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.
I have a sneaky suspicion based on the arrival of a new wind today (and on hard evidence from online weather sites) that tomorrow the autumn rains will commence. We've felt and known that for a week or so now and like little mice scurrying around before a storm, we have been gathering firewood and pine cones, staining the last bits of wood around the house which are exposed to the elements, and daily harvesting and preparing more of the delicious fruits of River's labour of love, her 'horta bonita'.
Tarpaulins are on, covering a number of stacks of wood dotted around the houses on all sides, under which now reside a variety of tree trunks, branches, old floorboards and beams too rotten to salvage for building into other things and mounds of off cuts from all the new wood we used to build 2 roofs, a veranda, a green roof and 4 floors this year, all of which we will burn in the stove to keep ourselves warm and heat our water this winter. We've not gathered it all in, but enough for us not to have to worry about dry fire wood probably at least til Christmas.
Now the rains can come and wash this land anew with its autumnal promise of a new season away from the harsh scorching heat of the summer sun. Warm, wet and windy. Boy, will the forest love it.
A few videos below from the last week or so. Guest starring Carline's brother Steven and his beautiful and expecting wife Sophie who flew in for an action packed weekend mostly involving the harvesting, making and consumption of quite a fair quantity of wine. Come back for olive harvest soon guys. You were great.
Hope all your encounters are full of lovely vibrations this week. It's much easier to feel less afraid if you turn off the TV and don't open a newspaper. Seriously.
Sitting this morning with coffee as sun rises over the mountains listening to the woman who brought Vonnie and I together. Stop, listen and let your soul fly to another far higher place. Eska...we love you.
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.
Oh my days what a summer! Sooo much happening all at the same time. Still in the process of moving into our new houses, boxes everywhere, building cupboards and storage as fast as I can. My cousins Helen, Anthony and Cleo came for a delightful and entertaining week’s stay (come back soon guys you were great!) River’s sister Annie and her boyfriend Nathan arrived this week and will go back to London, with Josh and Eli as companions for the journey, next week. River and I have started the final phase of restoration on the house down at Moses in readiness for the Purdays arrival at the end of August after their camping trip round France, Spain and northern Portugal. It’s all go.
And then there’s the heat! 45 degrees plus on some days with no decent rains since early June. That means a whole lot of watering every day in various parts of the land. Watering the veggies on the kitchen terrace, watering the trees up and down the roads, watering the orchards down by the stream, watering ourselves drinking 4 or 5 litres a day.
With this level of heat, inevitably comes fire. As I write, Portugal is suffering in many parts with forest fires. Some huge. And some also not too far from us. 2500 hectares burnt just this week in the Serra da Estrella National Park. The smoke that lies down the valley here some nights is a somber spectacle. I will write more on fire once the summer has passed.
In the midst of all of that, as you will see on the videos below, River’s garden has exploded and we dug up our first potato harvest. There seems to be some innate sense, as River says, that a harvest is best shared. What a pleasure it was then to have had Helen Ant and Cleo to dig together in the earth for potatoes then devour the chips that followed. I hope we can share the grape and olive harvests similarly with others this year. Any volunteers for November and December olive picking, bagging and taking to the press?
I’ll sign off with this photo of River holding her first courgette of the year. A young one apparently. Of the Italian climbing variety I understand. Tricky to find in shops as it doesn’t journey well. Which is a shame cos they’re rather sweet and tasty, especially when roasted.
Memphis
My cousin Helen, partner Anthony and goddaughter Cleo pull up the year's first main potato harvest for storage. Great work guys.
Helen brings in the potato harvest on our tractor, expertly driven round the hairpin terraced roads.
River takes up the first potatoes from the kitchen terrace. And Nathan & Josh clear another bed for more veggies.
One month ago the kids moved into their newly restored stone cottage. Yesterday River and I finally moved in to our house and spent the first of what we hope will be thousands of nights in our new bedroom.
We have one house for Josh and Ellie. One for us. Our children have therefore, in effect, suddenly become our closest neighbours and what lovely ones they are too. I do hope they pop over for a cup of tea every now and again.
Grandparents have come and gone and left us lots of joy, some expertly pruned roses and quite a few soft fluffy veggie beds that River has already filled with more delicious things to eat.
Everything is chaos, obviously. Yet there is an unmistakable stillness flowing that comes from the knowledge that we have finally arrived in the home that will be ours to love for the rest of our lives, God willing. It's been a trip to get here. Travelling then moving from one temporary dwelling to the next 8 times in the last 2.5 years has taken its toll. Now, at last, we feel like we are breathing out. One long sigh.
After months of imagining, planning, procuring and building, I can't tell you how great it feels to be actually cooking in that kitchen, sleeping in those bedrooms, eating in the courtyard and living altogether just as we dreamt it might possibly be. Lists of lists of tasks await us. Unending work. Oh the sweat and the toil and the blisters. But folks, I wouldn't swap this for all the riches in China.
Enjoy the videos. Memphis.
Eloise and her friend cook up a chocolate storm in the new kitchen and demonstrate how to chop a bar in two.
The kids secretly film their late night chat with my Dad and get caught on camera themselves murdering an innocent fly.
A peak at Vonetta's new kitchen 'horta'. My, how does her garden grow!
Well we did it. A bit tight to the deadline of my Mum and Dad coming out. But managed to get the house livable before they arrived. Felt very much like one of those surprise TV renovation shows where they only get a weekend to transform a place before the owners get back. On Monday, the day before the royal visit, 6 pairs of brackets hung, 13 huge slabs of granite and marble work surfaces carried down the hill and mounted, 8 sinks 2 bidets 1 shower and 11 taps plumbed in, glass and fittings for 12 doors finished off, all in a single day. We even managed to spend Tuesday morning bringing tractor loads of bark chip down to place around the house to turn it quickly from a building site into something resembling a house. Have a look...
Here's a clip from the kids Oleiros School Gymnastic show in town with every class in the local area doing a wee thing. Great night and this vid is Eli in action (she's the tall one!). Battery ran out for Josh's performance so can't show you that he nailed a perfect front flip off a trampette.
That's all for now. River and I are still sleeping in the house down at Moses until we've finished off the decorating in the new bedroom. Josh and Eli have moved out into their new place. After 3 years of temporary accommodation in which we have moved 8 times it is a lovely thing to have finally given them a permanent home. Until, that is, they fly the nest once more.
Video blog of the final, yes final, fortnight of professional restoration work on our Xisto stone houses here at Moses. The builders left yesterday. Von and I are immensely grateful for them, especially for all that they taught us in the process. But now they're gone and we have the house to ourselves once again. 3 weeks til my Mum and Dad arrive and still a fair bit left to go before the house will be ready to receive them. Deep breath...
