movingtoportugal

Time really does fly.

Easyjet

Each time we land back in Portugal after a quick work-related trip back to the UK, we always count how many weeks it is until the next time we have to join the Easyjet “speedy boarding scrum.”

However many weeks it is, it always seems to only be five minutes before once again we have that sinking, melancholy feeling that always hits us around ten days before we have a trip back to the UK booked.

Once we get there it is fine – a whirlwind tour usually involving several different clients, a few friends, a corresponding quantity of city-sized hangovers and a couple of nice family visits.

Then, before we know it we have landed back in Faro again, ready to endure the first couple of days back in Portugal which always seem strangely unsettling while we get back into the flow of life in our new home.

In an ideal world we would pop back for work with less frequency than we have to now, but it is part of the deal, and having to spend just five weeks out of 52 in the UK is a lot better than the other way around! Being there and getting on with it is actually the easy part – the nasty bit is the few days before we go, when we suddenly start to appreciate everything about our life in Portugal all the more – rather like the sad end of a holiday.

Anyway, each trip back presents us more contrasts between our old and new lives and serves as a bit of an appraisal as to how well our move to Portugal is going.

This time the main thing I noticed was how miserable the average stranger looks in the UK – all the time I spent pounding the London pavements between clients, the words of Dizzee

Dizzee Rascal - accurate about London

Rascal kept playing through my mind: “take you down to London city, where the attitude’s bad and the weather is shitty…” accurate and slightly depressing!

Dwelling on the negative for just a moment longer, something about the UK we just cannot get our heads around now is the opening hours of shops. At shopping centres in Portugal, shops opening daily until 11pm is commonplace, yet in a city of 8 million people the doors are closing at 5.30pm.

Surely someone is missing a trick if the shops open at the precise times when most people are at work and close as soon as they would get a chance to visit them? One night per week of “late night shopping” until 8pm is a bit of a token gesture and surely in the peak of the summer, 8pm would mean, at best, “early evening shopping.” Next time the UK enters recession, opening shops when people are free to visit them could be a good way to boost the economy!

Before those reading from the UK tire of my whining, I must point out that this time round there were several aspects of our quick visit back we did enjoy immensely: a roast beef dinner, Thai food and shopping in big, well stocked supermarkets.

Most importantly though, we enjoyed a good helping of English banter. Conversations we have in Portugal can be quite repetitive – with expats they tend to be of the “how long have you been here? How do you make a living?” variety, and those with our Portuguese friends are restricted by our limited grasp of the language. It was a real pleasure to chat with people close to us in our native language – we do miss the quick, cutting English wit.

Home sweet home

One wonderful surprise in these conversations with friends and family, is that we now consistently refer to Portugal as “home,” without thinking, rather than England. I see it as an important part of the process that our subconscious minds believe here to be home…

So, the trip complete, we are back HOME in Portugal. As I said earlier in the post, there is generally a couple of unsettled days of “re-entry,” not helped this time by the fact we were not quite prepared for HOW busy the Algarve gets in August, even “up the quiet end” like we are.

As predicted by a couple of expat friends earlier in the year, we have now had our fill of tourists and are ready for them to disperse and give us back our roads, beaches and supermarkets.

Other than that it is lovely to be home, somewhere where the sun is shining and we have time to eat healthy food at a slow enough pace to avoid heartburn. After nine months we are starting to see the good and bad in our past and present lives, but we really do prefer this one

Photo credits: Autodance1234, Chaerani, Arpingstone

Technorati Tags: algarve in august, dizzee rascal, london, Moving abroad, moving to portugal

I promised to some readers a while back that I would post an update on our situation with regards to making our move to Portugal all official. For those who didn’t hear about the fun and games we had the threads can be found here:

Red Tape in Portugal
Portugal Red Tape Rant

I am pleased to say some progress has been made! We are now officially Portuguese residents, albeit currently only for one year as no-one at our local camara (town-hall,) seemed to be able to get their head around the fact that we live here in Portugal but make all our money in the UK via remote working.

The residency was more complicated that we had been led to believe. In the end we needed to have a form from our local village council signed by two residents of the village – an interesting job at the time when we didn’t KNOW two residents of the village. A big thank you goes out to the man in the bar and the lady in the shop!

After we had this form all we needed was passports and tenancy papers and we were good to go. I have made this sound a lot easier than it really was – it required several visits to various government buildings, including an extra two trips when we discovered that Tavira camara had managed to get our address wrong on the first residencia certificate we were given.

