tell you and if indoors for too long I start to pace, internally and before long verbally and after that physically, bad bad news. Yet, surprisingly there have been rewards. Being indoors meant several days thinking of planning the work in the landscape without the disturbance of seeing it. It meant seeing it in my mind’s eye and drawing it, writing it, listing it, planning. It also meant that as soon as the rain stopped yesterday I went out and paced out over one third of the land and put in my stakes where trees and shrubs will be going next month. It was great, every idea or thought that I’d had, looks like it might actually work out in the physical space and I don’t know that would have happened if I had been trying to clarify my thoughts outside as I usually do.

Often I have heard people talking about basic living like it is something to run away from, run to sophistication and everything at the touch of a button. Over the years I became more and more unsure of this. When we came here our time in the motorhome was fairly basic. Yet we managed to find space for Michelle when she needed to kip. Our home is tiny yet we seemed able to do without a room with no real suffering and with more opportunities for intimacy. Loss of phone and internet meant more time talking about things together and strangely more time talking about the people we love and feeling close to them. Things I would never say normally have been said and heard by my children and Memphis.

I just realised that it has been two weeks since I left the land. I had opportunity to go with Memphis this afternoon but have decided to stay here instead. I am back on line I guess and the time away has given me some things to think about. But two weeks, I never even noticed the time fly.

This morning I went up to the houses and looked at them, these two small by most people’s standards, but too us now huge houses. Separate bedrooms! Yes that would be more convenient. But I won’t be able to wake up and hear Joshy's deep breathing and Ellie's little chats with her friends in her sleep. Ellie tells me she likes it when she gets up before us and sees Memphis and I sleeping, now that is something that only this house and this experience could give us. There will be no river running through the house for Moses to drink from. There won’t be all of us together in the same space doing our own things. I started to feel sad. I know the houses will be good, we hope to get older and might not be so up to the present shenanigans of our adventure.

Those houses have always felt like my home and I am looking forward to experiencing them but I know something that this little house is giving us will be a story in the past. I really hope we never forget or ignore this most precious present. We still have things in a garage in Oleiros and I am sure it will be like Christmas day unwrapping our things, but I can’t really remember what they are and am not sure we need any of those things now. I spoke to my Mum today and it was such a joy to talk to her and be Vonnie the daughter again. Some things are so worth the connection into the industrial complex.

The car is working again, the roads are clear, internet and phones are connected (thanks electric man i know it is miserable and wet) the electricity is unfaltering, the rain has just stopped and hark, I can’t hear the stream trickling through the lounge. Soon the weather will truly brighten and we will be back to building. But now that we are back on line I find myself asking what is it that we need?

It is surprising this completeness, I was afraid to make this jump and sometimes it is still frightening to not see another soul for days on end. I thought when we begun that there would be more hardship and suffering. More loneliness and isolation. Yes there have been some tough days and even today when I found myself hauling the heavy compost bins out I did wonder “indoor, water toilets”...but no, my trees need this good stuff. No water toilets and no TV, those two we definitely don’t need. Speaking of TV, I watched a show of a TV series called "No Going Back", and thought the name meant people who sold it all and couldn’t go back no matter even if they wanted too. But sitting on this side of the show I now think it meant no going back because they didn’t want to, the adventure is just, worth it.

Simple living has its rewards. Slowed down time to do your life and to love your loves. Are these our higher needs or our basic ones? I can’t remember, an LSE education down the water toilet I guess, but there is one thing I do now know through experience, this basic life gives a great deal. One day we will plant trees where those stakes are. Will they grow well? I don’t know but I sure hope so. Will we grow well here? I reckon so because there really is no going back to the life we once lived, no matter how good it was and sometimes it was very nice, but I’ll take this any day. Our life has been pared down to the elements that please us the most, fire water earth, stone, food, air, work, rest, music, a few people, love and of course, goes without saying really, plants.

Perhaps all the times of human beings are uncertain. But these are uncertain times, many of us feel the threat of a faceless predator, or perhaps as the Matrix best put it, the threat of the 'machine', detached from the human conscience and the public guidance of protest and tolerance. These are not the times to dither, if there is something you really feel will enrich your life and the lives of those you love, do it. Sometimes you will lose but when you win at it, the feeling is as our American friends say, awesome and it sure beats the hell out of dithering.

