Spring Clean - by Vonetta

Spring, the season of renewal, is a beautiful season here in the hills.  The winter is over and all energy moves towards resurgence. Relieved to be getting some of my Vit D straight from the sunshine I start to feel like a new shoot, eager for growth but a little fragile. As the creeping energy of the Gallbladder starts to awaken to encourage me to grow and unfurl from the cosy slumber of winter, I am made aware of the places where I have settled for less, both within my body and mind.

I have learnt that the renewal of Spring energy encourages us to make decisions and stick to them, but my body, in need of some ignition, can easily find itself trying to catch up with soul aspirations, and in no time at all the rush of enthusiasm can easily become frustration followed by a distinct loss of stamina.  I have been known to cling white knuckled to comfy jumpers and the dreaminess of winter mist. Spring in balance says, “Come out.  Let’s play.” Out of step with the season, that spring like enthusiasm can easily become an exhausting reminder that I am not yet able to rest in the languid days of summer heat, there are still the year’s mountains to climb. 

In the city it was hard to fully appreciate the metaphors of natural medicine, born out of our relationship with nature. I didn’t fully grasp why in TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) Spring was also associated with the urgent and unsettled, at a time equally associated with good times, happiness and a return of the sun.  In the countryside it is easy to appreciate why this season of the Wood phase, is the time of judgement, decisiveness and courage.  As a vegetable gardener there is just so much to do.  Thousands of little babies need to be planted, watered, fed, kept free of strong weeds according to the principals of crop rotation.  It is easy to forget the seeds that have been sown, not yet jewelled with summer flowers and fruit.   The peas need to be sown before the summer heat comes, and staked and watered.  The tomatoes need to be planted correctly so that their adventitious roots may receive all the good food we will be giving them this year.  The potatoes planted before the Spring rainsa re now proudly above the soil, but as they come up one knows that there is no time for sitting around giving congratulations, those potatoes, still need feeding, earthing up (covering with soil) and mulching. 

Crops that I have only just sewn seemed to be going to seed and need to be sewn again.  And of course everything needs to be bedded down before the ravages of summer heat.  So it is in the emotional environment, many of us may have made New Year’s resolutions it is about now that we realise our ideas or not.  Relationships with colleagues may suffer, as the clock ticks and tocks, it easy to fall out of step with the love vibrations and be pushed forward by Liver energies of independence releasing  the autocrat commanding that this be done and that be done with perfection.  The mind can become contaminated by Liver Wind as the Gall Bladder’s energies are turned towards nourishing the heart and the Soul’s work through decisive action.  Flash card thoughts may blow in and out and it can be difficult to hold onto sequential orderly work. Bright sharp headaches, irritable eyes and ears throat disorders may become prevalent. Uncoordinated urgency is the disease of this time as we run from task to task trying to make it all happen. 

This season has a pushing forward energy and at this time of little rest, I do not necessarily want harsh detoxes or fasting, there is just too much to attend to. Instead I am looking for a gentle way to maintain any good work that has been accomplished and the commitment to take on any challenges that are coming my way.  I want energy, a lift to help me feel good, and no downs please. I want to shed the winter skin by doing the work of spring to prepare for the fruit of summer. Spring encourages work and the gentle awe of the land’s delicate bounty. When in balance I can see that beneath the urgent activity, there is a gentle heart pull to give space to the past times of childhood. Unstressed walks through the still soft forest floor are preferred to runs. Our work has to cease for a few moments to play homage to the tiny species daffodils, bluebells and buttercups that will only be around for a week or two. The channels of our bodies warm thanks to the ever increasing strength of the sun, and from my desk I can hear shrieks of delight as our guest dip their legs into spring water flowing from the thawing snows of the Serra de Estrela.

As the elements awaken so too does my desire to give.  I find myself energised to practice, teach and give treatments.  My limbs easily unfurl under the influence of Spring Gallbladder Qi and a sense of independence arises from my Liver.  I find myself leaping out of bed before my alarm to get on my matt and beat the sunshine so that I can bask in it’s warmth during morning Sun Salutations.  The creaky, disjointed aches of Winter are passing and my body begins to hum.  Hum for balancing postures and inversions and flowing sequences.  I long to stretch my limbs as far as possible but I am also still reminded that these early days call for containment and a sensitive approach to testing the strength of my tendons and ligaments, most vulnerable at this time of heat and cold, themselves dominated by the energetic potential of the Liver and Gallbladder the Yin and Yang organs of Spring.  Gentle side opening yoga postures are required before I am ready for heated heart opening back bends, such as Ustrasana.  My neck, still thawing from the emotional coldness of winter needs a little more time in Shoulderstands.  I adore  Kurmasana and Yoga Nidra and I am thrilled and encouraged by the return of just enough heat to make these postures possible, I find myself looking for more of, this.

