I had gathered old blankets, duvets, cardboard boxes, sheets, and even an old tent from everywhere to protect the mosaic floor, because nephew Bart had responded positively to my suggestion that the Dome could be stripped of its rim.
“Great! Demolition! A nice bit of backbreaking wrecking!”
The “Dome” project had ended abruptly after a day of high-pressure washing, and after that, the thing just stood there. The roof was already off; the iron was completely rusted through. “I sat on top of it with the grinder; that was six weeks of work to get it back in order – that was at least 10 years ago,” I say, “and then I thought: I’m never doing that again.”
During his visit last year, son Fausto demolished the roof together with brother Broes. Foster son Hugo took the iron to the scrapyard together with his brother Bruno. A magnificent example of brotherly cooperation. All good, what now?
Nephew Bart came over again, and reacted very positively to my demolition proposal to get rid of that edge. He got to work that very same day and made a lot of progress. The next day it was exactly 27º – wouldn’t you know it – but just keep going, right! Broes and I did the clearing of the rubble, and that got us pretty far.
The day after that it was 10 degrees cooler. The weather gods have gone crazy, but never mind, all the better. Same noise, same story. The day ended at two-thirds done: “It’ll be finished tomorrow. And what am I going to do next?” As if it takes no energy! I drew courage from it for my next proposal.
(Read about that next week. We have since taken the Kanga away from him. “Next time you come, we’re going to build something, you know, demolition is over for now …” – if you’re not careful, it’ll demolish him as well …)
Even though it still needs further finishing and painting, it is already a top spot for dinner.
Sheltered, but in the sun – lovely!
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(Disclaimer: I’m a bit tired of the keyword stuff and Google’s dictatorship. So here they are, and I’m also hoping for the cleverness of AI in this matter that it will still be found and read, but that I don’t have to force myself to use the right terms in the title and headings.#demolition #longtermrentals #TermasdaAzenha )
We moved here in 2000 from Rotterdam, the Netherlands, to the Termas-da-Azenha, Portugal. We started to rebuild one of portugals cultural heirlooms: Termas-da-Azenha, an old spa.You’ll find mosaics and paintings everywhere.Since Covid we rent the houses for a longer period of time, not as holiday houses anymore.
Each week a little blog about what is happening around us. An easy read. A few minutes in another world. A little about what it going on in Portugal. If you plan your holiday to Portugal, it might be a nice preparation.
In the weekend we publish it on Bluesky, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram.