HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Wishing you all a very happy new year and all the best for 2011.  Hopefully next year will bring some more interesting blog posts, if nothing else :-)

We are going down to the local Irish pub for dinner and some celebrations with our new found friends!

Oh, and also heard back from the architect (seeing him on tuesday!) and went to the land today only to notice that there are massive cracks in the ground from the heavy rains... to be continued :-)

See you next year!!!!

Aaarrrrggggghhhh, no internet

As you may have known/guessed we have been without the internet for some time now.  It is funny to realise how dependent we have become on it and how much we use it.  We do have a dongle (mobile internet) but there is no signal at the campsite so not much help.  hopefully next year we will have it back.

The fact is also that we do not have much to report.  We are still waiting to hear back from the architect as he is yet to receive the results of the typography.  The bad weather was meant to have caused some delays, but that was over a week ago now.

We were also told by the architect that our land is classed as ecological, which means we cannot extend the building that is there and that there will be a lot of restrictions.  We are a little annoyed at this as we asked the lawyer to make sure this was not the case before we decided to buy the land.  Luckily the house that is there is not tiny and it will not really change our plan for the main house, but looks like there will definitely not be any log cabins or any other guest accommodation.

We have been trying to stay busy and not get too impatient, as this seems to be Portuguese way. We have managed to clear some more of the weeds off the land and also cleared some of the house out, after finding out we did not need a license to light fires in the garden from October - May.  We had a spell of very nice weather which meant everything was dry and burnt a lot easier so we tried to get a lot done then. Mind you, the spell of nice weather coincided with the car being broke, which of course meant there was no way for us to get up to the land.

There's another story, the car.... We thought it was just a bit of damp getting in the engine after the (very) heavy rains we had, but even after drying it out the car kept misfiring.  We noticed that the insulation on one of the leads had split so decided to try and get new leads and sparkplugs. We headed off to the local "carshop" and asked them how much it would cost.  They did not have parts for Land Rovers but recommended someone who did, at a price of £150+.  The same parts in the UK were £30.... So we ended up ordering them from Atkinsons in the UK(they are brilliant!!!!) and they sent them over for us, which took about a week. After fitting the new plugs/leads the car ran better but not perfect.  Glenn then noticed a hole in one of the 4 ignition coils.  So we went in search for a new set of these 8as apparently you cannot just buy one)..... And got quoted €500+, while again for the same product in the UK  we'd pay £145.... Anyway, Glenn improvised and the car is now back to more or less normal....

The other day we drove up to a town nearby, Alcobaca, and were very happily surprised when we saw the huge church/monastery in the middle of the square. It was a fantastic old building and it was absolutely massive, so we spent over an hour just walking around all the different parts of the stunning historical buildings.  The architecture was amazing and the sheer size of it was very impressive.

 The rest of the town was a little odd, there was a mix of really scruffy houses, with really old well kept buildings and then new built blocks of flats, all in a completely random kind of order, but it was cute and all in all we had a good day!

Wednesday night we went to Obidos to enjoy the Christmas village they have set up every year, with an ice rink, fake snowmen, lots of stalls selling cakes, bread and souvenirs and an ice bar. We did not go ice skating but decided to give the ice bar a go. We got dressed in a big thick cape and got some gloves to go in. It was not too cold in there, -4, (which I know sounds like summer to everyone in Sweden right now) but the humidity was 98% so it felt pretty cold! And when we stepped back into the +12 degrees outside it felt WARM!

Last night we went for dinner at our new favourite Irish bar and got a bottle of wine for free, which we very much appreciated and enjoyed! Jennifer and Aad in there are too nice to us!! We have decided that's where we will go for New Year's Eve and hope a few more people have the same idea.  The average age in this town has been lowered quite severely by us so it is not the most happening place at the moment, but am sure we will have a good night anyhow.

Well, best go and start preparing that Turkey and the rest of the Christmas dinner.

Hope you all have a fantastic Christmas with good company, good food and lots of fun.

Still Waiting !!!!

Incase you were all wondering what has been going,well the answer is nothing,absolutely nothing at all!!!