Spring Qi when we are attuned may give us lightness; as these days are not yet weighed down by the heavy languidness of the Earth days yet to come.  This is the time to turn away quite effortlessly from heaviness of any sort.   My being cries out for the light, green and cleansing.   Salads of watercress and cucumber with dill or Mustard frills lettuce, hot and spicy with it’s little yellow flowers attached, generate water into the mouth.   I find myself instinctively reaching for all things green, Green Tara Mantras, a new Green Sporty jacket, my favourite Moss Green Hat , I think about buying new green tights but instead, wisely,  reach for a little Green Juice and some of Katherine Smith’s cleansing Kedgeree.

Juice like fine Spring days, stimulates our childlike delight in lightness. In Barbados, where I was born, we drink litres of fresh juice.  Fresh cherry juice electric pink and deep staining to the tongue.  Mango juice thick and fibrous enough to take the place of a solid lunch.  Grapefruit juice for cleansing and Pineapple for Magnesium.  The detoxing and nutritional benefits of juice have always been secondary to the delight of drinking juice.  Juice makes me feel good and light where other foods may leave me feeling heavy and sleepy.  Juice makes my mouth feel, innocent.  Innocent and clean and good for me without any guilt or frustration, the perfect medicine to stave off Spring colds and fevers.  As I write and sip my morning concoction I can almost feel the coolness of the juice keeping my blood pressure at normal levels, ensuring that my arteries and heart stay open.

When I started yoga, I wondered why it was that all the yoga practioners seemed to be drinking something green. It was a yoga practioner that introduced me to the health benefits of green juices. I am amused now that next to my litre of fruit juice lays a drunken one slug shot of wheatgrass juice, some teachings stick.  I now know that to be able to meet the demands of this season of growth, I need all that chlorophyll, besides that, drinking Green Liquid Sunshine makes me feel happy. One hit of these relatively tasteless organic wheatberries and I feel the return of the Superhero Gallbladder Child, my Liverish tendencies to initiate growth, are calmed and ordered. This season of Spring cleaning and Spring fever remind me to give my renewal Qi a boost.

At the moment I am drinking my wheatgrass in the powdered form. Soon I hope to have huge pots of this wonder food growing and maybe a handsome Matsone juicer to release the power of this plant. As I look at my completed shot glass I can not help but google search again the health benefits of this super food.  As I read again that this food will give me 70% of my greenfood needs and 92 of the 102 minerals my body needs, I am impressed.  This one ounce shot of wheatgrass juice claims to contain the equivalent nutritional content of 2 pounds of green vegetables. I mean, I couldn’t eat 2 pounds of green vegetables first thing in the morning, yet I can get the equivalent nutrition in a one ounce glug.  If I tried to grow enough vegetables  to be able to eat 2 pounds a day, I would need to give hours of back breaking work to the land, disturbing a great deal of the soil structure and probably hurting myself in the process. Yet, I can grow wheatgrass in large shallow pots, in less than one ounce of soil and just cut, use, water the plants and watch them come again.  20 minutes after taking a shot I can feel the energy uplift and I can rest assured that this hit will last throughout my day.  Guilt free, environmentally sound healing nutrition, for real?  Sign me up. 

If you are as impressed by wheatgrass as I am, then I would recommend you read Ann Wigmore’s, “The Wheatgrass Book”.  Wheatgrass is simple but powerful medicine, and it is always worth it doing a little research before we introduce any new food into the body.  However below is a summation of some of the generalised benefits of taking wheatgrass juice, as taken from my Natural Physician course with the School of Natural Medicine.