Our next task is getting this certificate renewed when our year is up. This involves us getting a form called a “workers S1,” from the UK (now in progress) which proves to Portugal that

Portugal Red Tape

we are still paying national insurance in the UK and therefore covered by a reciprocal arrangement. I think we may need to take a native Portuguese speaker when we come to do this part!

Health cover was next. Until we have our workers S1, we don’t fancy our chances of registering with the local health centre, so if we need a doctor we will go and pay 40 euros at the local private surgery, something a lot of people do anyway. We have also taken out private healthcare for emergencies.

Driving licences are a bit of a minefield, and one that the majority of the expats we speak to choose to ignore, but we have always been determined to be 100% official and respectful of the local laws.

As soon as you become resident in Portugal, or as soon as you no longer live at the address on your UK licence, your licence is technically invalid. It needs to be replaced with a Portuguese licence or supplemented with a piece of paper from the IMTT (Portuguese equivalent of the DVLA,) which makes it legal again.

This part of the red tape was the easiest at all. Twenty minutes at Faro IMTT resulted in the correct form being issued. It is slightly odd that despite having a photocopier onsite they insist you go to a small kiosk down the road to get the documents copied, but if it had been 100% straightforward it wouldn’t have felt right!

So, for now at least, we are completely official and with a bit of time to sort out our taxation situation, the next part of the battle. Anyone going through these processes is advised to take it slow and try to treat any tiny bit of progress as a significant step forward – you do get there eventually.

If anyone is doing any of the bits we have been successful with and would like any advice, please leave a comment and we will try to help.

Photo Credit: Kozumel

Technorati Tags: Moving abroad, moving to portugal, red tape, residencia, residency

Algarve Banana Tree

As promised last week, today we have a guest post from a good friend who visited us last week. Our guest plans to move abroad some day so her visit was as much a fact-finding trip as a holiday – weighing up whether or not Portugal is somewhere she may one day like to live.

As someone who has been thinking about leaving the UK for a while now, going to see friends who have made that big leap and moved to Portugal was a great place to start. Having people who can show you some of Portugal’s best hotspots was definitely rewarding. I did look at the week as a holiday but at the same time everything I did made me ask myself, could I do this all year round?

Once I got to my friends’ place, the fact that it looked like a holiday apartment was nothing new but seeing their photos and home comforts scattered around made me realise that they actually do live here now and this is life for them.

They were telling me all the things that they had been doing and all the places I could visit while I was there as we sat on the balcony until midnight. The enthusiasm in their voices made me realise that not only were they very happy to be here but also excited about sharing this new experience with me, which made me just as excited as they were.

On the first day, as I stepped out onto the balcony, the first thing that hit me wasn’t the heat, as you might expect, but the brightness. Not a cloud in the sky (which was a brilliant blue) and the glare from the white buildings around me made me think twice before opening the blinds without sunglasses again. I did think to myself in the first two days could I live with this heat and glare? But after those two days it was not a problem and as I write this blog back in London under a sky covered in cloud, there isn’t anything I miss more.

In one week we managed to visit five different beaches, all with their own individual pros. We swam in the sea and even that was a different experience at each beach, whether it was the

Approaching Isla de Tavira

change in the water temperature or just the way the waves moved depending on the tide. The sand was different each time too and the journeys getting to the beaches were just as unique. We walked, we got onto boats and for one, we got a small train which took us across a nature reserve and stopped just at the sand. By the end of the trip it seemed like I’d been on several different holidays at once and this was one of my favourite things about Portugal.

Although my friends hardly had a bad word to say about leaving London, I did think to myself while I was here: would I miss this and would I miss that? As my friends said, friends and family are a given but you make new friends wherever you go and ones that matter will always want to come to visit, even from the UK. I have to admit that most of the people we met, whether English, Portuguese or Spanish, were so friendly and after a few years living in London this was a delight to me.

The choice in the supermarket is much more exciting abroad as there is so much you haven’t tried, while so much of things you already know and love are available too. On the last night we were there, we went for a Chinese and I thought to myself, Chinese in Portugal? But it was the nicest Chinese I’ve ever eaten and with a large choice of restaurants and bars, I was never going to miss the food from back home.

Algarve Summer Sky

One night when we slightly over did it and needed a bit of a break the next day: we watched DVDs and TV and if it weren’t for the Portuguese sub-titles I would have thought I was resting in the comfort of my own home. The Portuguese subtitles, although easy to ignore, do help you pick up a lot of the language without even noticing and that is only another good thing!