I think I will now go and try to set us up a lounge for the evening. I now know we don’t need it but it would still be nice. And if the little stream through the lounge comes back? Well, there is always the bed (and the little one said...), roll over.

Tchau

River

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

2010-01-15T14:14:00.008Z

Ain’t it magical eh? Bitingly cold, and at times most inconvenient with its inevitable accompaniment of frozen pipes, true, but above all, snow just can’t fail to transform even the loveliest of landscapes into a world richly enchanted. The silvery green leaves of the olive trees are sprinkled with a heavenly icing sugar. The pines in the forest are all lined with the whitest of glistening light along their branches as if an artist sneaked in unnoticed and lovingly brush stroked them into the scene.

There've been some crazy wild ice structures like Superman's hideout in miniature, growing vertically up from the mounds of clay around the place (if you know what these are or how they're formed please add a comment). And the stones stacked in the terrace walls and littering the hillside and paths, more accustomed to the baking heat of the Portuguese summer sun, appear not so much surprised (they’ve seen it all before of course), as resigned to their requisite attire of snowy hats and icy beards.

Kids have had their obligatory snowball fight this morning. Moses has been galloping and frolicking with glee, almost exactly like he was a March Hare on speed. Vonnie has wandered the land dreaming and planning and intoxicating herself just by being in the very midst of it all. I’ve been chopping firewood and filling containers of water from the river, that’s thankfully still gushing vehemently at the bottom of the land. Water pipes from the bore hole froze up yesterday, so we’ve had no running water. Now we have enough to drink, to cook with and to bathe in (after being boiled on top of the wood burning stove of course) for today at least and are hoping for a bit of a thaw tomorrow. Já está. Agora não é um problema. Agua é vida. Tem ser feito assim!

Right this second we have all retreated inside the small Xisto stone cottage where we live. A small open-plan type cottage, on 3 levels, made by a double layer of mezzanines. Kids’ sleeping lofts on the top floor one at each gable end, our bedroom on the middle floor shared with a bookcase and bench on a wooden walkway that surrounds an open hole where you can peer into the kitchen and lounge on the floor below. It’s cosy. Makes me think of families of sleeping hedgehogs and bears snuggled together in warm dry dens with waxy butt plugs.

It’s hibernation season of course. We’re all bunkered down, Vonnie and I, the kids, Moses the retriever and Angel the cat, as we have been so often since the first cold snap in December. A tree fell in the forest yesterday and snapped our phone line so we have no internet either. Yet we are content, warming ourselves by the heat of the wood burning stove, listening to cool vibes and entertaining ourselves, reading novels, getting lost in Monty Don’s gardening books, cooking, writing, and sleeping (Angel and Moses), each in our own spaces, yet fully together in the bosom of this family.

Sweet, sweet Sunday.

Back to work tomorrow (up at our other houses in the picture above.) Maybe next weekend I’ll write a bit about how school is going for me and the kids (all good) and River will update you on what’s happening inside that amazing head of hers.

Enjoy the weather wherever you are.

Memphis.

Great first Guardian blog by our neighbours

2010-01-08T22:26:00.000Z

A good year for the olives

Charlie Skelton moved to Portugal to live quietly and eat custard tarts. Then he realised he'd bought an olive farm ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2010/jan/06/portugal-olive-harvest

We are very very proud of them. But if you were in any doubt that people are struggling over there in the UK and elsewhere, check out the unbelievably spiteful nastiness of some people's comments. This kind of move touches some pretty deep nerves out there.

New post from us soon. Needless to say we're back at the stone walls. Ice nor rain could keep us off them. Peace and Happy New Year to you all.

Memphis and River.

Stones & Roses at Moses

2009-12-28T17:41:00.116Z

Gardening and Yoga Retreats 2011

retreat «ri tréet»

a movement away from danger or a confrontation, back along the original route; a withdrawal from a position or point of view to one intended to lessen conflict; a quiet secluded place where people go for rest and privacy; a period away from normal activities, devoted to prayer and meditation.

Retreat away. Retreat into. You are invited to explore the possibility of retreating to Moses, a small valley nestled in the foothills of the Serra de Estrella mountain range of Central Portugal.

On any Saturday from 3rd September til 17th December, make your way to the local town of Oleiros by coach from Lisbon or Porto, from where you will be picked up and driven to the village of Amieira and below into the valley of Moses, to a renovated 3 bedroom Xisto stone cottage that carries the same name as the valley.

