Christmas House-sit in Central Portugal

As we said in the last blog, we had to leave the dog and kitten before the hosts returned. That is because they were a little delayed, but we kept in touch and received news they arrived back safely later that night and both the pets were fine and excited to see them again.

We made good time though, and arrived at Kathryn’s with enough time to unload the car, go over a few changes since our last sit and then get Kathryn’s bags into the car to take her to Coimbra station. But, you know how it can be when seeing friends again after a spell apart, we got chatting and as we left for Coimbra the SatNav said we would arrive about the same time as her train was leaving! Not to worry, this is Portugal. There is no where near the amount of traffic we used to experience in the UK. Wayne actually got her safely to the station on time. Her train was in, but she managed to get her journey started on time. A note for the future; keep an eye on times!

We felt the pets recognised us almost immediately and were very pleased to see us again. It felt like we had never been away. We are very familiar with the house and surroundings by now and so we’re looking forward to some better weather this time around. First things first though, a quick shopping trip was required to stock up over the Christmas period, so we headed over to Santa Comba Dão as there were three supermarkets all grouped together and we were able to get everything we needed.

There are a few things you just can’t get in central Portugal. And as it was Christmas we decided to make our own mince pies, so we planned a trip into Mortagua to pick up all the ingredients to do that. Also, you have to start Christmas morning with a bacon butty, right? Thick bacon is like hens teeth here, but Kathryn had left us some British bacon in the freezer so even that was taken care of. Everything was on track to get Christmas off to a great start. We were, of course, missing our family and friends back in the UK and in Portugal, but this year it was going to be a very quiet one with just us alone with the three dogs this time.

Early in the week It was great to finally have some dry weather. Not cloudless skies, but certainly drier than of late, which meant we could get the dogs out for some walks. The way we worked this was to take out the two pups (Phoenix and Cleo) for a longer stroll and once we got back take the older (Cassie) out for a short route so she didn’t feel left out. She would never be able to keep up with the two younger ones and we would struggle with three being constantly tied up in knots!

There was one day which was predicted to be sunny spells for the most, so we decided to visit the nearby park and arboretum of Bussaco. Looking at various posts online there was some interesting walks from the town of Luso and looked to take only a couple of hours, so we sorted the dogs out and headed out to explore the park. The one thing we didn’t take into consideration was the need for a clear and accurate route map. Instead we relied on our natural sense of direction and Google Maps! What could possibly go wrong?

To be fair, we did not go too far amiss, but we definitely went off route a couple of times. We also stopped for a coffee at the palace as we needed some refreshment from all the climbing! And that wasn’t the end of the climbing either, as our goal was to reach the highest point of the Bussaco Ridge to take in the views. No snow, but mild weather, misty but great views. We managed to get there, but took longer than we had hoped. The dogs were glad to see us on our return and quickly disappeared to finally do their business, bless them!

So that was basically our Christmas period done. A few walks with the dogs between rainy days and a nice visit to the Bussaco Park. Netty cooked a fabulous full English Christmas dinner using chicken instead of turkey, but the Yorkshire puddings and roasties were exceptional! We had all the trimmings too, and Netty did something with falafel and butternut squash, so we certainly over-indulged which is only proper at Christmas.

So that’s where we will leave you for this post. Just approaching the new year… We hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and are looking forward to a great New Year.