If you are new here, welcome! We are Wayne & Annette and this is our blog about moving to and living in Portugal. If you’ve received it, then you either subscribed or someone was kind enough to forward it to you. If you are a returning visitor, welcome back! Thank you all 😀
Firstly, what’s happening on the house build?
From the last post, we returned to our friends home, our base. We had a very productive week while we were there in between house sits. Firstly we checked on how the house-build was progressing and as you can see from the previous post, it was finally progressing at a pace which gave us a lift and cheered us up.
The weather was lovely during the week which allowed the builders to actually continue some work on the roof. The roof is getting a cork finish similar to the cladding on the exterior walls. It was started weeks ago, but as yet is still not finished. we think it is because of the supply of cork has been slow, but we hope to see it finished soon. The apex is still not covered as well as the edges where the hidden guttering goes. This has allowed rain water to get behind the cork causing streaks where it comes out, but we have been told that these will stop when the edging and roof is completed. It was great to see the builders working and ´singingˋ while working up on the roof!
We took advantage of the sunshine too. We spent a few days getting the grass trimmed and cut back and thinned out a few trees and bushes. It is also good to see that the brambles are not coming back as vigorously as before. With each cutting they seem to get smaller and weaker and the grass is much more quick growing (and much easier to cut and manage!).
The work also continued at pace inside the house. As we were preparing to set off on our next adventures on some more silver coast house sits, the workmen turned up to fit the VMC (or MVHR) system, but we will leave that update for the next post.
So, the wait continues, on to more house-sits…
The remaining house sits over Christmas and New Year are all in and around where we are building. We are not far away so can keep an eye on progress. We have quite a lot of furniture being held for us now and it will be good to know we can start putting it in the house and not keep it waiting in warehouses. We also managed to take advantage of the Black Friday deals here in Portugal to purchase our kitchen\diner table, but like the other pieces of furniture we have got, will need to wait until it’s ready to take its place in our home.
And so on to our next house sit. This was in a very small village near Caldas da Rainha.
Caldas da Rainha is a charming town in Portugal known for its historic architecture, thermal springs, and vibrant cultural scene. The town features a mix of traditional and modern elements, with the lively Praça da Fruta market, beautiful parks, and the renowned ceramics of Bordallo Pinheiro. The nearby Óbidos Castle adds to the region’s historic appeal. Overall, Caldas da Rainha offers a unique blend of history, art, and local character.
The home owners were a lovely couple and they even generously treated us to a delicious and very filling dinner in the restaurant which is just around the corner. “Miguel’s” a very popular cafe\restaurant and handy for the morning walk coffee too!
Our two pets for our weeks stay were Robbie & Ruby. Robbie was getting on in years and down to one eye, and even the good one was becoming foggy, so he needed lots of assurances from our strange voices, but was such a good natured lad!
Ruby was a rescue, and like so many we have cared for could be a little jumpy at sudden noises, but such an excited boy around food and when it was time to go for a walk or play in the very spacious back garden!
The routines were easy to pick up. The area is full of lovely quiet countryside walks. Although Robbie only got short walks and let us know when he was ready to head back, we usually split up with one of us continuing on with Ruby who enjoyed much longer walks. Also, even though Robbie was on some meds and eye drops he took them all with no fuss at all.
We also managed a quick visit to Alcobaça with our friends and walked around a ´Sweets and Liquors´ festival. It was held in the monastery and allowed us to walk around areas new to us. We even sat down to a orchestra playing an eclectic range of tunes!
That week went quite quickly, but the weather wasn’t that great, it was obviously the wet season. So without too much hassle we left the dogs alone to wait for their owners to arrive. Usually we like to be there when they get back, it’s great to see the pets get all excited when they see their owners again! However, we had another sit waiting and the owners had already left that morning, so we wanted to make sure the cats were ok and get some shopping for the week etc.
This was a return sit too, so we were familiar with everything, and this time we didn’t have the dogs, just the cats!
And because we had time to ourselves, we were spending evenings looking forward to the next stage of our house-build. It should not be too long before we start having some of the hardware fitted for our electricity and plumbing as well as the heating and hot water system. We are hoping it goes smoothly, but we won’t lie if we said we were a bit anxious. When we look around we don’t see many systems designed and set up the same way we intend to use ours? It still surprises me why there are not more rooftops with solar PV here in sunny Portugal. When you order something here or get quotes for household equipment, it can be a bit of a minefield. We had quotes in for fire alarms and were given hugely over specified design with items we never even asked for. It happens a lot. Talking with many expats here, you quickly learn that when some vendors here your accent or an effort in speaking Portuguese you can almost guarantee extra zeros being added to your quote or adding over specified gear.
We are hoping it is not like that when it comes to our heating and DHW system. We have followed a few installs and systems on YouTube and are trying to learn the most effective way to run a system similar to the one we hope to have. The technology is now very mature, and makes total sense to us. Currently the plan is just to use solar PV, but in future we may add Solar thermal to reduce load on the heat pump and may be even a wind turbine for those days where the sun is covered but there is wind power available. But that’s a bit further down the road.
Unfortunately we don’t see many videos on systems designed in Portugal, but we do love what Heat Geek are doing in the UK to help educate people in heating and hot water system design. Hopefully it will help us reach our efficiency goals here 🤞.
Now to answer all those who ask “when it will be finished?”. Our architect \builder has said we should be in the house some time in January! That might not be the whole project finished, but we need a home and a place to call ours again. There still seems to be so much to do, but they were confident. We really hope this is possible because we desperately want to have our family and friends over as soon as possible. We are hoping no more delays will affect that timeline now.
If you have made it this far, bravo!
Thanks for stopping by and we look forward to seeing you again soon.
Our Portuguese Life 