We are just waiting for everything at the moment,the topography,the architect and even the parts for the car,so we are slowly going stir crazy in the caravan

Tonight will hopefully be better,we have found a beach restaurant that has a sushi night on a friday so we're going to walk down there and check that out,and then the local irish bar has a live 'local' dj on tonight so a few drinks there later won't hurt! Well it is the weekend :-)

Poor little Range Rover Rach

Yesterday Glenn had a proper look at the car been as the problem has got worse,realising it was not just the damp,after burning his knuckles on the hot engine,Glenn found that the problem was a couple of broken plug leads,not really sure how this has happened as they were only new 6 months ago according to the previous owner,so we set out to find new spark plugs and leads in rachael chugging along,

We managed to find only one shop that could order them in for us which would take around 5 days and cost around €150,so we ordered them thinking this was our only choice,when we got back to the caravan we thought we would try a guy that we have had parts from in the uk before just to compare,it turned out that the parts would be £30 and the postage would take 3/4 days and cost £15,so this is what we did,so thank you to Atkinson Land Rover in the midlands

Today we went out to the land to meet the topographer to assess what exactly is on the land and what can be done,hopefully we will have the results of this probably monday

So alll we can do now is sit back and wait for the parts to arrive and wait to hear back from the topographer,it's not like we can go far without a car and in this persistant rain anyway!!!! :-)

Monday

Woke up this morning and could not believe our eyes when we looked out the window, we saw BLUE SKIES!!!!!  Would love to say we jumped out of bed, but that would be to exagerate. But our spirits were def higher than yesterday, which was spent in the caravan after our failed trip to Lisbon. 

We were getting so fed up with the rain we decided to get the car and drive down to Lisbon to have a good look around.  After driving about 20 minutes the car started playing up.  Luckily Glenn realised it was damp that had gone into the electrics, which made the car misfire, badly. Thank god we have 8 cylinders so we made it back to BricoMarche to get some WD40. The only option then, was to head straight back and we spent the rest of the day in.





View from our window yesterday

 

Anyway, today is a new day and the start of a new week.  We have had some very useful advice over the weekend and have plenty to get on with.  Need to go and see the local authorities about what we can and can't build, hopefully getting the typography done and might even start looking for builders etc.

We also have to go food shopping, which is always a highlight!

Well, best get on and get going before the rains start again (apparently we have till around noon!)

View from our window today!

Rain, rain, rain

Absolutely nothing happening..... it is just raining and raining and raining..... quite depressing actually.  Been warm today though so can't complain there. Better than the 2 degrees we had the other morning I suppose but still....

New week tomorrow and we have quite a few things to get on with so will be good!

1 December 2010

Today was spent up at the land trying to tidy it up a bit more.  However, after the pretty heavy rains we have had, the drive up was a complete mudslide and we could not get the car up to the house, it was like Bambi on ice.  So as soon as the fire was lit to burn yesterday's collection of weeds etc, Glenn spent some time and effort digging out the drive to get to solid ground, not the easiest job when the mud is slippery and heavy!

Susie cleared some more of the unwanted plants and weeds with the newly purchased scythe and tried to keep the fire going, again not the easiest after the rains but we got rid of some of it.

Glenn also dug the ditch out a bit more to get a better outlet for the water when it rains again, hopefully that will help!

The weather has been so funny, been ok in the days but then we have had 2 nights of mad thunderstorms and rains like we've never seen before.  Quite scary when only in our little caravan actually, but quite a comforting sound to fall asleep to (some contradiction there!).

We went to see an architect on Monday, which left us a bit confused.... Basically everyone we speak to tells us we need different permissions and various levels of professionals to do the job.  He was saying we'd be best off getting a typography done (don't ask me to explain it!) and then ask our lawyer to apply to have the plots we bought changed into one big plot (instead of 4 as it is now) with all the correct boundaries and correct measurements for the house showing.  Sounds like a good plan but at what cost and what timescale???