All in all, I am still keen to leave the UK and at present, Portugal is a very high contender for the top spot of places to go. It definitely helps that if you already have good friends there that will make you feel welcome, it makes it easy for me to go back anytime I need to see more and experience as much as I can before making that big decision! Portugal for me was 10/10.

Technorati Tags: algarve beaches, algarve summer, guest post, moving to portugal

As we look forward to another hot and sunny weekend, I thought I would write a quick post about the Algarve in the summer.

Busy Beaches

We have never been here in July or August before, so the last couple of weeks have been something of an eye-opener.  Trips to anywhere west of Faro are off the menu until September, after our last trip to Praia De Rocha since the tourists descended en masse resulted us using the word “hellhole” without any hint of irony.

We are lucky to live at the quieter end of the Algarve where, although the holiday-makers are very much in evidence, the character of the area seems to survive, and the bulk of the boozy teenagers are kept contained in certain bars!

At the moment, this new summer vibe is pleasing, and the holiday mood rubs off on us in a good way (except for when there’s no room around the pool downstairs!)

It is also good that our ability to speak some Portuguese separates us out from the tourists, and we are quite enjoying showing off our language skills in the butchers and fishmongers!

Weather wise – no complaints here! We had been a little concerned it may be too hot for us, and it may well get hotter in the coming weeks, but so far we seem to be adjusting very well to temperatures in the low to mid 30s every single day. It is surprising how quickly you get used to it – to the extent that if it is 35C one day and drops to 31C the day after you almost wish it was slightly warmer.

The nights are not so straightforward, and we have had some where it hasn’t dropped below 25C in the night and is back to 32C by 9am. These nights, it can be tricky to remain asleep without keeping the air-conditioning on constantly, which isn’t good for the skin or the wallet! All in all though, we are loving this new climate and suspect that by the autumn we will be joining the Portuguese in their jackets and scarves and looking strangely at visitors wearing flip-flops when it’s “only” 23C!

The jury’s out as to whether we will continue to enjoy this complete change of pace and invasion of our new local area – either way you can be sure I will let you know.

Have a lovely weekend.

Photo Credit: Planax

Technorati Tags: algarve beaches, algarve in summer, holidays, moving to portugal, portugal holidays

Readers of the blog from long ago may remember a post called “Worries and Jitters,” that I posted just over a year ago, when I looked into the future and wondered how we would feel about our move to Portugal once we had been here six months or so and everything had sunk in.

At the time, I promised to revisit the questions that I had asked myself and see how the real-life experience compared with my predictions. As we have now just passed our six-month point, I thought it the right time to make good on that promise and see how things had worked out.

I wonder if I’ll miss everyone too much?

Algarve Early Evening

Not really. Our own visits back to the UK, combined with people coming out to see us means we have had plenty of company, and that time you do spend with family and friends is more precious.

We do suffer from the occasional “home-sick” day, and “sick” is the right way to describe it, as it hits you suddenly and really is like a physical feeling. At those times, technology like Facebook and Skype really does become a lifeline, and one we would hate to be without.

Being at such a distance also reveals a few surprises in terms of relationships with others – the people who make the most consistent effort to stay in touch and come to see you are not necessarily the people you would have expected.

Given that I am writing this the day before the world cup, I must mention that however much I love being here, the best place to watch the game is in a rowdy London pub with a bunch of good mates, and I expect to miss this tremendously in the coming days.

I wonder if I will miss the changing weather in England?

No, not one little bit – and after our first Algarve winter (the wettest since 1870,) it is quite changeable enough where we live now!

It is nice to know you will only need shorts and flip flops every day from March onwards, and on the odd day that it does hammer down with rain it is a pleasant novelty. England can keep the frost and biting wind!

I wonder if the locals will accept us?

Almost without exception, we have been made to feel very welcome, something for which I am extremely grateful. About once per week we are served in a shop by someone determined to scowl their way through the transaction and this can be slightly offensive when the same individual manages to be polite and jovial to the Portuguese people ahead of us in the queue. This doesn’t get us down – every country has its share of arseholes and Portugal certainly seems to have far less than London!

I wonder if I will I actually get bored of fresh fish and healthy living?

Well, it’s not that you get bored of fish, but you don’t want to eat it every day. With shellfish especially, its quality and abundance tends to lead to us having a fortnightly binge, followed by a period of never wishing to see another clam again!