After cereal, fruit and yogurt breakfasts in the cottage, mornings are spent learning about various aspects of self sufficient gardening. Learning by doing. Learning by playing. Learning by seeing. Gardening activities and workshops will be determined by the season, the weather and the moon. And at olive and wine harvest time, you can join us in helping our elderly neighbours collect their harvest in too if you would like.

Afternoons are a time for meditation by walking. Walking into the wilderness of the surrounding forests and interconnected network of once cultivated river side terraces. Into a life once lived. A life of Romans and Moors and Portuguese small holding farmers, who all carved out a living from the stones and waters and soil of the mountainside.

Afternoons are also an opportunity to receive a massage and/or acupuncture treatment in the Farmhouse.

Before dinner, yoga classes are given on the wooden eternity deck by the Farmhouse. Vonetta teaches yoga according to the Dynamic Yoga Method as taught by Godfrey Devereux which is suitable for any level of experience including absolute beginners.

Lunch and Dinner are served in the Farmhouse and are lovingly and freshly prepared by Vonetta’s mum, Arlene Drakes from Barbados. Arlene uses her own special blend of magic to turn the food grown in the gardens into scrumptious meals, mainly vegetarian, with meat available for those who require it. At some point in the week, Eloise will make a cake or two.

Price: 300€ per person per week. Kids under 16 stay free.
Includes food, accommodation and yoga

Massage and Acupuncture Treatments

Vonetta Winter is a fully qualified and experienced therapist (Body Harmonics, Cheltenham 2005) who uses a blend of Oriental therapies in her treatments.

Tui Na is the ancient healing art of Traditional Chinese Medicine where hands press and massage key acupressure points stimulating the body’s own natural healing process. Tension is released increasing the flow of blood, nutrients and energy (Qi) around the body.

Thai, the 2500 year old massage technique for relaxing the body and mind, is applied through clothes on a futon mat, using rhythmic pressing and stretching through a series of gentle yoga based postures.

Indonesian is a deep pressure, essential oil based massage, involving strong pushing techniques to invigorate the soft tissues, making it a highly effective treatment for sports injuries.

Acupuncture is the needle based therapy component of Traditional Chinese Medicine, excellent for treating a wide range of physical and emotional ailments.

Price: Massage €30 per hour Acupuncture €20 per ½ hour

Booking

To find out if we have space on the dates you want to come, give us a ring at the Farmhouse on 00351 272 634 006 or email us at itscalledmoses@gmail.com with any questions. If we are not around, leave a message and we promise to get back to you as soon as we get back in from the gardens!

Namaste.

"Go on", A Christmas Message from the River

2009-12-26T14:32:00.003Z

So here it is once again the approach of a Merry Christmas. Corrie Bailey Ray is a playing crooning to us about love and loss and achingly sweet vibes are all over the place. Effie Starlight and Memphis are cooking up a Christmas cake, punctuated with the occasional, "Von, where is the..." from Memphis and the reassuring "Don´t worry Papi I´ll find it" from our gorgeous little Starlight. She is all over the show making sure that Daddy stays calm, Josh gets the chance to lick the spoon and Mummy doesn't spontaneously combust due to proximity to a computer. Josh is up in his sleeping loft curtain drawn working away at something or the other, we only know he is there from the slight snivel of his persistent winter cold, poor love. As for me, at 3pm in the afternoon I am sitting in my pjs writing a blog.

Lazy, lazy, I hear you Papops, but not so, just badly dressed. Instead of the usual Christmas rush for pressents I have been out and about since 7am alternately loving and wringing my hands at the sudden rush of water come to join us for Christmas. Last night the winds holwed, the trees rocked, swayed, bent in defiance of the force. I have lost count of the number of waterfalls that have opened up on the land. Everywhere the bedrock is bleeding water and the land is just saturated with the bounty.

I personally couldn´t wait for the morning to see what all the fuss was about and what a vision. This is my time of year, green green green. The river is full to its banks and when you open up the door of our little home the sound of the water falling takes your breath away. So at 7:30am Moses, Me and Queenie (Sue and Peter´s dog) went awalking. Dressed in boots, pjs and my favourite country girl cardigan I was transfixed as the early morning fog infused with pink slowly dispersed shedding the clinging winter night to reveal the source of the tumultuous, racket outside our house, water. A wet and green and bountiful Christmas.

