Blogging the stories of our family life on a yoga retreat in the magical village and valleys of Amieira, Central Portugal. Everyday we are tending this beautiful land and its stone dwellings in our journey towards self sufficiency. Moses is the Portuguese name of this place, meaning many mill stones. And, providently, is also the name of our beloved golden retriever, without whom, we'd never have found it. We love you Moses.
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.
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.
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 thought you might like to see some of the genius that is the photography of my son Joshua, aka Falcon Bear. At 12 years of age he exhibits such a confidence in his style and especially his ability to capture a moment or the detail which us mere mortals might pass by. The eye of a child. Enjoy looking through his.
Olá, it’s been a while, but I'm finally writing another blog. I don’t really remember the last time I wrote a blog so I won’t write about everything but at least some of the many highlights.
I'm going to start where anyone reading this will have most questions. School. School is going really well for me (actually now I think about it I should probably say really, really, really well). I'm “classified” by my friends as one of the top three students depending on the lesson: maths 1st; sciences 1st; and of course, Portuguese 3rd (although I got the equivalent of an “A” in my grammar test which was the best mark in the class). The other top two students are Anatoly and Andreia.
My three best friends Anatoly, Fábio & Rodrigo are really cool. Anatoly (or Anatoli as he likes to write it) is from the Ukraine and he’s the only other person in my class apart from me that has authorization to leave the school during school hours, so we tend to do a lot together like walk around the town or go to the Internet Café. Fábio, who is Portuguese is literally like my Portuguese double, he loves taking photos (yay!!!), loves graffiti (not those stupid little squiggles but the really big designs that take like 4 hours to do and 5 people so I said that he should go to London just to admire the “art” of the city), and thinks that bikes, computers and cameras are the best things invented so far. My other friend is Rodrigo who is French, and won’t let me stop thinking about it. He talks about Cristiano Ronaldo so much that I almost think he’s got a crush on him. He also thinks that the world revolves around football and that he’s a “babe-magnet”. He makes me laugh at him more than with him and I'm not the only one.
I’ve got 11 subjects at school and I participate in two clubs: ICT and football it would be nice if I could get a Cricket club going and the student will be teaching the teachers this time.
Right now I'm on Easter holidays but I can’t manage to sleep past 7am at the latest. School really gets you into a rhythm and I think I’ll go mad if I don’t get out of it so I tend to lie in bed until 10am just because I can. But waking up at 6 in the morning has its upsides (they are few but there are some), but before I get to them here are some funny sides leading up to the up ones. Every morning I fall out of bed and whack my head on the ground. Then I stand up straight and whack my head on the central beam. I then pull on my clothes while holding my throbbing head and afterwards I tumble down my super steep stairs but as I look out the window to see the morning world, I forget about my head (maybe that’s half because my ankle’s hurting now). At 6:30 in the morning you can see the first rays of the morning sun shining on the facing hill and the undergrowth makes the world look all fuzzy (or maybe that’s the tears falling down my face from my hurting head, ankle and now leg because Slinky is using it as a scratch pole). Seeing this dawn marvel, I remember my concrete birth place. Looking out your window in New Cross you see the sun rays shining on a drunk by the side of the estate begging for money because his wife has kicked him out the house at 3 in the morning without letting him get any breakfast (don’t worry, that wasn’t you Keith). If you could combine these two views, London and Amieira, you might get green flats (aka: eco-flats, which apparently exist according to Dad) and concrete trees (that I’ve seen in front of the Tate Modern and said “wow”). Just thinking about the dramatic change that we have made makes me shiver with shock.
Life here is different in many ways in comparison with the city in which I was born and grew up in (mummy says that I give London a hard time which is a little true considering the people, memories and places that are good there). At school in the big cities the teachers say that everything comes in different seasons of the year at different dates but you can never see it. Here suddenly 50 flocks of mallards fly in on the same day or 15 lines of processional pine caterpillars each 2 meters long march in. One day the pumpkins are still tiny vulnerable little things then suddenly they are the size of a couple of bowling balls. The Portuguese culture isn’t much different either. I’ll give an example: last weekend I went to stay over at Fábio’s house and in the morning they had killed the pig (to give him a name he will be called Bert). The whole day while Fábio and I were playing his family was working. In the evening we ate pork. I said that the meat was very sweet for pork and Fábio’s mum said that was because the pig was killed that day aka: Bert. I asked if they had already sorted out all the eatable bits (which in Portugal is everything) and she said no, all that was left was the right front leg. So they had basically killed, gutted, cut up and sorted out Berty in less than 12 hours which is quite an accomplishment. Sadly it’s the same with the forests. One day they’re here the next they could be gone.
So as not to leave you on that sad note I shall write my about my hilarious school trip. We went to Lisbon last Thursday to go see the planetarium and the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos. We left our little town at 9am and set off on a 3 hour journey. We got to Lisbon with time to spare so we ate lunch and another of my friends Paulo & I took a bath in the sprinklers (when it’s 30 degrees and you’ve got nothing else to do what would you do?). We then walked to the planetarium and after a 20 minute talk about what we were going to see we saw exactly what I see every evening out my front door basically whole constellations and galaxies. We then proceeded to the monastery that I had already seen when we still had the MosieMobile. With time to spare we went to a café that is the only place in the world that sells pasteis de Belém which are little tarts with cream, cinnamon and sugar. While we were eating them Anatoly & I saw a Ferrari, a Lamborghini, 5 Porches of which two were Locusts and a Formula1. Seeing the last we both looked at each other and then at the sports car with our mouths open and saliva hanging from them. Maybe the trip was worth it after all.