Wheatgrass as a complete protein containing the 19 amino acids, the building blocks of protein and roughly 30 enzymes. These friendly little health giving acids and enzymes will:

1. Protect me against cancer
2. Build up my blood protecting me against anaemia and will keep my easily dirtied Liver clean as a whistle
3. Give power to seminal fluid (maybe this is not so important to me)
4. Increase my energy levels
5. Help me to keep my hearing and nerve function
6. Calm my thyroid and my brain while leaving me alert and switched on
7. Repair my DNA, and stop free radicals from damaging my cells.  Yes please one shot glass, keep me looking younger for longer.  That sounds good.
8. Chelate heavy metals so that my nerves don’t fry, clean my colon so that doesn’t fry and protect my heart from inflammatory conditions, so that that doesn’t fry.
9. Help to sooth cuts sores, eczema and sinusitis helpful, as the pollen count is high in the Spring
10. Enhance and boost my immunity
11. Improve my circulation
12. Neutalise body odours.
13. And put me to bed encouraging a deep and restful sleep at the end of the day.

This is one plant that ensures I can keep going and not give in.  A must if I want to stay balanced and keep that spring in my step. 

Vonetta

Nature doesn't hurry...

The sun is shining. The sap in the trees is rising. The mimosas are in full, gloriously-scented, yellow bloom. And the tiny daffodils are peeping out on the forest floor. Signs that Spring is emerging. Graças a Deus that we've had a winter of rain to fill up the water tables after last winter's 5 month drought. The appearance of Spring holds an even more poignant message for us this year.

The forest fires at the end of last summer charred a sizeable chunk of the surrounding landscape. Paradoxically, fire destroys and rejuvenates simultaneously. The contrast between the wee forest flowers breaking through the rich black pot ash is remarkable. I was heartened by Tameera at Light Stays Retreats for her Lau Tzu quote this week on FB. Good to be reminded....

"Nature doesn't hurry, 

yet everything is accomplished." 

Lau Tzu.

Big thanks to our wonderful volunteer Christian Steiger, who has been working tirelessly over the last month, helping us prepare the houses and the land for our yoga retreat season opening in a few weeks. Clearing up some of the fallen trees and debris of the winter storms, weeding the kitchen gardens ready for planting out this year's herbs and salads, rearranging and tidying spaces, deep Spring cleaning and to top it off playing around in the kitchen with me inventing new dishes for the retreats. Exploring the taste-scape of our pallets.  It's been a lot of fun and inspiring to have another chef to cook with.

Eloise turned 14 in January and Joshua 16 last week. They grow fast. And we observe them change once more, this time into adults, young, energetic and magnificent. Flapping their perfectly formed wings on the edge of the proverbial nest, eyeing that tantalizing horizon of destiny, wherever it may lie for them. The world is their oyster. 2 languages mastered and more coming, they'll be able to navigate their way through. They're not ready to leave just yet, but they're beginning to imagine what that might look like. Imagination and Vision. Such precious and powerful human attributes.

Now the winter rains seem to have passed, we'll be starting the improvements to the yoga platform next week in the sunshine. Strengthening the wooden pillars beneath the veranda with a metal structure that will double as a frame for the wisteria,  roses and jasmines to grow up through. We'll also be enclosing it from the fresh morning valley autumn breezes and the fierce summer sun. We'll keep you updated with a couple of vids to show work in progress. It'll be sad in someways to loose the openness of the practice space, but with more guests and children coming this year, that experience of floating above the forest is not as important as taking care that our guests are safe and don't fall to injury.

And while all that is happening we also have 4 families from the UK with us to explore the possibility of making the jump out to this part of the world. Nice to be able to provide a comfortable base from which they can travel off every day to hunt for similar abandoned hamlets in this beautiful, mountainous and relatively "undiscovered" central part of Portugal.

After these lovely families and their oh so very cute kids leave, my Mum and Dad are popping over for a fortnight from the UK before Easter and then we start our first retreat of the year. Which, Merci Papa, is already fully booked. Places on our retreats are booking so fast this year we can hardly believe it. We've had over 5000 likes for our Facebook page in 12 months. Staggering. Guests are coming in from all over the world - America, Australia, United Arab Emirates, Italy, India, the UK, Thailand and Norway. And that's just for the first 2 retreats of the year. Amazing.

We are really touched by how people have responded to our invitation to come spend a week with us in the forest. And by how many people are helping us in this little quest - Ellie and Rosy at Responsible Travel, Will at Yoga Travel, Filipe at Seegno, among many others. Thanks. We really do appreciate all you're doing for us.

Peace, love and Spring hope to you, whatever the weather outside your window today.

Memphis x

p.s. Respect is due to Josh for these photos on the blog, he took them for me this morning. Lad, you sure got an eye.