This is our first Christmas alone just the six of us including Moses and Angel. So what is it that I wish for this Christmas? Standing on a large boulder, normally surrounded by stone, but today surrounded by water, I took my cue from the river. This Christmas I want to love them with a ferociousness capable of washing away any desire for anything else other than being right here where we are together. I wish to empty out myself for my family this Christmas. To exhaust myself with loving them. To compete so to speak as to who can be the most loving, the most generous the most patient the most kind. A competition that no one can win but all can enjoy. I have had some really good Christmasses and wherever we were or with who ever they have all had the same underlying desire the desire to give above and beyond your capacity. To exhaust yourself with loving.

So this is what I wish for for us this Christmas and for you if you have the chance to read this blog. That for one day that we give to what ever people we find ourselves with. That for one day we put aside any grieviences or guilts or shames or angers or frustrations with those people and decide to just love unconditionally without bounds or recall. Yes there may be a big mess to clear up after. Yes there will be issues and struggles to face in the future. Yes we will have to do something about the little stream flowing through our house. All of that can wait. I hope to give myself to the people I am with and that they will be willing to give themselves and that I will gladly receive whatever comes.

Last week Memphis said to me that while going into a teachers meeting one of the office guys just started singin "Last Christmas". You know the words, yeah you know Wham well, don´t be ashamed. Let me refresh your mind if its shy to own up. It goes like this, "Last Christmas I gave you my heart and the very next day you gave it away. This year to save me from tears I´ll give it to someone special." Well Ellie has been singing this little limerick over and over again. While walking I found myself singing it. Ah the blissful shameless freedom of aloneness. But seriously, this is what I think. This Christmas give your heart, press pause on all the shit, on tommorrow and just give it away this Christmas. Each person you are with is special because you are with them, so give give give. The next day or the next person might come, hurt may come. Struggle may come but don´t worry on that at Christmas. Turn to the light and shine, stubbornly despite all the odds.

Go ahead flow, gurgle, run, stream down the mountainside. Exhaust yourself after all it is Christmas. Have a very loving Christmas.

The Winters 6

Mammoth Tasks…Small Victories. By River.

2009-12-12T13:11:00.005Z

When I started putting those stones in the wall I didn’t know if I could do it. I didn’t know I could finish it. Our true summer began with the filling of the first holes in the walls of what will be our bedroom. I remember the day clearly, utterly terrified that I would do something wrong and the house might fall over instantly. But it didn’t and it hasn’t and I don’t think it will. I think our work is there to stay for sometime. But it is within the framework of building this house that our summer began and expended itself into our autumn and soon to be our winter.

Within that summer we have spent precious wonderful time with family, friends and strangers. Sally and Papops, my Mum, Sister and Tia Avril, Uncle Andrew or Uncle Manly as he has been renamed, shanti B, Paula and Alfie and lots and lots of new friends and people we may never see again. It has been one action packed summer a glorious summer and a gentle Autumn.

When we finished the main structure of the stone walls I knew something more had to be done. The room we built lacked the charm of the little stones characteristic of stone houses in this region. For hours each day I sat looking at the beautiful stone work of our present little shelter – the house actually called Moses (our houses midway up the land are actually called Cabeço meaning head like the head or source of a spring), anyway I sat and stared at these walls and one day knew what to do. I would have to put the small stones in after the main structure was up. That way we could get the roofs on in time for the winter rains.

When the big stone work ended and most of the roof structure of our bedroom was in order I went up the hill to start on the face of little stones, I started as tentatively as the first stone I put in the house, I started with a little corner. The next day Senhor João the eldest stonemason, came and asked me who was doing this work. Prepared to hear this is terrible and shrink off down the hill to go to my duvet, I tentatively replied, I did. He grinned tapped me on the shoulder and said “this is the way. The old way it takes a long time and no one has or wants to do it this way but this is the old way”. An even wider grin appeared on his face as he said “one year to finish the small stone work on both houses”.

At that moment, my eyes panned out. I looked at the house and thought I don’t even know if I can finish this wall let alone the whole house. But set up the scaffolding I did with the help of my Memphis and I started with no instruction, no idea and no capacity to think of the whole wall let alone the whole upper floor. Builders came, built the childrens house, roofs went up, tiles were put on, school started, ill health and good health has come, sun, rain, fog, and green grass grew from the terraces. The grape harvest brought in. The river got its voice back and the olives started to swell. Strawberry fruit tree fruits started glowing jewel like, tantalising out of reach. The school term started for Josh and Ellie, and I lost me Memphis to the little kids of Oleiros, Orvalho and Estreito, his days changed to singing nursery rhymes and dealing with naughty impish behaviour and still I continued on these walls.

