Janet and me on the patio of our villa
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I was a schoolteacher and Janet (mainly) home-educated our two children. When they flew the nest so did we. Emigrating to central Portugal we lived in a villa for two years before looking for something new and positive to do.
After visiting over forty quintas (farms) we found and bought one on a gentle south-facing slope with mountain views and established but neglected olives groves and vines. We are now bringing it to life, learning how to do it all ourselves – vines and wine, olive trees and oil, irrigation and farming.
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I changed my dinner jacket, smart clothes and town car for bib-and-braces, farming boots and a tractor. Our semi-detached house in Surrey for a farm cottage without water or electricity. My proficient English for beginner’s Portuguese. My six-day week of 8.30 – 6 for dawn ’til dusk. The drone of the M25 for the trill of bee-eaters and sweet song of nightjars.
A happy story.
March 18, 2010 at 12:39 am
this is fascinating. I have to make time to read it all.
April 20, 2010 at 2:27 pm
Hi Clive, this sounds like good fun apart from the broken bits. You fully fit?
April 21, 2010 at 7:34 am
Certainly am, and full of energy too! Its great to hear from you , Paul
Will email you separately.
June 24, 2010 at 1:43 am
Hey! Met you on wunderground, but wunderground has now twice lost all my recent messages, and my computer has had to be reconfigured, making my communication spotty. Hope all is well in the hills of Portugal, that your garden is growing well, and you have a decent camera to take pictures of all the awesome birds. You will have to remind me what your wunderground handle is.
Blessings, bikesnapper
June 24, 2010 at 7:23 pm
Hey Terry, nice to re-contact you. Unhelpful that Wunderground lost all your messages
On Wunderground I’m cgb, and thanks for the good wishes. As requested, I posted a pic showing a little more of our orchard in Serpins, and will do more soon. I guessed work or family were occupying you full-time. Our garden is producing veg so fast . . . courgettes at two kilos each, five at a time! (any good recipes???) and the tomatoes are about to ripen – guess its ratatouille time!
My new camera – brilliant! Me – dim! Packed the wrong lead when we went to the quinta and now I can’t upload pictures of storks, partridge, red-rumped swallows living IN our house! etc.
I ‘ve copied and pasted the last message I sent you via Wunderground below, so you can be back up to speed straight away.
Look for ward to more chat soon
Hi Terry,
Sorry about the delay in replying, farming and family keep me occupied!
Location – Spain and Portugal share a common heritage and form a peninsula known as Iberia on the west of Europe. The northern half of Portugal is mountainous, the capital Lisbon is coastal and in the middle, and the southern half is much flatter. It’s a gorgeous country with LOADS of history. Both our houses are in the central region, Beiras. From the patio of our villa I once estimated that I can see 0.1 million trees up and down the valley. Very different in character, the house in the quinta is near a small village of a hundred or less folks and has far fewer trees around, and longer views – will post when my new camera arrives. Yes, I noted that you use a Panasonic camera; it helped me decide on one for myself – thanks! The quinta forms an equilateral triangle with two “cities” which in America would be called towns. To our north is Fundão (pop 8,500 and Wikipedia describes it) and to the south is Castelo Branco. Both have one cinema with one screen, Fundão isn’t big enough to have a football stadium. Small town.
Temperatures – my blog shows it all, definitely not humid, in fact I have spent many hours over the last month putting irrigation into the veg gardens – I am off to market shortly and when I return I’ll plant more seedlings and install irrigation for them. It is arid in summer, and in winter down to a few degrees below freezing but rising to above freezing when the sun comes up. Very rare to get several days below freezing. Snow doesn’t stick here, but from the top of our land we see the Serra de Estrella which is topped with snow November to April. It gives a katabatic wind about half the time.
My wife Janet was a language teacher when we met, and when we emigrated 25 years later I had to learn Portuguese. I am now fluent but not perfect, speaking the language as well as our neighbours but with more elaborate vocabulary as befits an ex-teacher!
I looked up Springfield (Wikipedia again) where you live and discovered it is a good size modern city. Do you live centrally or in the suburbs? Your weather is listed as the most varied in the entire USA, which for “weather nuts” would make it a great place to be. Do you like it, or is it just a place to earn a crust?
I can see why you like to cycle around; your town looks good for that.
Just returned from market, where one can buy all manner of veg garden plants in bunches wrapped in newspaper and tied with agricultural plastic string – for example, 200 onions or 36 cauliflower plants for three euros (under $5). There are about thirty plant stalls, four tree-sellers and three grain merchants. One stall sells stills for making moonshine! Three sell chicks, ducklings, geese and rabbits. It’s a real old-fashioned farming market. Cobbled pavements and road . . .
Temperature now (4.40pm) is 38.3°C in the shade and I have to go and water the fruit trees I planted in February. Without our solar-panel pump there would be no water for them and they would have a harder time than they do now.
Will post new pictures as soon as I can.
Best regards, Clive
February 3, 2011 at 7:20 pm
Hi Clive,
Not sure if you will remember me from St Johns although clearly remember chemistry lessons with you. I saw your piece in the Old Johnian magazine and thought I’d check out your Blog. Fascinating stuff, you and Janet seem to be making an excellent job of your new lives. I’m very jealous of where you are living and what you are doing.
I have turned full circle and gone from being a teachers pest to teaching myself. I have been living in Glasgow now for 12 years and primary school teaching for the last 4 years. My primary 7 class have aquired a very good knowledge of chemistry despite it not been specifically on our curriculum!!
I hope things continue to go well and I’ll certainly keep up to date with your progress via your blog.
Regards
Paul Tyler