This is my last paragraph. Everything is rushing through my head so fast that I can’t actually focus on any one thing and most of my thoughts are in Portuguese so now I'm going to get my well earned beauty sleep and I shall do my homework in the morning (when dad reads this he will say “ha” and frown and mummy will tell me to go and do it there and then to which I will complain).
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. 
Olá, it’s been a while, but I'm finally writing another blog. I don’t really remember the last time I wrote a blog so I won’t write about everything but at least some of the many highlights.
My three best friends Anatoly, Fábio & Rodrigo are really cool. Anatoly (or Anatoli as he likes to write it) is from the Ukraine and he’s the only other person in my class apart from me that has authorization to leave the school during school hours, so we tend to do a lot together like walk around the town or go to the Internet Café. Fábio, who is Portuguese is literally like my Portuguese double, he loves taking photos (yay!!!), loves graffiti (not those stupid little squiggles but the really big designs that take like 4 hours to do and 5 people so I said that he should go to London just to admire the “art” of the city), and thinks that bikes, computers and cameras are the best things invented so far. My other friend is Rodrigo who is French, and won’t let me stop thinking about it. He talks about Cristiano Ronaldo so much that I almost think he’s got a crush on him. He also thinks that the world revolves around football and that he’s a “babe-magnet”. He makes me laugh at him more than with him and I'm not the only one.
Right now I'm on Easter holidays but I can’t manage to sleep past 7am at the latest. School really gets you into a rhythm and I think I’ll go mad if I don’t get out of it so I tend to lie in bed until 10am just because I can. But waking up at 6 in the morning has its upsides (they are few but there are some), but before I get to them here are some funny sides leading up to the up ones. Every morning I fall out of bed and whack my head on the ground. Then I stand up straight and whack my head on the central beam. I then pull on my clothes while holding my throbbing head and afterwards I tumble down my super steep stairs but as I look out the window to see the morning world, I forget about my head (maybe that’s half because my ankle’s hurting now). At 6:30 in the morning you can see the first rays of the morning sun shining on the facing hill and the undergrowth makes the world look all fuzzy (or maybe that’s the tears falling down my face from my hurting head, ankle and now leg because Slinky is using it as a scratch pole). Seeing this dawn marvel, I remember my concrete birth place. Looking out your window in New Cross you see the sun rays shining on a drunk by the side of the estate begging for money because his wife has kicked him out the house at 3 in the morning without letting him get any breakfast (don’t worry, that wasn’t you Keith). If you could combine these two views, London and Amieira, you might get green flats (aka: eco-flats, which apparently exist according to Dad) and concrete trees (that I’ve seen in front of the Tate Modern and said “wow”). Just thinking about the dramatic change that we have made makes me shiver with shock.
Life here is different in many ways in comparison with the city in which I was born and grew up in (mummy says that I give London a hard time which is a little true considering the people, memories and places that are good there). At school in the big cities the teachers say that everything comes in different seasons of the year at different dates but you can never see it. Here suddenly 50 flocks of mallards fly in on the same day or 15 lines of processional pine caterpillars each 2 meters long march in. One day the pumpkins are still tiny vulnerable little things then suddenly they are the size of a couple of bowling balls. The Portuguese culture isn’t much different either. I’ll give an example: last weekend I went to stay over at Fábio’s house and in the morning they had killed the pig (to give hi
m a name he will be called Bert). The whole day while Fábio and I were playing his family was working. In the evening we ate pork. I said that the meat was very sweet for pork and Fábio’s mum said that was because the pig was killed that day aka: Bert. I asked if they had already sorted out all the eatable bits (which in Portugal is everything) and she said no, all that was left was the right front leg. So they had basically killed, gutted, cut up and sorted out Berty in less than 12 hours which is quite an accomplishment. Sadly it’s the same with the forests. One day they’re here the next they could be gone.
So as not to leave you on that sad note I shall write my about my hilarious school trip. We went to Lisbon last Thursday to go see the planetarium and the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos. We left our little town at 9am and set off on a 3 hour journey. We got to Lisbon with time to spare so we ate lunch and another of my friends Paulo & I took a bath in the sprinklers (when it’s 30 degrees and you’ve got nothing else to do what would you do?). We then walked to the planetarium and after a 20 minute talk about what we were going to see we saw exactly what I see every evening out my front door basically whole constellations and galaxies. We then proceeded to the monastery that I had already seen when we still had the MosieMobile. With time to spare we went to a café that is the only place in the world that sells pasteis de Belém which are little tarts with cream, cinnamon and sugar. While we were eating them Anatoly & I saw a Ferrari, a Lamborghini, 5 Porches of which two were Locusts and a Formula1. Seeing the last we both looked at each other and then at the sports car with our mouths open and saliva hanging from them. Maybe the trip was worth it after all.
This is my last paragraph. Everything is rushing through my head so fast that I can’t actually focus on any one thing and most of my thoughts are in Portuguese so now I'm going to get my well earned beauty sleep and I shall do my homework in the morning (when dad reads this he will say “ha” and frown and mummy will tell me to go and do it there and then to which I will complain).