At the beginning I felt sick to death of it. Thinking I would do this and it would be pointless, it wouldn’t look the same or the stones will fall out instantly or I might dislodge something important. But with every single stone my confidence grew until I was doing it without thought. Without thought or instruction I have learnt a great deal about stone. The little stones have taught me about their quality, colour, how they will open up or whether they will crumble. Where the fractures are and how each quality of stone is best bonded to the clay. Which colours glow more in the night and wet and which stones will stand defiantly clear in colour in the face of the sometimes scalding Portuguese sun. They taught me to stack them just like the big stones for the most stable support so that actually I was building mini walls within the bigger walls which we’d put together earlier on in the summer.

Every day for the few weeks Senhor João was here, he would come and shake his stone hammer at me and say “don’t think about the time, go to the wall”. If he saw me deflatedly looking out over the horizon he would come and say “Maria, go to the wall”. The truth is he was right it was the only instruction I needed. Go to it, keep doing it and you will learn the way. Very yogic, Zen even.

Mario gave me my next lesson when one day I exasperatedly threw a stone over the terrace wall. “What’s wrong Maria?” he asked. Oh this black stone keeps falling apart. “There are many types of black stone” he said dismissively as he walked away. And with a big Mosey sigh off I went to look for these elusive black stones and I found them. I even learnt how to put in the crumbly stone letting it crumble or keep form depending on what I wanted. From that experience I learnt that there isn’t just one way in the universal sense, but that each stone has its own way.

Paulo taught me to look after myself, make sure I had a secure, safe and comfortable work place. Filipe has taught me to grin, jiggle to the accordion (yes I confess I have jiggled to the accordion on top of the scaffolding from time to time). And Eugenia has taught me I must eat and rest on Sunday.

I knew I was on to a winner when Mister Farinha in his usual stern manner, said incredulously and with a dash of admiration, not too much mind you, “How many stones have you put in that wall?” I learnt my style was more different perhaps more feminine as female visitors would come over and gaze at the quartz or powder blue soft stone, while the men nodded at the hard black flint. Hard because while it may take 10 minutes to break up a huge soft stone it takes over 30 mins to break a brick sized piece of the hard flint. I also learnt not to break up flint with a stone hammer on dry grass or twigs. Very important lesson when living in a forest.

I am so grateful to João Antunes for teaching us this way it is slower but nothing moves not one stone can be easily removed and put back the walls are so solid, centered and strong like so many of our Portuguese neighbours.

With each small victory of stone put in that house I realised the mammoth nature of the task. But last week I finished the small stonework of the bedroom. I finished it and even up to the last stone I didn’t know I could finish it. Perched on top of the highest corner wall of the house I hammered in the last hard black stones and when it was finished, I stepped back and my eyes panned out and realised it was complete. I had done it. The walls of small victories were over.

So much has gone into those stones, joy, anger, frustration, fun, laughter, disappointment, tension, apprehension, divine certainty, forgiveness, peace and above all love.

My eyes panned out further afield and I saw once again as new, all that we would be honoured to do in this land and once more I saw the mammoth task. But I now know in a calm, patient and reflective way that it is possible perhaps even probable, since each task, whether it is picking Olives, or collecting seeds or planting trees or building walls or collecting firewood, each mammoth task is made up of a number or small, sometimes tiny, victories. These victories are happening all the time until they come together and something apparently impossible has taken place.

I have finished what seemed like a mammoth task and at last I feel I can exhale, let go, kick back and know that whatever else we have to do, somehow we, whether that we be made up of Memphis and me plus the kids or with our neighbour Joao, Filipe, Jorge and Eugenia or with builders, or guests or friends, we will do what we can and we can do quite a lot when all those little victories have been added together. We will, under the grace of the Infinite, find a way to do it and that is no small victory.

Thank you Memphis for encouraging me and stroking my back and telling everyone how beautiful it is that I was doing this. I really really needed that.

Paz e amor

River

P.S. As I stood and looked at the jeweled walls, all of 10 minutes after finishing, my favourite João came and said “It’s beautiful Maria, now you can start the filling in the old walls of the house!”

I guess there is no rest for the wicked!

