Two "cliffhangers"

Hi

Today is a day full with different social activiteties. We will write more tomorrow about this, all of a sudden there is cliffhanger for tomorrow´s or this evening´s blogg, the first cliffhanger

As you know we have started to renovate Casa Limon. The veranda is done and we have started inside. We had a problem with the surface in the ceiling, it is masonite and it´s not so nice, We were thinking of putting in a completely new ceiling but this is a bit expensive and takes time to do so we thought we would paint it instead. To paint on masonite is not so easy and the resultat is not often good. We have a good freind and he suggested that we should make a new surface with the mixture of paint and plaster for the walls.

The mixture

Between the social events I did a couple of different mixtures. Should I paint it with the mixture using a brush or should we use a spatula, this is the question? One of the mixtures seemed nice and we will try to apply this on the ceiling. Hopefully the result of this will be a new surface that looks rustic and goes well with the other design of the appartment. You can se the resultat of the best mixture in the picture. The final resultat on the ceiling will be showed in a couple of day, This is the second cliffhanger

And we will say thanks for all of our followers on this blogg

Best regards
//Lars
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Annandagsbandy and Eusebio

Hi

Bandy sticks or bandy klubbor 

Last year I was writing about "annandagsbandy och bandyportfölj" This subject needs an explanation for all of our international readers. Bandy is a traditional game in Sweden, it´s played on ice. There are 11 players in each team. The game is played on ice with a ball and sticks

A classic bandyportfölj and the owner

Annandagen, or Boxing Day, is the big day of bandy in Sweden and all derbys are played on this day. There are a lot of people in the stands and some of them are tasting the liquor in the "bandyportfölj" You know it´s really cold in Sweden and the liquor combined with coffee is very good to keep the cold out.

Sveriges bästa lag genom tiderna

 


Now I´m living in Portugal. I love fotball more than bandy and I searched for "my" team in Portugal. Of course my heart always belongs to Blåvit or IFK Göteborg.
We are approaching 2015 and I have chosen my favorite team in Portugal and it is Benfica. There is so much heart in this club and history so I just love it. In Portugal the best player still is Eusebio and his heart belonged to Benfica. Of course Ronaldo is great but the biggest heart of all player belonged to Eusebio and the people loved him for that.

Eusebio in action

To summerize december 2014 annandagsbandy last year, this year 15 degrees celcius and fotball.
My new team is Benfica and the best player ever in Portugal is still Eusebio. If you have any doubt about Eusebio´s popularity just watch this clip from Estadio da luz after Eusebio´s death.

Regard
//Lars


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Dreaming of a white Christmas?

Hi

We have just celebrated our first Christmas Eve in Portugal. This was a very calm and peaceful evening. We had of course a little bit of Swedish food on the menue. As a starter we had saved a little bit of Swedish "sill" herring, a bit of Swedish "julskinka" ham and Jansson frestelse, Jansson´s temptetion, which basically is potatoes, onions, anchovy and cream cooked in the oven. Then as a main course we had a lovely steak with morel mushroom sauce. The morels came from friends as a gift from Sweden. For desert there was lemon and poppy seed cake. Everything was delicious.

There is a lot of differences between Christmas in Portugal and Sweden. The most significant difference we have noted this year is that food is the most important thing during Christmas in Portugal. There were a lot of people in the food stores but in the shopping center is the comerce a bit slower comparng to Sweden.

In Portugal people normally eat Bacalhau as main course on Christmas Eve.

Bacalhau

It´s Norwegian dried codfish. It looks like the Swedish stockfish"lutfisk"  In Portugal people eat a lot of different seafood during the Christmas celebration, but no "sill" There are also big cakes for desert, they are called Bolo Rei. 

On Christmas Day people get together and eat and drink. Today turkey is common.





In Portugal most of the families also have large nativity scenes outside on the lawn.

Nativity Scene 

In Portugal the Christmas tree is plastic and contains a lot of sparkling lights and decorations.


Similarities

• Christmas tree
• Seafood
• Gift on the 24 th

Differences

• White christmas,=snow  - green christmas, flowers like the Swedish spring
• Christmas tree - natural vs plastic
• Snow - Grass
• Presépio - nativity scene

Are we dreaming of a white Christmas? The answer is NO, we just love to celebrate a green Christmas. The weather has been lovely for over a week and the temperature has been around 15 degrees celcius for a long time

You can read more about celebration in Portugal on the attached adress.

