Washing machine part 2

 Well the problems we have with washing machines.......

Arrived for a night at a house we found on booking.com...first impressions...clean tidy house with a shared kitchen and bathroom...all good as we were very hot and in desperate need of a shower.

Showers done, we put our clothes in the washing machine, after several mistakes including not turning the water on, we managed to get it started and did a load whist we went to eat at the cafe.

We came back and put another load on, during the cycle, the owner came back with people she was checking in and was obviously unhappy that we had put the washing machine on, Steve offered to turn it off but she insisted he leave it on (saying its ok) then told Steve in German that the washing machine could only be used after a 3 day stay! She repeated the instruction using Google Translate and left shortly afterwards.

Later on, I found the 'Welcome' brochure and on the English page, it said that the washing machine was always turned on and could be used with your own washing powder.

Later on in the evening, she complained to Booking.com, saying we were irresponsible in the usage of our electricity and water and asked for a €5 charge! of course we refused!!

New friends and unwelcome visitors

 We were invited around for dinner, wine and the obligatory spare room (in case we drank too much) from our new friends Mandy and Dave.

Arrived fashionably late due to the 20 minute queue at the checkout for Intermarche (the Portuguese do not do anything in a hurry!)

Chatting, a fabulous pea and feta dip, mushroom lasagne and almond tart plus wine ensured a good night and we happily tootled off to bed after a discussion of various depths including who was better Kylie or Jason!

A good nights sleep although got bitten several times by a mosquito before Steve killed it, starting to be able to join the dots together with the amount of bites we have!!

Signing for the deeds

 All done, we now own property in Portugal and can't wait to start our new lives here....However what a palaver!

First the problems with Santander (see previous post)

Then problems with the lawyer..... she has been pretty useless:-

• Communicating only through email and not specifying timescales/dates
• Communicating with our estate agent about things she wanted us to do rather than contacting us directly.
• Informing the estate agent that the sale may not go through due to lack of funds
• Telling us the appointment time but not the address of the notary
• Constantly asking about payment of her fees before finishing the job, several emails and her account details handed to me before the signing of the deeds.
• Estimating fees and then bumping them up drastically when they needed paying.
• No official invoice/bill just a scribbled piece of paper with figures on
• No breakdown of her fees

Need I go on......nooo because we now own a property in Portugal!

Just need to work out how to turn on the electricity and the water now! 😂😂

Bank says 'No' and then 'yes'

 We are having some trouble with Santander blocking our transactions to move money from a current account to Revolut so we can pay for the house!

We spent all day Saturday on and off the phone trying to get some sense out of their customer service who appeared to be controlled by A.I

Apparently we have to wait up to 48 hrs for each transaction to be approved by a 'back office team' who cannot be contacted by customers direct..... so frustrating!

UPDATE......UPDATE.......UPDATE.....UPDATE......UPDATE......UPDATE.......UPDATE

After another phone call this morning, it is all sorted... the transfer to Revolut was done and the money has been transfered to the seller, deeds to be signed tomorrow!!

The trials and tribulations of off grid living

  Our water to the caravan is supplied by a well on the land, the first thing that happened was a leak in our caravan bathroom meaning all our water to the caravan had to be turned off while we worked out how to repair it..... this was fine as we have a hosepipe outside the caravan which we posted through the bathroom window and into the shower meaning we could still shower and we could also fill up the kitchen sink for washing up.............

Then another pipe came apart meaning that the whole site had no water for showering and washing up, we only had drinking water, but at least we had that!

After a morning of hard dusty work, we packed our swimming stuff and found a river beach with a shower.... perfect but I had forgotten soap/shampoo so I ended up using laundry detergent..... a step too far for Steve! 😁

On our return to our hosts we were glad to hear that the water pipe to the well had been fixed and we could now shower with the hose again, Steve also managed to fix the pipe in the caravan so normal service has resumed and we can shower again.

The compost toilet is getting a little easier to use....funny how things become the norm, still grossed out by the used toilet paper going in the bin though and the potential emptying of the bucket!

Getting used to weeing on the land, find a private spot and wee although don't forget to tell your husband, this is what you are doing as I did this morning! We are very close....but I'm not sure I wanted him to see me doing that. 😳

Language Lesson

 Today, we visited what we thought was another river beach but it turned out to be a campsite which charged for its swimming pool!

Despite our disappointment, we chatted to the lady on reception who spoke very good English and her daughter who was about 4 years old.

She pointed to various leaflets in the reception area, saying simple words and getting me to repeat them back to her until I got them right.... so during this time I learnt....

