Happy Birthday Memphis!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.