Snake!

According to legend, Saint Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland. He chased them into the sea with some sort of Holy Stick (or whatever) after they disturbed him during a 40-day fast. Good old Saint Paddy.

Actually, that's probably not true, Fact Fans: Wikipedia tell us that "all evidence suggests that post-glacial Ireland never had snakes."

Here at Casa Cecilia, our Paddy is just a dog - a scruffy dog and undoubtedly one of life's Slow Learners (although he is Portuguese/English bilingual, which is a lot more than I can claim.) In short, he's got a good heart, but he's no saint.

Today, however, Paddy got the chance to demonstrate his own admirable snake-herding skills. If post-glacial Ireland wasn't bothered by the bastards, modern-day Portugal certainly is.

Working in my study some time after lunch, I heard him jump off the bed in the next-door bedroom, scramble across the floor and begin barking and snarling. The unearthly hissing response that followed convinced me that he'd squared up to one of next door's cats, so I headed that way to sort it all out, pursued as always by a very nosy Dachshund.

A snake! A bloody snake! Rearing up and seething and spitting at my precious dogs, with a look on its face that I know damn well I'll see again and again in my nightmares. He was a big bugger, too.

I'm not proud of what follows. I'd love to say that I brandished my Holy Stick and drove the bastard into the sea. Instead, and in the spirit of Next Best Plan, I got up on the bed and started screaming. And I kept on screaming until Tim came galloping across the verandah and into the bedroom.

Within seconds, he was armed not with a big stick, but with the nearest thing that came to hand: a dustpan and brush. The snake was unimpressed, and in any case, far too big and far too angry to be shepherded happily into said receptacle.

I somehow managed to drag both dogs into my study and shut the door. The lock was on the outside, or I'd have used that, too. In the meantime, Tim somehow managed to convince the snake to shoot off out of the door, along the verandah, off to god knows where. But I'm pretty convinced it's still watching me as I type this. The bastard.

I've always been suspicious about phobias. While I wasn't that keen on snakes before, I would never have said I have a phobia. And I've probably not developed a phobia about snakes today (ophidiophobia, for those Fact Fans who are still reading), but I've certainly developed a new-found respect for them.

And, perhaps, a new-found respect for scruffy old Paddy. He may not not have driven the snake out of Casa Cecilia, but he at least alerted me to its presence. And he didn't let the snake creep up on me (oh god) while I was working at my desk.

Tim has since identified our unwelcome visitor as a Montpellier Snake - Malpolon monspessulanus. There's a picture at the top of this post - yes, I DID pick the most scary example I could find. They can grow up to 2.5 metres in length.

Wikipedia again: "The rear fangs reduce the possibility of venom injection and the venom is of low toxicity." That really doesn't make me feel any better - but Paddy's constant presence is quite a comfort.

Things we laughed about this weekend

Well, the trip to Northern Ireland was wonderful, as were my sister-in-law's family*, both in general terms, for putting up with me and my sister, and more specifically, for lavishing us with food and drink in abundance.

My beautiful nephew was his usual placid self (I can say that because I've met him three times in his 10-week-long life, not bad for an auntie who lives in another country) and looked fabulous (if highly flammable) in his christening outfit. He took the whole darn shooting match in his tiny stride. It was wonderful.

Here are some of the many things we laughed about this weekend:

1. How I managed to spend over £100 in Monsoon at Stansted Airport - before I'd even reached my destination, dammit.

2. How passengers on the Stansted-Belfast Easyjet flight, mostly stag nights, sung 'Happy Birthday' to a well-known (apparently) boxing coach, who was also on the flight.

3. How FURIOUS our Dad would have been about modern Celebrity Culture, were he alive today. (We also talked in passing about how happy his grandson would have made him, but that's too sad for this list, which is maybe why we didn't talk about it for very long.)

4. How little kids at Mass kept poking me and Daisy in our backs during the service. (We're not from round there.)

5. How the priest (again, no names) made an interesting analogy in his sermon between the London A-Z, search engines, Satnav systems and Jesus.