Piscina - Swimming pool

Fosseis - Fossils

Museu - Museum

Vaso - Vase

A great way to learn being taught by a child.

Cold......Brrr

 So after a beautiful clear sky full of stars there has to be a downside and we discovered it in the middle of the night....it turned cold...yes it was proper COLD in Portugal....who would believe it!

Thankfully the duvet was within easy reach and some of us were more prepared than others with their choice of nightwear!

Sleeping butt naked!

Shooting stars and The Milky Way

 Very clear night tonight, no light pollution, the stars were amazing!!

We stood outside for some time marvelling at how clear the sky was, so clear we could see The Milky Way!

As I watched the stars, I saw my first shooting star......

Steve could not believe that was the first one I had ever seen, growing up in the Shetlands gives you much more opportunity to see things like these than the city does.

We downloaded an app to help us identify the constellations more clearly, it helped somewhat but the compass function was not working so it was unable to identify what we could see in front of us.

We marvelled in the beauty in front of us and how small we felt as humankind....quite humbling!

River beaches

 So the Portuguese have invented River beaches which are exactly like they sound..... beaches and safe swimming areas on the side of a river. Here are some photos

Penha Garcia river beach with medieval village and a fossil trail.

Amioso Fundeiro river beach with Roman bridge

Meimoa River beach - not known to foreigners, well known to locals.

Benquerenca river beach - managed to persuade Steve to swim in this one! It was very surreal swimming in a river with fish and dragonflies and pond skaters - beautiful! 

Workaway No 2 with compost loo!!

     After leaving workaway 1 in the wee hours of the early morning, we stayed in hotels for three nights, contacting our workaway 2 to see if we could come early......

The answer was a resounding 'Yes' so we travelled over to see them (15/7) and have the guided tour.....

..very remote, along a very bumpy track, (which is apparently better as the road has been fixed!) the nearest neighbour is probably about 300 metres away. Despite that they have letterboxes at the start of the track, post is rare here.

 Our hosts, Daniel, Leah and little Sophia live in a caravan whilst they are renovating their house and there was another similar sized caravan for us. Their ultimate plan.  is to move into the house and then rent out their caravan to a permanent family with children, the whole plot is off grid, solar electricity, bottled gas, water from a well and compost toilets!!

Yep, you read right, compost toilets.......very basic, only for pooping, not weeing, wees are done al fresco, just choose your spot and water the land, poops are done in the compost toilet which is basically a toilet seat above a bucket, do your business and then cover it with sawdust. Empty onto a compost heap once a week.....mmm takes some getting used to! It is definitely not for me on a long term basis.

So whilst we have been here, the deal is 1-2 hrs work a day, shop and cook for ourselves which suits us..... our new routine.

Get up whilst it is still cool, do the work required, so far we have covered water pipes with tiles to keep the water cooler in the intense heat and cleaning our living accommodation which clearly hadn't been lived in for a while. Easy so far!!

A NIFty day

 Our main objective today was to obtain our NIF's (the Portuguese NI) 

We drove to Castelo Branco and went to the Financas office, phone in one hand with 'Google Translate' ready and passports and driving licences in the other.

After carefully saying our pre loaded Google phrase and handing over our documents, the man looked at us and went and fetched the lady from the back who spoke English 😂

She explained that due to Brexit we needed someone with Portuguese residency to represent us....... we considered pulling someone off the street....anyone would do but then came to our senses and sent a Whatsapp message to our estate agent Mandy pleading for help.....

Whilst I waited for the required email, Steve returned to the Financas office to check if I could use my driving licence in my maiden name as proof of my address. After speaking to three different women flirting and fluttering those baby blue eyes, he returned saying that we could.

We returned to the Financas office with the mail and hope in our hearts.....

This time we were told that the email was not worded correctly so back we went to Mandy who resent the correct information......only to be told by the lady that spoke English that they had it wrong and it wasn't needed.... we didn't need a representative today 🤣🤣

She explained that once we had bought the house we had 2 weeks to go online and complete the process.

We smiled and chatted as the process was completed and we were issued with our NIF numbers. Clutching them tightly in our hands we left and celebrated with lunch and coffee at a local vegetarian café.

The Great Escape

 5.15 a.m Tuesday morning

We broke out quietly feeling like criminals, it was very stressful and we didn't relax until we got to a café about an hour away for breakfast.

It was my first chance to practice my Portuguese, I remembered the correct phrase and was able to make myself understood by asking 

"A conta por favor (The bill please)

All went well, until he replied with the amount in Portuguese, he repeated it in English as we looked blankly at him......note to self - must learn my numbers!