He also said we would not be able to do as much of the work ourselves and that it all needs to be overseen by him, whilst the estate agent thinks having an architect is a waste of money and we can just get on with it as soon as we find a builder.  Oh well, we'll see what happens. Think we may go for the architect option as then at least there will be someone there  to "hold our hand"  through the process.  Luckily we have found the bestest couple ever, Anna and Jan, who are a few years ahead of us with building their house, but seem to have the best life ever and they are always very generous  with advice and help.

Finally getting to see the lawyer tomorrow so we can collect all our documents and fiscal card, which we need to open a bank account.  Fed up with paying the bank charges every time we need something from the shop.

Anyhow, Glenn has made a beef casserole which smells lovely so best get a shower and get ready for dinner!

Our first weekend in Portugal

Saturday was our day for cleaning the caravan and doing some washing and plenty of research regarding renewable energy,it seems that it is possible to build wind turbines ourselves for a fraction of the price,but a lot more research is going to be needed

Sunday

This morning we headed off to a nearby seaside town called Nazare,the sun was out and it was substantially warmer than it has been



After our lovely morning walk on the beach,we headed of to our local town of Caldas da rainha for a proper look around

It turned out to be a nice little town with some good shops and a fruit and veg market where we bought some tasty oranges



Renovate or rebuild ???????

So the big question is,do we renovate or rebuild?
what do you all think we should do?
your opinion would be much appreciated

This is where we are on the map

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=39.330493,-9.089829&num=1&t=h&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=6.881357,14.941406&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=39.330314,-9.089298&spn=0.001938,0.004812&z=18

Land clearance and meeting the neighbours

Today we went to the land early to try and clear some of the overgrowing plants  and finally enter the house.  Susie was not looking forward to the last bit after having had an awful nightmare about the house and the "previous" owners still being there (I tell you it was horrendous!!!!).  We cleared a bit of the plants and then Glenn decided to face it and managed to kick one of the doors in.  There were quite a few remnants of the previous owners, but luckily we saw no bodies or ghosts and unfortunatly no treasure either!!!!  The ceiling has caved in though and it is so old it is hard to understand, but it is standing and there was no damp or any wet patches in there even after the heavy rains on Tuesday so not all bad.  Saw no living creatures in there either so that was a relief.  We found a wedding photo which looked fairly recent so will take that to the estate agent in case the previous owner knows who it is of.

We also met our new neighbours, who seemed lovely.  They told us there had been pine trees growing on some of our land which had been sold and how overgrown the rest of it used to be. Well they told us a lot more but this was the only bit we could really work out with our very limited Portuguese, or rather non existing Portuguese.  They seemed lovely though and hopefully soon we can communicate a bit better with them!

After our mornings hard graft,we returned to camp for lunch and showers and then ventured into the nearest town (Caldas da Rainha) to look for a wireless dongle for the internet,go to the bank and on the way back try to catch the estate agent (Marco)

Finally got the dongle after several problems with Jersey bank cards here,then off to the bank to change our UK pounds to euros.there is only one small bank in the village so we decided to use this,but were told that they couldn't change money unless we had an account with them,but as luck would have it,the Portuguese lady being seved next to us was going to the UK soon so offered to swap our pounds for her euros at the same rate as the bank,great for both parties no commission for either,what a nice lady,also ended up spending about half an hour chatting to the cashier as he had friends in Jersey

Our final stop was with Marco,to discuss our options re the property,he basically told us that if we choose to renovate the existing property we should not need any planning permission but if we want to start again then we do!!!

So now we have some more thinking and planning to do,all in all quite a productive day

France to Portugal

We finally made it to Portugal early Tuesday morning after a somewhat long journey.  The first day after we left France we drove for a nice 8ish hours and managed to set up camp at a nice campsite before dark, had dinner and a good night sleep. Second day started off well with us making our way down quickly and smoothly.  however, when we reached the campsite, which advertised both on the internet and on a board outside that it was open, and found out that it was closed we were slightly disappointed as it was getting late and we were hungry.  We decided to drive to the next town to see if we could find another site, but only made it a few km down the motorway when Glenn noticed something weird in the mirror.... one of the wheels of the caravan had come off and was being dragged along the road creating a large amount of smoke!  So on with the high vis vests and out on the motorway to see how bad the damage was. Lucklily Glenn is a clever and very handy guy so he managed to save the caravan and get the spare wheel on (Thank you Mr and Mrs Murphy for making sure the spare tyre was there and in good condition!!!)