6. How anyone male and over 60 felt obliged to snooze in armchairs after lunch, including Priest.

It was all SO lovely. And no, in the interests of privacy, I won't being putting pictures up here. But above are some very lovely sandals I bought at Gatwick on the home. Four flights in four days. Tiring, but so totally worth the trip in every respect.

(*Names withheld in interests of privacy and sister-in-law's career. Although if you google 'Twentyman', you may just stumble across her identity in any case, that's all I'm saying.)

Reasons to be Cheerful

I'm feeling a bit 'blah' tonight. A bit 'meh' about everything. It's probably work-related: I've been really heads-down on a couple of features this week and I'm pretty much fully booked with work until well into June.

This, as I constantly remind myself, is a Good Thing: more money means more work done on Casa Cecilia, although not necessarily in less time. (I refer my loyal readers back to the '3 T's Principle' blog of last Spring, the general gist of it being that, in Portugal, Things Take Time.)

The weather today (and yesterday) probably hasn't helped. Very moody, very hot, very overcast and with the occasional lightning show, but no real rain, which would at least have the benefit of Tim not having to spend over an hour watering the vegetable patch each evening (pictured above in its fully glory.)

So I thought it might be a good idea to list my current Reasons to be Cheerful, an idea lifted entirely from the Ian Dury and The Blockheads song, Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3 - a song that I loved as a 9-year old, even if many of Ian's Reasons somewhat passed me by at the time. Certainly, I didn't understand the reference to "lighting up a chalice" (ahem) or know who "Bantu Stephen Biko" was - but we all live and learn, eh?

These days, there's a couple of lines in the song that remind me of Portugal and our Portuguese friends:

"A bit of grin and bear it, a bit of come and share it,

You're welcome, we can spare it, yellow socks."

(Well, maybe not the bit about yellow socks, but you get my drift.)

Anyway, I digress. In no particular order, these are my Reasons to be Cheerful on this stormy Tuesday night:

1. I wrote a feature on Monday that was delivered way past deadline and caused me no end of anxiety (and, arguably, an unwarranted degree of procrastination), but my editor loved the finished product. (I know this, because he emailed me: "I love it.") And reading it back now, I think a bit more of my Natural Voice, and not just my Journalist Voice, is starting to come through, which is EXACTLY why it's important for me to blog.

2. We went for a quiet drink and game of pool at the village bar on Sunday night, and were quite unexpectedly whisked upstairs to an Impromptu Private Party, for the simple reason that Vitor had won a whole suckling pig in a raffle at a local football match in Travanca do Mondego. And I got to see my friend Ana there, and her delicious baby Mariana, and talk about plants and gardening with Joao and Artur, and it was FUN. For example, there's this tree that I love out here and Joao was able to tell me that, although it's a Callistemon in Latin, it's known as an Escova-de-Garrafa (Bottle Brush) here in Portugal - if you click on this link, you'll see why. I want one.

3. Although the pace of work is currently quite horrendous (unless you've got a Proper Job, like a paramedic or a social worker or something), this frantic working week stops at around midday on Friday. I'm travelling to Porto that afternoon, to get a plane to London and then a taxi to my sister's place. On Saturday, we fly together Stansted-Belfast to attend our nephew's christening. It's actually a treat for me to fly anywhere with anyone else. Usually, it's for work and I'm alone. Our nephew will be about 10 weeks old and his safe arrival is the best thing that's happened for our family in a long while. And I get to see my brother, my sister and my sister-in-law, plus all my brother's in-laws, none of whom I get to see often enough.

4. This lovely advert, for the Battersea Dogs Home, with voiceover by the wonderful Bill Nye - just because it's so, so true. Especially the tagline at the end: "The most interesting people aren't people. Adopt a dog, make a friend." It makes me have a little cry, every time.

I feel better already, just thinking about these things - and, would you believe it, I think the weather is breaking, because the first drops of rain are just starting to splash on the gravel in our courtyard. No, I never thought I could be so cheerful about the arrival of rain, either.

On earthquakes and sleeping with the radio on

On Wednesday night, I had the most terrifying nightmare about an earthquake hitting our village. I woke with a horrible, sweaty start just before 5am and immediately checked that husband and dogs were in situ and safe, as of course they were. (I didn't check the cats: I figure they have the right attitude of casual indifference to events that would enable them to take a full-blown earthquake in their strides.)

