I’m feeling a bit down. The family left this morning after a five-week visit, and now our village feels very empty.
Visits are a bit different than usual for us, expats
Usually your friends and family don’t come over for a cup of coffee or a drink. Usually it takes a bit longer, because you live further away. Our family is an extended one, and has been visiting for as long as we have lived here, but this “hard core group” has been visiting for years and years. With the Red Van and the White Camper.
It has become a wonderful tradition, although it has shifted a bit during the year. First it was in early spring, now it is more towards June. This year it was certainly nice, considering the weather in March and April (a bizarre lot of rain).
Now I’m wandering around a bit lost; doing a bit of laundry, admiring the cucumber plants, and opening the new van HH Master so that it doesn’t get too warm. A lot has happened again during their visit! That is actually tradition too, but now it seems to be the most of all.
My sister of 84 (and still going strong) and my brother (79, and ditto) are the garden champions with the green fingers. As soon as his Red Van arrived, he started chopping the ground to remove all the weeds, roots and all, and replace them with useful plants such as celery, peppers and cucumbers.
Sister Nettie does the pruning. That works wonders, because suddenly all the plants remember that they can also do something like make flowers, and they do that with full dedication. “Is this your hobby?” asks newly arrived Helmy, who has also been coming here for years, “last time this was a bit of a wild garden … this looks very different like this.”
“We have been doing this for years” answers Net with the water hose in her hands, “we are not giving up, now it looks beautiful again …” “So that Ellen can neglect it again” they say almost in unison, and laugh out loud. Luckily those hard workers can laugh about it, because it is very true …
I bow my head in shame
(But I do water the plants, and weeds give beautiful flowers too!)
Brother Korstiaan also made sure that the internet works normally again, because it was a mess since the mother connection was moved from one building to another. “Those TP-Links are routers, so they all want to determine what happens,” he explains, “and now that it is an access point, the mother router is the boss. Computers are just like people, they need a bit of guidance.”
I am happy, after months of nagging about MEO and about IPv4 and IPv6. I sincerely hope, dear readers, that you will never need to understand what this is about!
In the meantime, brother-in-law Dick had his nose under the hood of the HH Master or in a wardrobe that had to be assembled (which they had brought with them for the new house). And sister Tien cut herself almost to pieces on the cladding of the new kitchen cabinets.
And now they’ve gone home again, and I’m a bit sad
No more coffee in the morning, no more tea in the afternoon, no dinner with ice cream in the evening, and then Rummycupping or playing cards. No more sister taking a siesta on the terrace of room 2, no more reading sister on the garden chair at the new house, no whistling brother-in-law on the bathhouse path and no smoking brother on the village square.
A lot has happened. A new HH Master van, a new location for a modest version of the vegetable garden, and a new house. More about that next week, because a few more details need to be arranged before it’s ready to rent out.
But first a bit of “cucumber-season” …
We moved here in 2000 from Rotterdam, the Netherlands, to the Termas-da-Azenha, Portugal.
A big step, especially with two small children.
We are busy to rebuild one of portugals cultural heirlooms: Termas-da-Azenha, an old spa which has been turned into several holiday houses, rooms and a campsite.
You’ll find mosaics and paintings everywhere.
Since 2018 we call ourselves the first B&B&B in the world – Bed & Breakfast & Bathrobes. You can buy a home-made unique bathrobe/housecoat with us.
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
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