Happy Birthday Shanti B

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....

Everybody loves the Sunshine!

Sunshine was 37 yesterday. By his own admission, the happiest birthday of his life to date, 2008, or as we are beginning to say, year 1 in Zion. Twas another magical day. A treat of a fried breakfast and pressies for the big guy all wrapped up River style. A relaxing day pleasuring in each others company and preparing for Bacelo’s first party in the evening. Which was a big success too. Raquel, Belita + Pedro, Joao Eugenia Filipe and George, Hugo Sofia + their kids Andre + Malfida, Carlos + Theresa + bump, Evout + his cutey son Tjack (throwing sand) from the UK now in Serta, Fiona + Mark and their little Elsie recently moved to Madeirã and the magnificent 7 of us. Sunshine was made up with all his presents. Bless. As Roy Ayres so aptly put it, “Everybody loves the Sunshine”.

Popped over to the Mount of Oaks in Fundão at the weekend to revel in the enchantment of Shantii B and her wandering clan. Met a young couple from Israel called Titali and Uriah (the guy in the photo with Joshi’s hair) who are pure gorgeous and having just arrived are already using their experience of building in mud to great effect. Can’t wait to have them over to Zion one day soon, along with Josh and Rosie who’ve not yet had the chance to nip across yet. As always, lots of stimulating chats, music, singing and water fights for the kids. Highlight was the mulberry and pear crumble cooked in a makeshift solar oven made of rubbish – a white polystyrene box, backed with a cardboard headboard and lined with foil. Of course, Von quizzed Josh on everything and we built one immediately on our return. It reached 150˚C on first attempt yesterday. Here come cakes, pies, stews, baked fish and then some. And tis all kindly provided by the power of the sun, free. Sweet.

On a more reflective note, with all the road building work going on, plus the house restoration stuff at Moses and Bacelo, it’s been a trifle chaotic. I am learning to go with the flow of what happens day to day. Whatever happens, must be happening for a reason. So if I sometimes don’t really get what that purpose is, I am opening myself, gradually, to the possibility that all things will work out as they’re supposed to in the end, and am embracing the experience of each of my encounters everyday.

Joaquim the fishmonger has almost finished excavating the path of the new road (keep up), and over the last 2 days he’s masterfully carved out a gigantic chunk of the mountain side so I can fulfil a promise made to Josh and Ellie last year. We now have a new flat terrace perfect for a tennis court, football cage, cricket net and golf driving range. With landscaping on this scale, we're starting to see the final shape of the gardens at Moses. From top to bottom, setting off with the swimming pond terrace, stumbling upon a yoga sala terrace a little further down with resplendent views of 7 rolling hills, back to the entrance car park behind the kids’ house that will also house a barn cut into the rock face on two sides, down to the sports arena just above the guest house (the one we are buying back from Michelle), and next week they'll begin restoring a sweeping terrace below our house for River’s greenhouses and nursery gardens. And we're only 3 weeks into the work.

Of course, none of this is anywhere finished but as the structure is emerging others are more able to understand what River and I have been rambling on about for months. The vision for this place. Of what could be created. Of what is being created. My heart is full of thankfulness to the one who made all of it in the first place, and we hope, is in the midst of us, in front and behind, guarding, protecting, inspiring, enjoying. Yeah man. Give thanks and praise to the Lord and every little ting is gonna be Irie. Keep shining on us cos we ain’t growing noways without ya. One love.

A wee house hunt...

A Wedding, April 25th and maybe new English Tipi Neighbours

Ola! Tudo Bem?

We’ve had a busy couple of weeks here in Amieira land. 2 weekends back we went to the wedding of Sara (the local yoga teacher) and her lovely hubby Antonio Miguel, 10kms east of us in Estrieto. It was a delightful affair and a real privilege to be invited to be part of such a wonderful day. 270 people. All the bells and whistles. Food was lavish with awesome creative sculptures to fruit and meat, To’s old university fraternity mates playing guitars and singing at every available opportunity, dancing late into the night, loads of kids free to run round and be themselves. Everything was a treat to witness. Thanks guys we had a ball. Who's getting married next?

