Shortly after we arrived back after our previous house-sit, we were to pick up the paperwork from the architect and head over to Leiria to the e-rede company site to get the electricity contract sorted. So with a relaxing weekend over we were refreshed and headed over to the office to pick up the papers. However, when we were going through all the documents we found that one of them (contração Permanente) was out of date. It would take a couple of days to get that ordered online and get our ducks in a row once again, so we headed back to the land to see how the recent rain had affected the weeds.
As expected the brambles and other weeds were coming back so a days strimming was in order. At least it’s quicker now than when we first got the land. To strim it back used to take two or three days. Now if you knock the brambles back they get slower and weaker and seem easier to cut each time.
We also thought about all the wood and branches we had cut in the past months, unable to burn them because of the summer heat restrictions. It dawned on us to actually try and chip or mulch them and put them back on the land. That meets our sustainability ethos, and will help keep back the weeds too. We just need to figure out where to get a good chipper from!
Wandering around the site we discovered a walker or cyclist had been cut short and decided to crouch behind the foundations for a dump! Not a pleasant discovery or something we wanted to clean up! Eeeewwwww!
During this week of waiting etc. We had been spending a few nights round our friends Bruce & Paula’s in the village. It was nice to catch up and have a few drinks and enjoy some lovely food prepared by Paula. We also met and got to know their friends Rob & Maria who were visiting for a few days. We hope to see them at their new house, when they return in December.
Wayne also got to grips with cutting down the fig tree where the car port is going to be situated. That is a real shame as it’s the only fig tree on the property. It was an established tree that produced a great amount of figs too. It was full of figs just before our last house-sit, but unfortunately they were not ripe enough to eat, and this time round they were all but gone. There are also a couple of young oaks (not cork) in that area that will need to be moved or cut down to. However, we plan to plant many more than we are removing, so it will all equal out in the end.
The renewed certificate had duly arrived a few days later, so we planned to kill a few birds with the same stone and planned a busy day!
Firstly we went into the bank to collect some cheques we had ordered in Oliveira do Hospital that had been forwarded to our branch in Porto de Mos. Annette also asked for some statements to be printed as the banking App doesn’t show adobe pdf’s on Apple devices! That done, we had a nice coffee before heading to the health centre to get our overdue tetanus & diphtheria boosters. Again successfully done without too long a wait.
We then headed to the architects to pick up the documents required to arrange the electricity contract. We arrived at the e-rede offices to learn that the paperwork was in order, but that we needed to actually go to a providers office to do the contract. Knowing we had already paid EDP, we headed to their office in Leira. After handing over the paperwork and communicating in English and Portuguese and phoning the architects office to confirm we had the right process, it was all completed fairly quickly. That left a bit of time to head off to Leroy Merlin’s to get a spot of lunch and a look around pricing things up!
We headed from there to the ‘Occasional’ or second hand store where we had reserved some nice retro benches that Annette had taken a shine to. We paid for them, as several people were asking about them too. We also took the opportunity to shoe-horn one into the back of the car to take to our friends who had kindly offered to store them. This was particularly useful as collecting them ourselves had knocked €100 off the price! Bargain. Not too sure where we will use them just yet, so it will be interesting to see the spaces in the property when walls are up and closed-in with doors, windows and a roof!
A day or too after all this had gone on Wayne was back at the land finishing off the fig tree chain-sawing! The wood was very heavy and must have been full of sap. This is where an important lesson came to light. It was the following day when Wayne’s arms started to get red with a rash and quickly inflamed and blistered. It turns out that the sap from fig trees can be harmful, especially when exposed to sunlight, and it was a particularly hot and sunny day. The results were a bit shocking.
A trip to the local farmácia was pretty ineffectual, and they advised he saw a doctor. So the following morning Wayne took himself off to the health clinic and got seen fairly quickly! They dressed his worst arm and smothered the effected areas in cream. But a lesson was learned about fig trees!
However, rewind…
While he was chainsawing the tree, the engineer finally turned up to connect the electricity.
This was actually quite a milestone, as the build does seem to be taking a long time, but we did get assurances from the architect that the progress can start immediately and we should see the rapid progress that is a feature of wood frame builds.
We also featured in a recent interview with Luise from Solo 50 Plus Expat Portugal. This was mainly about our house-sitting, but she was very interested in the house building experience and we may be talking about our experiences in more depth in the future…
You can see the video HERE.
Until the next one… Make the most of each day and be happy!
Our Portuguese Life 