Healthy living? Yes, we do spend more time walking, swimming and riding bikes, but my innate inability to keep to any kind of consistent fitness regime does appear to have moved to Portugal with me!

Sadly, life does still get in the way of the very best of intentions sometimes, but it is certainly easier to maintain a healthy lifestyle here without a fried chicken shop on every corner.

I wonder how much I will miss London?

London Traffic

The answer to this really has surprised me. When I predicted my answer to this question I was adamant that it would only be a matter of HOW much I would miss it – I would never have guessed that I wouldn’t miss it AT ALL.

We miss spending time with friends, we miss pub-banter in our native language, we miss reading the papers over a Sunday roast and we miss browsing in bookshops and record shops, but none of this has anything to do with London itself. This leaves menacing chavs, pollution that makes you cough, high prices, maddening traffic, ludicrous quantities of signs and announcements listing things you are not allowed to do, and journeys on public transport that leave you hot, sweaty and cross.

So, no, we don’t miss London at all!

I wonder if it will all be as wonderful as we hope?

The last question is the biggest, and the hardest to give a straightforward answer to. On a web-forum the other day, someone said, as part of a conversation, “nowhere is paradise,” and that was the first thing that popped into my head when deciding how to answer this question.

Wherever you find yourself in the world it doesn’t mean you won’t get food poisoning when you have made plans, it doesn’t mean clients will start paying their invoices on time, and it

Praia De Cabanas, Algarve

doesn’t mean there won’t still be days when you wake up in the morning and simply don’t feel up for it.

However, as I type this I can glance out of my window – I see blue sky, sunlight bouncing off palm trees, and all I can hear are church bells, birds and crickets. I have great quality food to put on my barbecue shortly that cost us next to nothing and a small rack of inexpensive but delicious wine to choose from. I am not still in a car cursing the traffic on the A3, knowing that when I get home all I will have the energy to is decide which menu to order my takeaway from.

Most of all, I can be fairly confident the sun will blaze in when we lift the shutters in the morning and that if I am having an “off day” there is always that endless, glistening sea at the end of the road to lift my spirits.

Would I go back? What do you think?

If you are interested in what I predicted my answers to these questions would be prior to my move to Portugal, you will find them HERE.

Technorati Tags: emigrating, london, Moving abroad, moving to portugal, six month review

I had very much hoped to call this next post “Chilling Like a Resident.” Unfortunately, despite a tour of four different government offices yesterday, it was not to be – we still don’t have our residency.

The two major problems here, as I see them, are firstly that European law changes all the time and therefore the rules change, and secondly that Portuguese officials appear to all be individually free to interpret the law however they see fit.

Computer Says "No."

Yesterday was truly soul destroying and included the “Loja De Cidade” (citizen shop,) the city council, the SEF (basically the borders and foreigners police,) and our local village hall, who really put the nail in the coffin of the day when they said we had to find two Portuguese voters from our own tiny village to sign one of our forms.

We don’t even know two Portuguese people in the village yet – we know plenty in Tavira, but, no, that won’t do. The best plan we came up with yesterday was to ask the nice ladies in the laundrette to vouch for us!

The really annoying thing though, is that I have extensively researched the process for residency on all the relevant sites, including that of the European Union itself, and the fact is that as EU citizens we have right of residency anyway. The problems are caused by the fact that officials here all seem to have their own way of doing things. For example the residency application form for EU citizens they have online wasn’t even the same as the one given to me by the city council!

Adding to the frustration, research on the expat forums shows that many people have managed to get their residency at different town halls with no problems at all and in very quick time – there is just no consistency.

When we were doing our initial research about our move to Portugal, everyone highlighted the red tape as one of the big negatives. Until you are in the situation, and negotiating it with highly questionable Portuguese language skills, it is hard to describe how stressed and helpless it makes you feel.

I deliberately waited over night before I typed this post as I didn’t want to get all ranty, but re-living the situation does make me angry again. The billions of pounds that have been poured into the EU seem to have not resulted in there being a coherent approach to people moving between countries – there are as many hurdles and hoops as there would be if we were trying to move somewhere outside the European “Union.” It already feels galling to need an accountant in both countries as the paperwork is too complicated for one mere mortal to get their head around.

Anyway, we have made a decision. Someone on a forum has recommended a document agency to us. We are basically going to pay someone to sort it all out for us. Days and nights of research have got us nowhere, so rather than relying on the “what you know,” we are going to try the “who you know.” It seems to be the way things work around here.

