Making a house a home, and our first visitors!

Wow! It seems like such a long time has passed since our last post. So buckle up, here we go again…

Friends…

So now we have been in for a few weeks, what’s been happening? Quite a lot actually. Firstly it has been great seeing all our friends again. Our friends from across the pond popped over to have a look at the house. We have had visits from our besties, as well as our friends in the neighboring village. We even managed to get out for a lovely morning walk. We walked with our nearby friends in our village, Isabel and her next door neighbor Tom. We walked to the top of the valley. We had a picnic at the abandoned windmill. The views over our enchanted valley were beautiful.

We also caught up with our Canadian friends. They have moved into their newly renovated house. They have started landscaping their garden area and have begun to work on their stone house.

It’s hot, we need a pool!

One project that started many moons ago was our pool. Before we went to Spain which seems so long ago. The decking to the pool had now commenced so that looked promising. That continued for a few days. The pool guys needed to attach all the pool fittings. They had to finish this before the flooring was added right up to the pool edge. They also had to apply the pool liner. They duly turned up and began work to finish what was started all those weeks ago. They finished on a Friday afternoon and that gave us the whole weekend to start filling the pool.

They returned promptly the next week to finish off the final installation of the pump and filtration system. This is located underneath our main deck. It is protected by a plastic run-off. This was applied under the decking above the equipment. When the engineer finished, he tested it was all working. He then stepped Wayne through the process of testing the water chemistry. He also showed him how to clean the pool and the filtration system. All the tasks needed to keep the pool clean and healthy. He did not speak English, but Wayne got the majority of what he was saying. It helped that he had used similar processes during some of our house sits.

By this time we had sourced and ordered a decent pool cover and winder, which promptly arrived just before our first guests arrived, but we are getting ahead of ourselves a bit…

Now for some storage!

Everything seemed to click into place at this point. The day the decking was being finished off, the builder also fitted the dressing room door. This meant the next day we could start the wardrobes. In the end, we had to wait a couple more days. The door trims and skirting boards needed to be finished. Then, just as we had started to assemble the wardrobes, we noticed that the blinds had arrived at the store. We had ordered them weeks earlier. They were ready to collect.

It turned out that both the wardrobes and the blinds proved to be challenging tasks. On paper the new Pax system from IKEA are very easily assembled. The main carcass, yes, but the rest… We got stuck in. Over two days, we managed to get the wardrobes up and installed. The drawers are the most fiddly bits to do and the shelves are a pain, literally. They are supported by six small pegs. The pegs have sharp edges and need to be pushed in to the cabinets with a bit of force. With so many to do, Wayne’s fingers were red raw by the end!

Now that the wardrobes were assembled, we started unpacking all our clothes. There was a lot of unpacking other things stored away in boxes since our move over four years ago! It was a bit like Christmas really. We were continuously surprised by the things we had forgotten we packed!

Wait, we need privacy, right?

The other pressing job that required doing before guests arrived was to fit some privacy blinds in the bedrooms. Up to then, the solution was to tape brown paper at the windows. A top tip we got from Annette’s sister when she visited. Cheap and easy and fulfilled a function until we could get a more permanent solution.

So, once we had finished putting the wardrobes in, we made the trip into Leiria to pick up the blinds…

We had decided (well, Annette is the one with the design vision, so it was her sign off really!), to install vertical blinds. The design choice was intentional. The vertical lines from the blinds followed the lines of wood cladding on the outside. This added some interesting shadow effects. To save on time and costs we went to collect these in the car. The longest track was over 2.3 meters in length! They brought out the rails. All the rails were placed in a strong cardboard tube. The tube was over 3 meters long! Oh oh!…

So in the car park we started to unpack them. We hoped there was padding that was making the tube that long. Luckily it turned out to be the right decision, as without the packaging the rails fit (Just). We had to lower the middle back seat. They went all the way down into the card front footwell. But it saved a large delivery cost! We won’t be so lucky when it comes to doing the living room windows though!

The next challenge was finding some decent drywall fixings to securely fasten the rails above each window. Yet again, Leroy Merlin came to the rescue. We got the ideal tool and fixings for the job. And we managed to get the blinds up the day before our guests turned up!

Lá Vuelta!

But, before we (the royal we), started to put blinds up, Wayne found time to nip over to Batalha. He grabbed a coffee in his favorite cafe next to the monastery. He also watched the Vuelta Espanha bike race which started in Portugal this year! It doesn’t happen very often that a Grand Tour comes through Portugal. So Carpe Diem was invoked yet again! It was over very quickly, not including the police bikes and support vehicles, but it really is an impressive event!

First guests!

Finally, our friends arrived in their hire car. It was great to see Mark and Andrea, our first guests. It was fitting that they were our first. They were the first friends that flew over from the UK. They helped clear the land just after we bought it. The first helpers were of course our besties in the next village. They’re a given, and our house is always open to them. We wouldn’t be where we are now without them. ❤️

Strangely, all they seemed to want to do was work in the garden! We kept telling them that it’s the wrong time of the year. It was too hot and it was supposed to be a relaxing holiday for them. But, you can’t keep Andrea away from a garden. She was particularly worried about Wayne’s accuracy when strimming near some succulents Annette had planted. She built a small rock perimeter to ensure they were safe! Mark also insisted on trimming back some branches too. Annette and Andrea also went to the local garden centres. They ended up with a collection of plants. Netty will be enjoying some gardening tasks in the coming weeks.

But it wasn’t all work and some fantastic “days out” were enjoyed. Something they barely got to experience when they came out originally. Notably a visit to Óbidos, only to find out Mark suffered from mild vertigo on medieval walls! We were up on the wall, turned around to discover they had decided not to make the climb. We briefly lost them in the bustle of tourists, but intstinct took over and we searched for the nearest bar! Bingo! Found them. Also we had to try the local sour cherry liqueur in chocolate cups (Ginja). (There were lots of variations to try!). We also visited the Monastery at Alcobaça, and wouldn’t you know it, there was more Ginja to try too! We also spent a day at the Templar town of Tomar too, sadly no Ginja was had there. Evenings usually were spent catching up over a few small drinks!

We very much hope to see them again soon! We look forward to their wedding in Malta next year in particular but we hope to meet again sooner! The garden needs some work during the winter months!

More guests soon?

They left to explore Porto (and the winery’s!) and we left to do another house sit. So the house sat empty for a couple of weeks. That is unless any work has been done in our absence (As we write this post). There is still lots of little things that need doing. Isn’t there always.?

During the writing of this post, Wayne heard from his niece in Canada. She (Breagh) was going to be visiting the UK. She was looking to pop over and visit us shortly after we finished our house sit. We can’t wait to see her, especially as she arrives on her birthday and it’s her first visit to Portugal. Let’s see if she loves it as much as us….

We are also hosting our eldest son, partner and grandson in the coming weeks. It looks to be a busy itinerary coming up. We love to have friends and family stay. You can’t imagine how much we have looked forward to being able to do this once again. Our house is now evolving into the home we have always dreamt of. So here is to many more happy memories and lots of fun!

We have obviously aware of the devastating wild fires here in Portugal. Especially during our house sit near Mortagua. There were several nearby. We had to stay indoors away from the smoke. We also had to douse the perimeter with water as ash was falling all around. We are both quite safe and thankfully the fires all seem to be under control now.

So, until next time stay safe ❤️