After a trip to Intermarché to get food supplies, we made our way to the hotel and was very relieved to find the air conditioning on in the room (temperatures are in the late 30's at the moment)

Our plan is to get our NIF's tomorrow, this is our equivalent to a National Insurance number and you need it to do most things in Portugal. 

Workaway walkaway

 We are leaving our workaway placement tomorrow, it's been horrendous.... here are just some of the problems......

Martin is the laziest man I have ever seen, he does nothing, yet he expects others to run around doing all the jobs whilst he sits and surveys his kingdom, his wife never stops.

He wants to charge workawayers for using the washing machine despite the fact that you will get filthy working for him, we ended up washing our clothes in the shower

He talks down to his wife, he is an arrogant narcissist 

He talks to everyone like they are a child

He disagrees with everything anybody says, he believes he is always right.

He takes pleasure in watching us work but not working himself

He delights in giving us the hard heavy jobs like sorting stones from soil, digging up brambles and removing grass from around the trees. He delighted in telling us there was heavy stones to lift from his car.

The majority of the tools are useless and don't cut, he has complained that Steve will break his loppers if he continues to twist the brambles, instead of cutting them, you have to twist them to pull them out. We are both covered in scratches from the brambles!

 
This morning, he asked me to moderate my egg consumption, when I had TWO eggs for my breakfast. He stated that 'I am eating them faster than the chickens can lay them' They had 40 eggs in the drawer at the time and 7 chickens laying a minimum of 5 eggs daily! I would say he needs maths lessons!

The meals supplied had no/little protein in them hence the need for eggs! This was after a morning of heavy land clearing.

He took our large bottle of water back today as they were running out, and then went out and got more wine not water (drinking water is free from the village font) 

He drink drives and takes great pleasure in speeding and boasting about it saying he has a reputation for speeding.

This is on top of the washing machine saga and the 'we don't feed you if you don't work saga'.. ☹️

We have bought a house!!

 

So....... we got the answers back about the property, they are mending the floor in the bedroom this is included in the original price and then we are having new windows, doors and a new boiler on top of that.

 

We have signed the paperwork to take it off the market and now we need to sort out funds and get a NIF number, you can't do anything in Portugal without a NIF number (bit like our national insurance number)

We love it already and have been making plans including a possible bedroom in the attic, an extended terrace with grape vines, a vegetable patch, chicken area and a yoga/meditation area.

More plans to follow........

More house viewings and 51C temperatures!!

 Wow, what a scorcher..... we had a bit of a lie in today and then left fairly early to meet Mandy our new estate agent who has moved to Portugal from Birmingham!

Apparently we had got our timings confused, the journey was longer than we thought..... we managed to get there by the skin of our teeth although at a much faster speed than I felt comfortable with.....

In the villages, Portugal has traffic lights controlled by speed, so they can turn to red if you are going too fast and slow you down.... an instant penalty for driving too fast, what a great idea......

We eventually met Mandy, another estate agent (Vitor)and the owner outside the first property, the house was ok but the land was too small because it included the house footprint in the measurements. The owner had extra land for sale but wanted 20,000€ extra for it - we must have looked shocked as he quickly indicated it was negotiable..... we declined politely!

We drove to a café, left our car outside and Mandy took us to see the rest of the properties in her car.

The next house looked promising, a terrace outside the house covered in grape vines to keep it cool, outbuildings, a place for the chickens, good land then we saw the bathroom which hadn't been cleaned at all........and it was in the middle of nowhere so again we declined.

The next house was not right at all, the house was awful, broken windows, difficult to get to (windy mountain roads) but great garden (lots of fruit trees) Mandy's first impression was the same as mine, she whispered 'Oh no' under her breath as we walked into the property..... we declined again.

The last two we visited were Mandy's properties, she said that she believed we would like the first one and she was right. The location was right, walking distance from a large village and park, the land was good, olive trees, a terrace, flower beds and lots of space to create what we wanted to create. The house looked good from the outside, a nice terrace to sit on and it looked like a cottage. Inside it needed some work - a new boiler, new windows and doors and a floor in a bedroom needed replacing. The owner had already agreed to replace all of the downstairs floor within the price but we suggested that other jobs needed completing too.

We asked Mandy to suggest a new floor in the bedroom, a new boiler and new windows and doors and ask what price the vendor thought would be appropriate.

We went to visit the village which was also fabulous, it has several cafes, a weekly market, a monthly vegan market, a bank, chemist and several other small shops all within walking distance. We visited a café for cake and coffee which was lovely but was the most expensive we had seen in Portugal, unfortunately this was because it was owned by an English man.