Some people may be interested to read my forum thread on this – it shows the wide range of theories and experiences people have!

Residency – Aaaargh! Link to Expats Portugal

Technorati Tags: EU, european union, learning Portuguese, Moving abroad, moving to portugal, politics, portugal red tape

Living here in Portugal seems to have made me interested in gardening. It was something I always wanted to be good at in England but a combination of poor weather and lack of time to properly look after the things I had planted made for a certain amount of disillusionment.

Spring Onions were my first priority. They seem to come up in many recipes but are not widely available here – in fact the only bunch I have seen were in posh English-style supermarket, Apolonia, at over five euros per bunch! This made them a very sensible thing to grow for ourselves.

What started off as a pot of spring onions, some rocket and a herb garden soon got out of hand the next time we visited the garden centre. The thing is, most things seem to grow so well here AND quickly, which as an impatient person is important – to hold my interest and prevent me wandering off to find a new hobby!

We now have the following growing, in addition to the things mentioned above: lettuces, strawberries, radishes, peas, tomatoes, peppers, peaches, lemons and kumquats. Every morning when I step outside, something has grown or sprouted, and wandering outside before cooking in the evening to snip some fragrant basil or peppery rocket is relaxing and life affirming.

Various plants including jasmine

All of this edible produce has been placed amongst flowers we never saw in England – delicate looking white jasmine and beautiful purple and white daisies.

Those of our friends in England who teased us and referred to us as Tom and Barbara from “The Good Life,” sitcom when we lived in the Surbiton area will now be amused, no doubt, that it has all come true, although chickens and goats on our small terrace are not being considered!

In other news, the weather here in Portugal is now starting to look a lot more summery, after being given back a little of winter early last week. More friends have booked to come and see us in the near future which we very much look forward to, and, really excitingly, some family members seem to have found a suitable property near to us here in Portugal, so before long we may have some family living nearby, which will be wonderful.

Other than the mosquitoes, which appear to have declared war on us, all is rather good in Portugal right now.

Technorati Tags: gardening, moving to portugal, self sufficiency, spring onions, surbiton, the good life

I thought it would be interesting to give a slant on my sometimes perhaps slightly rose-tinted view of our move to Portugal, so I asked her to write a guest post reviewing her first six months in this wonderful, sunny country! Here’s what she said:

Sunrise on another beautiful day

Being asked to write a guest post for my husband’s blog started me thinking seriously about how I feel about Portugal after six months of living here. It also made me think about the life I left behind in London.

It’s funny how quickly I’ve adapted to some things, while other things still take me by surprise every day. Greeting people in Portuguese and driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road felt natural within weeks of being here, yet I’m still surprised and overjoyed by how bright the sunshine is each morning when I open the blinds.

The cost of life in Portugal is also something I take for granted now. I was genuinely shocked at the cost of dinner out for two last time I was in London: £100 for the meal, plus the train there, the drinks before and after, and the £35 taxi back to the hotel. Here we can get all the fish we can eat for €9 per person – and that seems normal now.

It’s also strange that the things I miss are so different from the things I thought I would. Missing family and friends was always a given, but with regular trips back to England, having visitors here and the wonders of Skype, I don’t actually feel like I’m missing out too much. It’s the little things that I’ve been most surprised about missing – things like spring onions and Thai food (yes, I am as food obsessed as my husband!)

So, how do I feel about it overall after six months? The true answer is that I’m very, very happy to be here. I’ll gladly live with never eating Pad Thai again if it means that I can stay in

Spring onions - Worth Missing Out on

this wonderful country. The people are so welcoming and supportive of (well, amused by) my efforts to speak their language and settle in their country. Each day brings some kind of small triumph, whether using a newly learned word in conversation or making our first green salad with leaves grown entirely on our balcony. Life now is so far removed from those hours spent fuming in London traffic and feeling tired/stressed all the time that I can’t believe how lucky I am to be here.

Before this starts to sound too sugar-coated though, there are definitely some unexpected downsides to living in Portugal. Mosquitoes, for example. While numerous bite-riddled trips abroad have long since taught me that my blood tastes particularly delicious to these flying cretins, I’ve never seen mosquito bites as more than a minor irritation. Until I lived here. Now every bite brings with it ridiculous swelling, incredible itching and the feeling that my skin is on fire. All of which last for days. I suppose I should be grateful that this gave me the chance to put into practice the ‘trip to the chemist’ module from my Teach Yourself Portuguese CD. It’s hard to be philosophical about it though, when my arm looks like a balloon.