Woodland flowers at their best

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.

As still as a small weed dancing in the breeze - by Von

It’s a year and a day since we moved here. To be honest I really can’t believe it and yet so much has happened. Every day some part of this land is transformed by us being here and working here. Sometimes I am worried about the impact of our actions because romantic fool that I am I really like the falling down bits: the ‘weeds’ that grow through the house walls, terraces that have long collapsed, overgrown olives, perilous walkways and such like. On the one hand nothing has gone to plan. We are still waiting to put the roof on our house and our intention was to be living there within the first year of being here. Instead we are living in the house that was originally going to be Indie Michelley’s house and we have not really had any communication with Moonbeam and Sunshine since we left Bacelo. Yet these things are never really the plan. The plan perhaps goes deeper and further than we can ever see with our physical eyes. The plan has its own rhythm and impetus once it gets moving. This means that we have to learn to dance with the changing winds yet remain still, quiet, action within non-action.

Our patch of land is mirrored by a fairly steep, wild plant inhabited hillside, populated by a few pine trees, some small oaks, cistus, strawberry fruit trees and an impenetrable thicket of what the Portuguese call ‘mato’, and of course wild boar. It amuses me that this is our reflection so to speak. It is utterly satisfying to turn our backs on our side of the hillside and gaze on nature’s capacity to ferociously replicate herself. It reminds me that no matter what we do she will always reclaim her space as soon as us humans leave her earth alone. Often in the process of playing in the soil I stop take a break and lose my thoughts looking at that hillside and am calmed by its abundance of green. It is frustrating at times too as I wish I could be like the wild boar, or perhaps more poetically like the butterflies, happy to take rest in one of the abandoned cottages, needing neither roof, nor floor, nor clear pathway nor electricity, nor clothing, free from the constraints of attainment or desire. But most of the time I find it amusing, amusing that so much time, effort, energy must be spent making a home for ourselves, and I wonder who is the better adorned for life, certainly not me. This hillside always makes me smile at myself. It makes me feel like God is watching me impenetrable, unmoving and saying ‘relax it really isn’t that hard and there really isn’t that much to do I will look after things, I always do and I always have, let go’.

So, last week I woke up and my darling Memphis, (who always seems to hear my inner thoughts) decided I needed a fresh perspective and that we would take a trip to the other side of the hills. When we first moved here there was a fire or logging access road made along the very top of the hillside, but it is rarely used and we had never been on it. So off we went, with great excitement as soon as the kids were off to school, and after several stops to move fallen trees, some very heavy, out of the road we finally made it to the side immediately facing our patch.

It is hard to describe the experience of standing on the other side looking at our Moses (the place). You see when you are there working or walking or sitting it seems vast, too big for four hands and four feet, two heads and two hearts. The rocks are huge, the fallen trees are heavy, everything we do every impact we make seems small and insignificant on the huge landscape. But from the other side, it well, shrank. It’s tiny, gloriously wonderfully tiny. I couldn’t believe it. It is a speck on this landscape, a mere backyard to all the wild uninhabited landscape that surrounds. From there we could see that nature was eager to swallow every scar that we had made and that boulders to us were mere pebbles to her. I could see myself, watch myself from that side of the hill, a mere ant, or little weed just trying to etch out a life for herself and I could see that though we may be just two, with four hands, four legs, two heads and two hearts that we were not alone, my Memphis and I, that we could paint out a life for ourselves here with time and patience.

So now that I am back on my side of the hill I feel I have a true friend on the other side, one that I can just sit and look at to help calm my quivering mind and body and one that I can also climb (or drive) to the top too and take a fresh perspective, feeling comforted wherever I am of just how small I am, how small my efforts are and that no matter how much I f..k up here, nature with time and patience will always close the gap.

Times of a quivering come to us all and while lying in bed this afternoon I felt that some of my friends might be quivering just now. So whether you feel like you are living in the Babylon of attainment or the Paradise of acceptance I have a story of comfort to tell you. It’s a true story as true as any story can be once it is being told…

In the land of giants...