Hungover Landrover, Eli's Tractor lesson and some Plumbing

2009-11-29T12:21:00.004Z

Bom Dia!

A collection of clips for you to see today. New software update to Blogger looks like uploading videos is now not so straightforward. Have to upload them to YouTube from here on in. Hope that's OK with you.

River has written a lovely blog which she will post up shortly as well.

The lovely Raquel popped over to see us a couple of weeks ago with her new and totally gorgeous baby boy Manuel. River got broody swift as you like. She'll have to wait for the grandchildren though. Been there done that.

On the restoration work, we've sealed around the back and sides of both houses with limecrete drainage channels, started rendering Joshi's bedroom and Mister Farinha returned to dig out channels in the bedrock to run the hot and cold water tubes for the kitchen, bathrooms and sinks.

Combined wood burning and thermo dynamic heating system should be arriving next week we hope. Electrician comes Sunday to scope out the work. Then it will be a few weeks of rendering and if we get the chance before Christmas to put on the huge green roof above the yoga platform and treatment room, we'll give it a go.

Early in the new year we should be ready for the metal windows and doors that we've designed to be installed and shortly after that, decorating and laying all the new wooden floors. Kitchen and bathroom structures to build probably February or March. At this rate might even be in before
next summer. Watch this space.

If the weather holds, we're off to pick olives with our elderly neighbours tomorrow.

Enjoy the videos. Memphis.

Tree hugging cooks and a tractor

2009-11-14T12:37:00.005Z

At some point in each of the decades of our lives we evaluate who on earth we think we are. For some I am sure this remains fairly constant in some shape or form. But for others, the answers we come up with vary with the seasons. River and I are now well into our thirties and have made a variety of decisions that have led us here into the heart of the Portuguese interior to forge out a brand new rural existence that inevitably is taking us down a path far less ordinary, fabulously more romantic and unimaginably abundant.

This week we are contemplating our life as tree hugging cooks.

We are restoring old stone houses into homes with huge hearths, cultivating a terraced mountainside and preparing to plant a whole new forest, tree by beautiful tree, that will one day become a fittingly grand setting for the life of 2 old romantic, tree hugging, flower loving, yoga practising, fruit and veggie planting, butter and cream using cooks.

It's all imaginary really. All of it. Surely it's our imaginations that power the direction of our lives. To dream. To explore the possibilities. To pursue it all with love and kindness. Right now we are living in the midst of an enormous sprawling Pine and Eucalyptus forest. One day, probably when we are in our 70s, we will be living in the heart of a fairytale wood in the middle of that forest. Hugging trees. Wandering through herb scented woodland paths. Picking home cultivated nuts, berries, fruits and an assortment of harvests. Then cooking to music, dining under grape vines, washing it down with glasses of our own precious wine. Gazing at stars. Thanking the Lord for all of it, with every breath we make.

But we are not there yet. We are here. Yet here is still a pretty lovely place.

Take a look.

Happy Birthday Shanti B

2009-10-30T08:15:00.005Z

Nipped over to Shanti B's place near Fundão for a birthday lunch on Sunday and managed to sneak in a rare video of the lovely lady for you all to see. Check out her blog. Very cool.

Most mornings this week we've woken up to glorious fog nestled in the valleys. Oh, to walk in the clouds. Delicious. Coincidentally been reading a must-read book that's radically changed my view of the skies. The Cloud Spotter's Guide. Thanks Ian. I too now vow to fight 'blue sky thinking' whenever I come across it. Go buy a copy from Amazon today.

Once the mist lifts we'll pop up the hill to put the last few tiles on the roofs and we should be then ready next week to start the sculptural phase of plastering all the walls inside the houses with clay, straw and sand. Metal windows and doors ordered. Water and heating system coming end of November. Plumbing and electrics to sort out before Christmas. It's all happening.

A couple more videos uploaded from my phone today. Quality not the same as the one above. Little snapshots of our excitement over the last month. Half in Portuguese and half in English. Hope you get the sentiment even if you don't understand all the conversations. Kids are good. One day they might have time to write something here. Maybe the holidays. Might try and get them to do an interview on camera for the next post. Their rabbits died this week. Attacked by a dog in their cage. Very sad. We won't forget you Biscuit Berry and Choco Flopsy. Run free wherever you are now.

Pine trunks and tractors....

Yoga platform in place...

An inside peek into João Farinha's Adega...

The foggy foggy dew....