But just as I thought it was safe to go back to sleep, the news came on the BBC World Service: Earthquake in Spain. Terrible events, buildings demolished, thousands sleeping outdoors, people dead.

So here's my thought process at that point: Spain's not that far away. We live in a long, skinny country, so distances west-to-east are not that huge. From here, you could be in Spain in two hours, probably a lot less if you're being driven by a competent, confident driver, and not by me. It's the same land-mass, for God's sake. And where the hell are our passports, our residency papers, our credit cards, if we have to get out of here in a hurry?

More to the point: What bloody business do I have dreaming of an earthquake when it was ACTUALLY HAPPENING, and not that far away? Am I possessed of some Special Powers, hitherto undiscovered?

In fact, the truth is probably more prosaic: I keep the radio on all night, in order to distract me from the terrible snoring that goes on in our bedroom - husband, dogs, who knows? (I know, believe me - but I'm also discreet.) I probably heard the news at some stage in the night, when I was already half-asleep and not 100% conscious. And, in any case, Lorca (where the earthquake happened) is some 400 miles from here.

I'm not dismissing what has happened in Lorca: it's a horrible, horrible thing. And I'm conscious there have been far worse earthquakes this year, in Japan and New Zealand, with far more devastating consequences and far greater loss of life.

For the record, then, this is why I fear earthquakes so much: as a child, I lived in California for a while. The town my family lived in was pretty much on top of the San Andreas Fault. At school when I was 7 years old, we had earthquake drills. They went something like this: your teacher says 'earthquake' to the class and then you all position you tiny, vulnerable child-bodies under flimsy, non-load-bearing desks. Which were situated under much heavier, non-earthquake-proof ceilings. (I sincerely hope it's moved on from this now. This was the 1970s, after all.) Even as a child, I saw how ridiculous and futile this would be in the event of a 'Big One'.

Later on in my twenties, when I found myself living in California again, I actually got to experience an earthquake for myself. It was nothing serious - just enough to tip a few books and photoframes off the shelves in my apartment, send a few chairs on castor wheels careering across the kitchen floor and set the water in the apartment block's swimming pool slopping over its edges. But I felt weirdly seasick and on edge for days after.

So you'll excuse me if, in the wee small hours of Thursday morning, I was considering all sorts of Worst Case Scenarios. In fact, when I tweeted my worst fears that morning, I was incredibly relieved (and grateful) to get a tweet back from another English woman here in Portugal, one who's been here much longer than I. She was, she said, planning escape routes from her own home to safety.

Two days later, my own Night Fears seem like a bit of a moment of madness - but the news from Spain is awful and people in Portugal have no reason for complacency. The grid layout of central Lisbon (the Baixa) today is entirely due to the fact that, in 1755, the city was decimated by a huge earthquake. Probably around 8.5-9.0 on the more modern Richter scale, it resulted in the deaths of around 30,000-40,000 people (thank you, Wikipedia), and the effects were felt much further afield. Almost as far north as where we live.

People regularly pop up on Internet forums doomily predicting that Portugal is long overdue for another 'Big One'. There was a rumble here in March (when I was safely in London E9 with my sister) that set every dog in the area barking in the middle of the night and did some minor damage.

But if I'm taking any lesson away from this, it's not that I need to fear earthquakes (although, naturally, I still do). The first lesson is that it's not a good idea to keep the radio on all night, however much your husband snores (oops) and however much the radio distracts you from putting a pillow over his head during the worst bits.

The other lesson: if the worst happens, I'm in a place I love, among people who look out after me. And that's pretty much the best that any of us can hope for.

(Since this whole earthquake scenario never happened, I'm flummoxed if I can find an appropriate picture. So here's one of our orchard at its Spring Best.)

On learning about plaster (no, really.)

Like most people with any kind of life, I've never taken much interest in plasters and renders. It's just stuff that covers walls (or something). Goes under paint, preferably Farrow & Ball, innit?