Anyway, so after  finding out there was no campsite in sight, having almost been hit by a driver doing 130 on the hard shoulder where we were parked and being starving we were getting pretty fed up and homesick.  We made the decision to keep driving and after a couple of hours we stopped at a restaurant and had some dinner and some chill out time before setting off again.  We then drove through most of the night with a couple of stops where we had a nap (well Susie had a few of those on the way too).

Once in Portugal we found it was raining A LOT! And it was about 8 degrees so were feeling a bit deflated and  set up camp only to find our electricity cable did not fit and the campsite had no adaptors.  No electricity means no heating and we were cold and tired, so went on an adaptor hunt. Luckily we found one in shop number  2 so not too bad.  by this time we were feeling too awake to sleep so decided to go and see the land.  It was pretty overgrown but still looked lovely so that cheered us up.So as we tried to leave we realised the car was stuck in the mud up to the sills and after a bit of digging we managed to get it out.Even this didn't dampen our spirits!!!

We did some food shopping went back to the caravan and cooked an early dinner and went to bed at 5!! Weather hadn't cleared up much so we fell asleep to the sound of rain drumming against the roof and felt pretty good after all.

Wednesday morning was completely different, woke up early(ish) to a bright sunny day! We got the caravan sorted and set the awning up, which gave us a lot more space and made everything a lot easier. We spent the afternoon going round diy shops and tried to find builders merchants etc. We got some wellies for Susie and a couple of machetes to clear the land.

19 november 2010

We got up fairly early to beautiful sunshine and got our gear together asap to go to Chamonix/Mont blanc.  It was not a long but a truly spectacular journey up the mountains.  Once there we decided to go on the train up on the glacier and then take the cable cars up on the opposite mountain to mont blanc for a full view of the over 4000m mountain top. 

With the sun blazing it was a stunning train journey, there was also new fallen snow so all was white and sparkly, not what we are used to from Jersey.  Luckily the temperature was not too low and there was no wind so not even Susie felt cold, woop woop!

Once back down we had a gorgeous lunch and didn't realise time had disappeared so quickly and after a run up a massive hill (it was, honest!!!) we realised we missed the last cable car.  Can't say we were too disappointed as it looked very scary and we were stuffed from lunch but would have been stunning I'm sure. 

As it was still only fairly early we decided to go for a coffee in Cormayour in Italy, as we were only km from the border and glenn had never been to Italy before.  Had a smashingly lovely coffee and made our way back to ali and dom's.  Went to the their local restaurant for dinner, which was lovely and all in all had a brilliant day!

Mont Blanc

Today we are off to Mont Blanc and Chamonix!  Can't wait :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont_Blanc

French alps

Spent yesterday afternoon drving up the French alps and reached, what we thought, was a staggering 1036m above sea level and the views were just stunning.  Not sure about some of the roads taking us up there as it felt like we could've easily slipped off the edge but obviously we didn't so really enjoyed it.

This morning we spent exploring Geneva, which is half an hour away by train and tram from here so not really a very long trip.  Unfortunately it was raining a bit so our first impression of the city probably wasn't as good as it could be, but saying that we saw some stunning architecture and had an absolutely lovely coffee.

The afternoon we spent driving another route up the mountains and saw loads of snow and reached nearly 1200m. Again the view was stunning and we ended up in Evian, where the bottled water is from. On the way back we went past Yvoire, which we will explore more when we get daylight again!

First post

We have now left Jersey and made our way through France to Saint Cergues in the French Alps. It may seem strange as we are on our way to Portugal but we thought as we were already on the road we'd take the opportunity to go and see our friends here. 

We are probably a bit in denial still of the big adventure ahead and it feels quite nice to have made a stop over so we are looking forward to spending some time with Ali and Dom and do the touristy thing for a few days.  Just the drive here was absolutely stunning and with towing the caravan we had to take it nice and slow and got to enjoy it!

Photos and further updates to follow!