Tuesday 28th September 2021Blog from the Edge - 13

Bread and Yoga!

Another week and another set of visitors leave smitten with Madeira and looking for a place to buy for themselves!  Our friends want an old house rather than a new build (which are sprouting up all over in the most precarious spots clinging to hillsides).  Although there are plenty of derelict little houses dotted around, hidden among swaying banana plantations, it is very difficult to trace ownership of them.  A lot of families emigrated - Venezuela was popular - because of the lack of jobs on Madeira before the tourist boom hit.  When we were looking around with our visitors, it made us so aware of how lucky we are with our house in Ribeira Brava.

Our visitors gave us lessons in bread making and yoga (the yoga outside on the bedroom terrace), both of which I hope to keep going.  Paul was given advice on installing a water feature for his ‘cave project’ - all exciting stuff!

We were invited to Bar Rio on Friday for Paula’s birthday (her and her husband own it) and we were among a merry throng of family and friends and customers.

My sister and brother-in-law arrived last night 🤗 -  we ended up eating and drinking rather late and going to bed rather early 😳!  A date at their pool today was arranged - such a hardship!

As we approach October the weather is still beautiful - still hot through the day but cooler at nights. There’s not a cloud in the sky these mornings, but there is a mistiness on the horizon, which gives an autumnal feel.

Monday 09th August 2021Blog from the Edge, 6

 A Mixed Bag

It’s been a mixed bag this week on the weather front, with some gorgeous, very hot days full of sunshine and blue skies - and a couple of cloudy days, with cooler temperatures and clouds blowing down past us down into the valley below. We saw our first rain in 5 weeks last night - not heavy, a steady, gentle soak, but it was still warm.

This week’s been a mixed bag job-wise too. Paul finished clearing the garden, and we’ve been burning rubbish. I’ve been planting up numerous pots, sewing curtains, and giving four very sad chairs found in the cellar a new lease of life, with a few coats of paint. We’ve hung a few more things on the walls (not a hammer and nails job, as they’re solid concrete) and Paul has started work on clearing the cave. Note the dry stone wall 😁!  In between we had a couple of very nice meals in Ribeira Brava and Bar Rio.  Oh, and Paul’s had an excellent hair cut!

Progress has been made on the electrical front. We now have numerous sockets, so we can dispense with a few metres of extension cables running throughout the house! 

Excitement is building as we may have our first guests in a week’s time - my daughter and son-in-law and two grandchildren 🤗

Tuesday 03rd August 2021Blog from the Edge - 5

Monday 26th July 2021Blog from The Edge - 4

Here is Alison's latest blog, below, about our move to Madeira. We're making progress with the garden, house, and becoming Maderians - with a little help from our neighbours.

Light, a Lesson and a Secret Cave

Well, we’ve got a fledgling orchard!! 😆 We now have 17 trees and we’re waiting for 2 mango trees. September is the best time to plant these, seemingly.

A lesson (and yet another gift ) has come from Nono, who lives nearby and is doing work for us after his work hours - a great guy, very clever! Nono’s been showing us how to skin and clean the local Dorado fish 🐟. I think I’ll be giving this a miss in the future 😳! It’s far easier eating it at Bar Rio, bbq’d in onion, garlic & parsley - delicioso!

We also have outdoor lights! We had the original lights, that belonged to the house, restored and cleaned, but the switches and electrics still need to be tweaked. The switches don’t correspond with the lights - a bit confusing to say the least!

If you zoom in on the orchard photo, you’ll see on the back wall there is a pile of stones. Jose, our garden helper, started pulling the stones away and there’s a cave buried behind! So we going to excavate it, remove all the stones and make a feature of it. If there’s water there, we can incorporate that somehow too.

Looking forward to a delivery of more plants tomorrow- more on that next week. 😆

Monday 19th July 2021Blog from The Edge - 3

Water

Precious water - you realise the importance of it when you haven’t got it! After 2 weeks of a mere cold trickle for a shower, we now have 2 super duper brand new showers, spilling out powerful jets of hot water. It turns out that there was a fault on the solar panel and the filter was clogged.

Outside, Paulo our lovely neighbour, delivered the lesson of the Levada system to us. We get a time slot every week to fill our 2 water tanks - to be used for the gardens.  He gained permission for us to get an extra flow to flood the orchard where we’re going to plant numerous fruit trees.  

This week will see us burning all the debris from the orchard and garden in a makeshift incinerator (we’re not allowed to burn without one), then there’ll be lots of weeding - and finally planting.  

So far we have purchased a range of fruit trees:

3 lemon, 3 lime, 2 avocado, 1 orange, 1 guava, 1 fig, 1 olive, 1 grapefruit, and we’re waiting for 3 mango trees 😊. We already have a few banana trees.  Can’t wait to get planting!

Tuesday 25th August 2020Madeira Move

Tuesday 25th August 2020Homage to Riddlehamhope Sequence

Tuesday 21st July 2020Moor House Farm Feature

Wednesday 17th June 2020Gallery Open by Appointment

Take care and very best wishes from myself and Alison. 
 

Tuesday 19th May 2020Empty Chair, Madeira