These days, however, I know a tiny bit more about plasters and renders - although admittedly, not so much as to make anyone (even the most unambitious DIY-er) feel threatened. This picture demonstrates why: Tim is currently plastering the walls in our kitchen/living room, in what I am reliably informed is a 2:1 mix of natural hydraulic lime and fine sand.

What I do think is interesting is the theory behind this choice of mix. Basically, modern builders have Got It All Wrong here (and I borrow that opinion wholesale and without apology from the hugely informative but perhaps uninspiringly titled, Using Natural Finishes: Lime- & Earth-based Plasters, Renders and Paints).

The theory goes something like this: Buildings should breathe. Ideally, they should breathe moisture: both moisture that's created externally (for example, rain) and moisture that's created inside (for example, kettle's on).

Most modern buildings are not designed to deal with moisture well, but rather to be sealed off against it. Not only does that approach trap internally created moisture (cup of tea in a damp environment, anyone?) but also involves the use of all sorts of nasty synthetic materials.

So natural plasters and renders , which are more permeable and more green, are clearly the way to go - especially in houses like Casa Cecilia, where the entire downstairs is made of natural stone. They minimise the moisture that gets in, while allowing excess moisture created internally to escape.

I love the idea of our beautiful house being able to breathe.

On extended absences

It's more than a year since I last blogged. A whole bloody year. That's terrible - and not just because I mention this blog on my 'professional' website, but also because I KNOW I should be making more effort to write for fun, not for profit.

And therein lies a truth: when your job is producing 1,000 words a day for money, it's really, really hard to sit back down and actually write What You Want To Say. At the same time, I now know that this what I really, really need to do.

Because, as lucky as I am to live in this fabulous country, with its wonderful people and glorious weather, and to commute in my pyjamas to my laptop every day, I don't appreciate my good fortune enough. So, come Sunday night, I'm still complaining about the week ahead, as much as I ever did when I was commuting each day from Hackney to the West End to work with a bunch of people who were once good friends but who became completely estranged by money problems and factionalism.

(I hold my hands up in that regards - MEA CULPA big-time. But good stuff came out of that factionalism. Thanks to the people who were 'For' me and those who were 'Against' me, I can write (a bit), or at least support one lovely man, two dogs, two cats and a burgeoning number of farmyard animals with the skills that I learnt during what I now consider to have been one of the more tricky periods of my life.)

And if I've learnt anything at all from that training, I still remember that there's a merit in keeping a Journal of Record, even if it's only for yourself. So if no-one ever visits this page, then all well and good.

But, here and now, I resolve to write here every day - no matter how exhausting or unnecessary - or unprofitable - it all seems. Because I firmly believe that, however tedious it might be for YOU, the reader, this might be my only way to put a tiny little bit of ME on the page. Not someone who's paid for, but someone who's REAL.

(And just for the record, the photo is of me, at our recent Gondelim Festa - our best yet, and the first of many to follow, I hope.) Love and best wishes to all that made it that way (you know who you are.)

T Minus Two Weeks

It's now just two weeks until we move into Casa Cecilia and the pressure is on. I was sick as a dog all last week with the worst cold I've ever had, but still needed to churn out 3,000-plus words per day. And the septic tank at the house we're currently renting suddenly reached Maximum Capacity over the weekend, with the result that sewage was bubbling up between paving stones in the courtyard. Hmmmmm.

But despite all this, I'm enthused, energised and optimistic. Casa Cecilia's starting to seriously feel like a home. My study is pretty much ready - the first room in the house to be painted, furnished, floors waxed (by my own fair hand!). Bathroom on brink of functionality and boiler in situ. New floorboards in hallway, replacing previous Death Plunge situation. New washing machine. New dishwasher. Underfloor heating pipes all in place, so kitchen just needs new floor now.

So this week, I will be mostly packing and moving goods and chattel, between the odd writing assignment. On Monday next week, I'm supposed to be flying from Lisbon to Rwanda, via Amsterdam and Nairobi, for a work trip - volcanic ash cloud permitting. I spend two days in Kigali and then make the same trip in reverse.

By 1 June, we will be fully moved in. These are busy, busy times and I am really, really happy.

More photos, if you're really bored, a stalker, or some horrible combination of the two, can be found here.