There was once a young woman who grew up on a very small Rock. She lived on this Rock for many years and while she was there she was told stories of giants. She was told that these giants knew many many things of great importance. These giants had done some horrible and terrible deeds but they were also creators of great beauty. She was told that these giants housed their treasures in enormous buildings unlike anything she could imagine and that in their land you could wear beautiful robes, see all that you could ever hope to see about the world of man and learn great secrets of how the universe and how all things in it worked. But in order to get there you needed loads of paper with special symbols on it and this paper wasn’t easy to make on the Rock. This young woman, audacious, as she was decided, that she would find a way to get to the land of the giants, even if she couldn’t make the special paper. So she worked and worked and read and read and found out the secret way to get to the land of the giants without the paper money.

She got there and it was just as was told. The streets were lined with so many lights it seemed as if the giants had captured the stars and used them to light their way as they strolled down wide avenues and spent many hours sitting and laughing just drinking this stuff called coffee which only seemed to make them laugh even wilder and become more excited. They had huge beautiful buildings, where not even the sun it seemed dared to peel the paint from the walls. Huge green spaces were carved out of their landscape and not even a carrot grew there just plants for looking at and smelling, a setting for giant mothers to walk with their giant babies and for giant fathers to have lunch or a beer with other giant fathers. Huge fat giant ladies sang in buildings painted with gold and lined with red velvet, small tiny giant ladies danced on tippy toes and captured her heart. She decided to try and learn some of the secrets of the giant world and spent many delicious hours in the vast libraries and museums, parks, art galleries and theatres. And in time she too could drink coffee and laugh with her mates and spend endless hours doing nothing but growing flowers and learning and finding ways to make more of the symbolic paper that the giant world seemed to love so much.

By the last day of the first year of her time in the land of giants she knew she was beaten, she had no place to sleep that night and had eaten nothing but beans for several months. She grew tired of all the knowledge and all the talking and longed for a piece of fresh fruit picked from a tree or a cuddle from a grandma or a walk in the Temple yard listening to the old Rastas who lived on the Rock. Tired and beaten she heard one of her favourite Rastas warning as she left, “Be careful daughter you can really lose yourself in that place, remember you are a princess growing into a queen.” At her wits end she opened a book that her Grandma had slipped into her bag as she was leaving the Rock. She opened the book and read these words,

"For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith!"

"Do not worry then, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear for clothing?' For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

She went onto one of the forbidden rooftops and looked out at another rooftop, one with no apparent windows or doors and saw the most hopeful site she ever saw: a bird eating, feasting on some food that had arrived to his benefit. “How did it get there?” she wondered and “how did he know to go there to eat it”.

Still tired and hungry and scared she made a promise to herself. “I don’t know how I will eat tonight or how I will finish this thing that I came to learn but I do know that I need to write some words to feed the giants and I do know that I need to go and learn to use one of their writing machines and I do have a little of that giant paper money captured on this plastic card I am holding in my hand so I will go to the place where they keep their machines and their many books of learning I will do this next thing I have to do. I will do it gladly I will do it with joy I will do it as best as I can and be as kind as I can in the doing of it. I will not take what is not mine and I will share anything that I have even if that is just a kind word”.

So off she went and in she went and on to the machine she went, tired, broken and lonely but with a little more faith and a little more hope. She fed her plastic card into one of the machines to see just how little she had left, but instead of the card showing digits it flashed three times (just to make sure her dull mind was awake and her shuttered eyes were watching) and it said five letters, letters, not numbers. These letters spelt the word…

"HELLO"

Immediately after, the screen came up with an impossible number of digits (these digits represented what the giants called a sum of money). This money would continue to exist on her card for the entire duration of her time in the giants’ hall of learning until the very last page she needed to photocopy or print and at that very last page the card went blank and never worked again.

And so it came to pass that she finished her time in land of giants and in many ways became a giant herself, she found giants to love and to call family and friends, but in time she grew tired of the land of the giants and went to a new land, a vast land of small people and became a small person herself to see what miracles could happen there.

Wherever we are and whoever we are hard times come to us all, but take heart have hope and faith. The next time you are in a place where you can see the horizon, go outside, find the furthest point you can see and try to pick out the details of the furthest thing on that horizon. Chances are all you can see is sky, earth and indistinguishable shapes somewhere in the space between. If it is a tree, all you can tell is that it is a tree, you can not tell what kind of tree or what its leaves are like or whether it has been planted or just grown up there all random like. If it is a building you can tell it is a building but not what kind of building it is or what is going on inside. If it is a person you can not tell the shape of the face or whether that person is friend or foe. In other words we do not know, we never know what is on the horizon for us in our lives, it is a mystery until we reach it and then there is another horizon just waiting for us to reach if we so desire.