Another unexpected downside is… Hmm… Ok, so I’m sitting here stumped as to what else is bad about living here. I do really want to give a view of both sides of life here, but the only other bad thing I can think of is that shampoo is a bit more expensive than it is in England. As is conditioner.

I’ve thought long and hard whilst writing this about whether I have any regrets about leaving London to live in Portugal and the simple answer is no. For someone who values happiness over money and loves the simplicity of life in the sunshine as much as I do, all I am left wondering is why I stayed in London for so long!

Technorati Tags: emigrating, guest post, happiness abroad, london, moving, moving to portugal

Monday mornings are a lot easier to deal with when the sun floods through the curtains as soon as we pull up the shutters. I am very thankful that I really can’t find a lot to complain

Montegordo - just before sunset

about right now, and yesterday as I sat on the beach, I started thinking about all the great times we have had this month. It’s time for a list! Here are ten fabulous things that we enjoyed in April:

1. Spending three hours (yesterday) bobbing around in an over-sized rubber ring in a calm and surprisingly warm Atlantic Ocean.

2. Learning how to prepare and cook fresh squid.

3. Watching fish swimming in the top of the waves at Barrill beach on the Isla De Tavira.

4. Sharing our new home with several of our nearest and dearest.

5. Going to the beach with our friend’s eight month old baby and introducing him to sand.

6. Mastering the use of our new barbeque, with the exception of learning how to stop having to clean it being a HUGE chore.

7. Playing boule on the beach. (Hmm, a bit of a beach theme emerging here…)

8. Driving around somewhere that now truly feels like home with loud, sunny music playing.

9. Sitting outside drinking cheap wine on the first of the really barmy, warm evenings.

10. Exploring some more of Portugal (some the Alentejo and the area around Coimbra – more to follow on the blog at some point!)

It is interesting, when I read back over the list, that none of these things really cost money. Luther Vandross and Janet Jackson were spot on: the best things in life ARE free!

In the interests of balance, as always, here are a few less fabulous things from this month!

1. Discovering that Spain, as well as the UK, must have its share of noisy chavs, demonstrated by the group of children throwing wood at each other on Montegordo beach while their tattooed parents shouted at them. Thankfully this was an isolated example!

2. Coming to the realisation that having to go back to the UK every few months to work is never going to stop being rather depressing.

3. Trying to sleep when mosquitoes are determined to make noisy dives at your ears.

4. Finding out that even though Portugal is a far more friendly country than the UK, there are still a few people in customer facing jobs who need to learn to smile. Chinese restaurant on Montegordo seafront, I am thinking of you

That’s it for today. Have a look at my other blog, www.foodandwineportugal.com for five fabulous foods from this month!

Technorati Tags: 10 things, barril, bbq, best things in life are free, boule, chavs, isla de tavira, janet jackson, luther vandross, montegordo, moving to portugal, portugal, squid, ten things

Just time for a quick update today. April has been our busiest month since arriving in Portugal – three groups of visitors back-to-back, with just enough time to make our home presentable in between times!

It has been wonderful to share our new life with some of our nearest and dearest and as usual it has made us freshly appreciate how lucky we are to be here in the Algarve. We have introduced people to their first iberico ham, shared a range of potent Portuguese liqueurs, and, best of all, enjoyed joining some dear friends on their first expedition to the beach with their 8 month old baby.

SuperBock - no shortage of this at the moment

It is strange having so many people here because the house feels so alive one moment and then strangely quiet and empty the next – it then takes a couple of days to adjust back to having the place to ourselves. It doesn’t help that at the end of our visits we have to go on yet another whirlwind trip to the UK to attend a friend’s wedding (volcanic ash permitting!)

One other thing we are learning quickly is that when people come to visit it means they are on holiday – that in turn means they intend to eat and drink at holiday pace. Whilst it is wonderful to have this infectious holiday feeling around all of the time, I don’t think it is doing our livers or waist-lines an awful lot of good! We have to enforce alcohol-free days and a strict salad-eating regime between guests!

Next month is a quiet one, as we have no more guests until June, so we intend to have a nice, quiet month. We will try not to spend all of our month’s money by the 15th, accept that we have now had enough restaurant meals to last until Christmas and eat a lot of cheap, healthy food. This is the intention anyway! Let’s see how it goes

Technorati Tags: holidays, moving to portugal, portugal, visitors