We hit the road again in 45/50+ temperatures and watched the bombardiers in convoy on the roads driving to the various forest fires which are appearing all over Portugal at the moment 

We stopped at another café for refreshments, this time it was owned by a Portuguese man and coffee was back to the regular Portuguese price of under 1€ for a latte. 

The last property was at the base of a mountain, hard to get to, near to a café and a river beach but that was it. There were numerous steps to the property and Mandy thought it needed at least 70,000€ spending on it as there were a number of problems apparent including extensive water damage. A definite and emphatic NO.

Mandy asked whether we wanted to come back to her house for a coffee and to see what they had done to their property, they have been in Portugal for 18 months and have a house with a small amount of land in a village. The house is an ongoing project but already looks amazing with large open plan area downstairs, a small swimming pool and fabulous terrace and two beautiful dogs.

We decided to carry on searching for properties whilst we wait for answers on our favourite property

House viewings

 After an relative easier morning of work in the garden (clearing brambles and mulching), we went to view houses....

After an hour and a half in the car, we arrived in Serta, which was a lovely town on a river. Whilst we waited for our appointment, we whiled away some time in a cafe drinking latte and eating vegetable soup. an absolute bargain at 4.30€ for 2 lattes and 2 bowls of soup!!

 We arrived at the estate agent, only to be told that the estate agent would be 10 mins late, she eventually turned up after 30 minutes, we told her that it was too late to see the property and left.

After a quick trip to the supermarket (thankfully air conditioned) and another supermarket for an ice cream stop where we handed out Cornetto's to strangers ( we could only buy them in a 6 pack), we arrived at the second estate agent. 

He took us in his van to our first property viewing, unfortunately the owner hadn't arrived with the key so we had to wait for 15 minutes, during this time we walked around the outside. Initial thoughts were:-

Land too small

Property too isolated

After looking inside the property, we both agreed, it was overpriced, too small inside, needing a new kitchen and there was no views from any of the windows. On the upside it was cool inside.

The next property awaited so on we went, we arrived very early and drove down tiny narrow streets clipping a step of a property as we reversed! Shouts form inside a house were heard and we quickly parked.

We asked a lady on a balcony if she knew where the property was using hand signals, the odd Portuguese word mixed with Italian and English, she gestured up the hill. We arrived at what we thought was the property and looked over the gate and garden, it was clearly empty.

We sat and waited, the estate agent rang saying he was going to be late

As we waited a small child walked to the font with her mother to get water for their sheep, neither spoke English but the child was listening to an English song with the lyric 'fuck your bitch' in it!

Steve tried to explain it was a bad song but just got smiles and nods from the mother whilst the child carried on listening.

We checked on Google maps to see if we were at the right property as the photos were not matching up, we weren't, we were 200 metres away!

Again.... we asked... using our unique mix of Portuguese/English and sign language, this time, another lady worked out what we wanted and took us, round a narrow alley past  several houses and right to the door, opening the gate and telling us to go and look around.

We wandered around, each of us exploring our priority areas, Steve the garden and me the house!! 

Initial thoughts on this one....

Garden - good size, good soil, fruit and vegetables already growing including 100's of cabbages! Steep terraces in place.

House - much better, a bigger living area, small kitchen needs updating, small bathroom needs updating, nice outdoor terrace overlooking the church, outdoor oven, room for chickens, wine making equipment, good sized loft, new roof and area for entertaining.

Location in a small hamlet, we would have to learn Portuguese very quickly, steep streets, less than 2km to a river beach, cafe and small village.

After the viewing, we both decided that it had potential and would remain on our possible list and we drove to the river beach and cafe...absolutely beautiful location, cafe by the river, old Roman bridge, seating area and font for free water.

Definite possibility however more viewings tomorrow.

Washing

 We asked our Workaway hosts (Ann and Martin) if we could use the washing machine bearing in mind most of our clothes were getting filthy due to the work we are assigned, they replied that there was a charge €5 if they supplied the powder and €4 if they didn't.

Steve asked Martin why they would charge for this and he said that other people had charged them when they had done Workaway. Steve replied that this doesn't mean that you have to charge, you can do things differently.

Martin said that there was a way around this, we could cook more for them, Steve laughed and said we were going to do that anyway

We were astounded as we had just assumed this would be included and we had gone out of our way to get various food items and collect parcels from England for them with no charge for petrol etc

We went away and washed all our clothes in the shower and hung them out to dry on the line. (no pegs)

Then we went for a sleep, when we got up Ann appeared upset she asked us if we could move on from this and said she didn't want us handwashing our clothes, that they had all fell off the line and that we could use the washing machine. 