So relax and let go be supported by your little patch like a tough little weed, roots dug deep into an apparently impenetrable mountainside. Still in the knowledge that you are rooted in the earth but prepared to dance and move to the slightest breeze. Who knows there just might be something positive on the horizon that you just can’t see, miracles do happen they happened to the girl from the Rock and they have more than likely happened to you.

River.

Later that night...

Cherries in the Sun

It’s been a great week. The sun burst out last week and with it, came Spring’s final vivacious splash of meadow flowers and fruits before it inevitably and gracefully bows out to make way for the impending arrival of Summer. It sure is already hot in the middle of the day, but the mornings and evenings are still, thankfully, refreshingly cool. Even nippy.

Josh with Eli kindly assisting, made the first pass at "Tom and Jerry"'s cherry trees this week. Oh my days are they delicious! Half a bucket went in a couple of days. Here’s proof….

Von planted in some extra veggies into 4 more of her new beautifully crafted permaculture compost beds. I think we now have hot peppers, cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, butternut squash, red and white cabbage, cauliflowers, more broccoli, more lettuces and strawberries all in situ happily growing. I’ve also seen evidence of seed trays planted up with yet more goodies and a sack of tatters ready to go in once we’ve worked out the best place for them to grow in the heat of the next few months. The guys round here plant their potatoes in Jan or Feb and are now harvesting. So we might be a tad late. We’ll see.

Von has also impressively transformed Harry’s house this week in 2 days flat. It now resembles a kind of Moroccan boudoir. Seriously, it does. Have a sneak in the video below. It’s a wee bit surreal cos suddenly we now have a proper home to enjoy with all our stuff from our old life in London surrounding us. Yet when you look out the window it’s not really very New Cross is it? The cherry on the cake (alright enough of cherries already) is our beloved bed. For 4 nights now we’ve slept deeply, and boy what a difference it’s made to rejuvenate properly at night.

Last Sunday, we went for an outing to the pretty little nearby xisto (pronounced sheestoo, means slate stone) village of Alvaro organised by ‘Champagne’ Ines who works in Oleiros council. Much of the village has been restored with European funding and they’ve done a top job. We picked up a few cool ideas on how to restore our own xisto houses too. After the walk and the lunch, we went kayaking down this curvy and picturesque stretch of the River Zezere. The kids did great paddling a few kilometres downstream and did heroically well paddling back upstream into a fairly stiff headwind. Nice one kids. You rock.

Finally, an update on Moses. The place not the dog. For those who don’t know, we are staying (some would say squatting) now in Bacelo which is the house (sorry, Estate) of "Tom and Jerry"  Moses is another place separate to Moses, almost bordering it but not quite, consisting of 4 falling down old stone houses in 2 hectares of forested terraced land, 10 minutes walk down the valley, a little more remote, with no roofs or water supply or electricity connected yet. Which is why The Winters and Michelle are currently staying (squatting) at Bacelo until we’ve finished (to do that we obviously need to start at some point) renovating everything there.

Anyway back to the plot (assuming there is one), I think we are now waiting for a couple of things to happen. As the rains have stopped, Pedro the road maker can finish his other projects and begin ours, carving out the new terraces we need for the green houses, water tanks, sports area and, of course, the yoga sala at the very top of it all. Sounds like the road work could begin July, sometime, maybe later. Not holding our breath though. We also found cool carpentry and building firms that seem to understand what we want to achieve restoring our houses using mainly the materials we can find on the land and are prepared to work alongside us to do it. But we’ve yet to see a budget. If the budget is good, if we see it, we hope to appoint them and they might be able to start in August. Possibly. Depending on other things apparently. We’ll fill you in on when we know anything more (which implies we know something now, which we don’t really).

However, and it is a big ‘however’, the land down at Moses is looking utterly outstanding. All by itself. With no help at all whatsoever from us. These last 7 photos are just a few of the many we've taken this week, although they simply don’t convey the experience of being in a place that is so inherently magnificent. Truly breathtaking. We love Moses. We really do. One day we will live there. And grow more things there. And entertain there. And make new friends there. And grow old there. And eat more cherries in the sun. And olives, and other tasty home grown stuff too. But as you probably can tell, it’s just we’re not entirely sure when that day will be. It doesn’t matter though, cos the journey to get to Moses is already proving to be a whole heap of fun.

There's no rush, so we ain't rushing.