Marble

The marble slates for the window sills were delivered and placed today. We are now ready to have the windows measured, which is set for Saturday, and to be made and hopefully be placed in the month of August.

More new pictures under 'updated photos of the works,' including pictures of the finishing of the ceilings and walls on the top floor.

Sand + Water =

a lot of wheelbarrows filled with cement to push around in 40+ degrees Celsius

ps. A couple of new pictures under 'Updated photos of the works'

Full Moon

New pictures posted under 'Vegetable Garden' and 'Updated photos of the works'

Man at work...

Carrying up cement buckets for the leveling of the floors on the 1st floor of the house: laundry room, extra bathroom and reception area.

A hopeful attempt...

All the trees that were along the side of the house have been removed and they have started the leveling out of the ground to see where the terrace will come on this side of the house. Amazing what a huge digger can do in about an hours time.


In a hopeful attempt to save the trees, we have replanted them along the border of our garden, but seeing as it is mid-summer, 35 degrees outside and we haven't seen any rain since June 8th, it might just stay at an attempt. But it's worth a try! And it served as a nice conversation starter with our neighbours, who all stood there watching us and shaking their heads that it wouldn't work. Guess we'll just have to wait and see...ok, the garden calls, I better go water the trees!

Zucchini for dinner...

from our very own garden!

Morning Sunshine

View from the balcony

Vila Nova do Ceira

River beach in V.N. do Ceira

The area includes a sand beach, a grassy area by the water with trees that provide shade, picnic tables, a cafe with snacks and refreshments, and a playground for the kids.

Picture of the day

So we decided it might be nice to start something like 'picture of the day', but seeing as we are pretty busy here we don't think we can promise a picture everyday, but we'll try our best.

Here is today's picture of the day, the only floor in the house that we originally liked has now been removed, or more precisely, broken into millions of little pieces by a jack hammer. A little bit sad, but definitely looking forward to the new tiles we chose to replace them.

Kayaking

Kayaking from Penacova to Torres do Mondego (right outside of Coimbra). We started around 11.30am, made a stop at the praia fluvial in Zorro for lunch to arrive at the finish line, 18kms from our starting point, at 4pm. A day filled with sunshine, water and lots of beautiful views!





Individual kayaks are available as well as double kayaks, and there are many river beaches along the way at which you can stop for a swim.

Serra da Estrela

Serra da Estrela is a beautiful Natural Park and the highest mountain range in Portugal, located at 100km from us. It offers amazing hiking, skiing in the winter and many other outdoor activities.
Check out the tourist website: http://www.rt-serradaestrela.pt/ENG/index.html

Chopin

Chopin is the newest addition to our family and home here in Portugal. On June 19th we adopted him from an organization in Lousa that takes in stray, lost and abandoned cats and dogs in hope that someone will adopt them.
Chopin had been advertised on the blog (http://louzanimales.blogspot.com/) since the day before my birthday and since Chopin's (the composer) first name is Frédéric we decided we just had to give him a home. Too many coincidences to just let that pass us by!