We replied that of course we could move on and carried on as normal.

Unfortunately, one of my t-shirts had blown away in the wind, we still haven't found it.....

Work....

First day of work....Ann told us to meet at 8am this morning so we got up at 7.30am.... the temperature was already warm and rising.

We set about our day's task with guidance from Scott, hacking the weeds and grass from around the trees so that plastic could be laid down to stop this reoccurring.

Hard, hard work in the hot hot sun meant that we made the decision to start at 6am the following day.

We only worked outside until 11am as the sun became too much....after coffee and water we went inside and made lemon curd and prepared the rest of the lemons for freezing and juicing.

Another rest in the afternoon and we prepared and cooked dinner for everyone.

Second day of work..... Started at 5.45am this morning, much cooler.

Same sort of work but worked until 9.45am which was still hot but better than yesterday.

After breakfast, had a sleep then spent the afternoon chilling in the shade.

Third day of work.......Started at 5.30am this morning, fabulous breeze. Same sort of work but finished before the sun got too hot.

Establishing some sort of routine to the day

5am - Get up

5.30-9.30 - Start work

9.30-9.45 - Shower, wash work clothes in shower as well

9.45- 10.30 - Hang clothes out. Breakfast and coffee

11am - Sleep

First full day......

First full day ..... was a restful acclimatisation. No work, it's Sunday after all, so a lazy day getting to know our Workaway hosts, Anne and Martin, and their son Scott. They've come from Scunthorpe and bought their 2 hectare farm in 2013, so long before Brexit was thought of.  They've had 9 years to develop their quinta and have many varieties of fruit and vegetables growing. Much of the house is completed but still odd bits to finish here and there.

The heat is phenomenal! When there's a breeze it's hot. In the shade it's very warm, in the sun after mid morning it's extremely hot.  Martin took us to get water in the nearby town of Penha Garcia and showed us a few sights along the way, the beautiful church with walk down to a communal pool and old watermill and village, the dam and beaches, a climbing cliff with marked out routes of varying difficulty. A couple of oreoles showed themselves. Beautiful. Later in the evening it cooled enough so that we cleared an empty properties lemon tree. Even the giant toad on the road back to the farm is an adventure.

Day 3 journey to Portugal

 Day 3

Woke early. Travelled from Bordeaux to our final destination of Penha Garcia in Portugal, our original thought was that we would arrive at our destination about 10pm however we made good progress and forgot that Portugal was the same as UK time, so we gained an hour, so we got to our destination at 8.15pm sending our host Ann into a frenzy!

Our Satnav is set to 'no toll routes', however we travelled a lot of the way on the toll roads hopping off before the pay booths driving alongside the toll road then hopping back on afterwards. Very funny. 😆 

All was good and we were welcomed into the family, sharing an evening meal of Cheese and Onion toasties with salad and a Portuguese type of egg custard tart for dessert.

We chatted well into the night sharing stories then settled down for our first night in Portugal. Very very hot bedroom so we had to have the fan on all night.

Day 2 journey to Portugal

 Day 2

Got up and went to Lidl for breakfast food.

On the road again, drove from Evreux to Bordeaux France today. A bit of an emotional day 😭 as we drove through Le Man where Steve had spent time with his recently departed friend Marc. Le Man classic was on, so it was very busy but beautiful town and fabulous cars.

Snacked in the car until we got to Bordeaux where we stayed in another hotel which was besides a stream. Yet again, no vegetarian restaurants so a quick dive into a supermarket and we came out with quinoa, cous cous, eggs and rocket. The perfect evening meal, cooked again on our camping stove.

The hotel was perfect, everything we needed and the smallest bathroom we have ever seen, you could shower whilst sitting on the toilet.

After food, we went for a walk in the forest along the river, stopping off to see a game of Padel in progress. Another early night as tomorrow back on the road!!

Day 1 Journey to Portugal

 Day 1 - Travel to Portugal

Awake at 4.30 and on the road at 5.30am in a dash to catch the midday Chunnel and squeeze in a coffee with Sylvia, Steve's sister.

An easy drive, 2 stops before the Chunnel then we joined the queue ready to board.

Once we had boarded, 45 minutes later, we were in Calais France.

We travelled down through France, stopping at the services on the way down. We got some very strange looks when we whipped out a camping stove and a kettle outside and made coffee whilst we rested.

We stopped in Evreux, between Paris and Le Mans at a little hotel, not the best but a bed and a shower!! We walked around trying to find a restaurant that served vegetarian food, there was none and the supermarket was closed, luckily we had soup and bread in the car and a camping stove, so that was our dinner.