The following weekend was a big one here in Portugal. It was only 34 years ago, on April 25^th, that they had their last revolution. It was a bloodless one but like many other revolutions round the world, holds little real meaning for country people like those out here in the sticks. Nothing really changed for people here. Just a different regime with another name. But the date is still a good excuse for a party and I am sure over the years I will understand the significance of the strategic change that took place in 1974. Anyway we were invited by the inimitable Raquel and her hubby Francisco to spend the weekend with his parents at their family home in Gafete, in the heart of the Alintejo region.

It turned out to be quite an education (as well as a mighty cool weekend party). Francisco’s great grandfather had built a charming house for his wife Anna, with fascinating orange gardens and sculptures. But most interestingly for us, he also created a fabulous pleasure garden together with summer houses and irrigation systems on 250 hectares of nearby farm land. Now all the buildings are a little rickety and the irrigations systems no longer in use because Francisco mainly uses the land to raise 91 cows, but the place has heap loads of character and inspiration for us. If it was possible to do all that a century ago, surely we could do something equally as incredible today with our little 2 hectare patch.

Below is a sneek at part of the gardens with Moses loving the lake obviously. Coincidentally, when we travelled this bit of portugal last year, we actually stopped for a break outside this farm and Von marvelled at the land and wanted to go explore it. So when we arrived it was a bit spooky to realise we'd been here before - it was Francisco's farm.

Last Tuesday we had an email from an English couple, Ian and Merle, who said they were thinking of buying a place round the corner from us and would we be interested in meeting them. They currently run a tipi company in the UK and are thinking of relocating here in Amieira! Well, what a blessing they were. We had a fantastic day (which also happened to be Ian’s birthday) with lunch at our place and then being shown round their potential new home that has hundreds of fruit tree laden stone terraces and awesome views down the Rio Zezere valley, just 5 minutes drive over the hill in Eiro do Miguel. We really hope they buy the place and get over here as soon as they can cos they are proper lovely. There could be some interesting synergies between their tipi retreat plans and ours as well. Triffic.

David and Pam Pott came last Thursday (which also happened to be David’s birthday) to stay for a few days in the middle of their own trip round Europe. How gorgeous was that? Catching up on their travels and their emerging plans for their new life when they return to the UK, revelling once again in Nanny Pam’s story telling, and just their company has been a great blessing for us all here. We were sorry to see them go, but we know we see them again. Hopefully Pam caught the bug of this place and maybe she can run creative retreats here one day soon.

While David and Pam were here we explored a bit more of this region of Portugal. We went with them up to Santa Comba Dao on Mothering Sunday (a month later here than in the UK) with our neighbour Eugenia and family to see her mum as she had no transport to get there. Its only 60kms but took nearly 2 hours as it is directly north and we had to pass over 3 mountain ranges! And then on Tuesday we nipped over to Barbara’s Mount of Oaks retreat space near Fundao for lunch shared with 15 or so guys who had joined her from the recent Rainbow gathering in Portugal. A most hippy affair but we are really pleased we now know where Barbara is and we will be back many many times. She is a remarkable lady and doing extraordinary things with her land there (see her Shanti Pilgrim blog). It was a little bittersweet though as Vonny went with her to the Vet where her poorly cat actually died on the table. Barbara was totally gutted and our thoughts are with her cos she loved that cat something bad.

"Tom" returned from the UK on Wednesday and has been hard at work on Harry’s house since. I will post up some pictures of the work next week. It’s been fab to have him back with us. Sad "Jerry" is still in the UK but we hope to see her and maybe her mum in a few weeks when "Tom" plans to return to give them both a little break from caring for "Jerry"s pops.

So as you can tell, an eventful fortnight. Here's a little something before you go. After a typical hard days work in the sun last week, I saw a rare sight. There in the bush, exhausted from cutting brambles since dawn, was a Vonetta, asleep in a wheelbarrow. That’s all for now folks, will write soon.