PS I miss the Swedish herring or as we say sill

Swedish herring

http://www.farmholidayssilvercoast.com/
https://www.facebook.com/farmholidayssilvercoast

http://www.whychristmas.com/cultures/portugal.shtml

/Lasse

A new casa was born while sipping a glass of wine in the sun

Casa Limon

There has been a lot of work during the last weeks with renovation of the verandas in the apartments. Now one is ready thankfully so we will take some time off during the holidays.
It was a lovely day yesterday, the sun was shining and it was around 15 degrees celsius. One of our friends popped by and since he is a great photographer we asked him if he could take a couple of pictures of the veranda.

The aparment was previous named Casa Jardim (Garden) by the previous owner. When we were sitting and sipping a glass of wine in the sun, we decided to plant a new lemontree on the lawn outside the veranda. The light was wonderful and at that moment there was a new name for the aparment. Casa Limon has been borned.

New veranda outside Casa Limon

As you can see at the picture everything is bright and shining. A lemon tree will be perfect outside  don´t you think.

Hope that all of you will have a lovely day

if you want to book for 2015

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//Lars

Sunday = marketday

Hi everybody

Today has been an interesting day. We started up by going to Santana Market which is one of the biggest markets on the Silver Coast.

Santana Market has everything, and when I say everything I really mean everything. We bought a lovely onion braid, a cap, some cheese, two chickens and a hose holder.


I was looking at a new sweater but it was too small so there was no deal on this. Of course we had a lovely cup of coffee with a local sandwich called Bifana.







When you come to Portugal you must try a Bifana sandwich. This sandwish is not like any other sandwich I have eaten, It´s just lovely. After Santana market we painted the last at the veranda that we started to renovate. Hopefully we can present the result in the beginning of next week.





We ended our day with the Nut cracker.
The ballet we saw

Now we we will have a nice cup of tea and have lit the fourth candle in our christsmas candle stick, Have a nice evening all of you.

// LL

 our Facebook page

Morning walk and Christmas shopping

We woke up to a beautiful but very cold morning. It was no more than 5 degrees ouside but the sky was blue and the sun was shining. We decided to take the dogs for a nice walk to Salir de Matos.

It is about 3 km along Rio Tornada to Salir from where we live. We walked slowly enjoying the beautiful landscape and well there we had a coffee at café Rustico. Then we headed home 3 km. All in all it took 90 minutes or so. While walking I had to first take off my knitted hat, then my scarf and finally open my jacket. It just got hotter and hotter.

beautiful road

rows of apple trees

When we came home we locked the dogs into the house and went to Caldas da Rainha to do some shopping. Well we didn´t actually shop anything but pointed at things we wished for Christmas so the "others" would memorize.
There were quite many people shopping and first we went to the fruit and veggie market to buy some nuts.

a lot of nuts

There were many different animations in Caldas today. Among other things we saw a crib with a human Josef and Mary.

The baby is a doll

 There was also people dressed up to, well I am not sure what, but some kind of christmasy people.

Then we went to restaurant Lisboa for a lunch. All in all a nice and relaxed day.

If you want to book for the season of 2015 click here

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/Åse

Houston, we have a problem

We have a problem. Our problem is not of the dignity the crew of Apollo 13 had of course. It is not the worst one we´ve got either because we have many other, much worse, ones. But this particular problem is what to do with all our fruit.
There are about 120 fruit trees on our vineyard. We´re not sure because we haven´t counted them but more or less 120 fruit trees. There are apples, pears, quinces, plums, olives, oranges (many different types), lemons, grapefruit, clementinas, nectarins, peaches, cherries, figs (at least two kinds) nespera, medronho and maybe more varieties.
We tried to take care of some of the fruit but the time was never enough. It was very sad to see the fruit fall down and rot away. The figs, for instance, ripened all at the same time and we made as much fig marmelade as we had time to, but it was so much fruit that went to waste.
We made a very tasty marmelade with fig and brandy and in some of the jars we had walnuts as well. The original recipe had vanilla in it but we took walnuts instead.

the recipe for the fig marmelade is here. Unfortunately the recipe is in Swedish but you can probably use translate of some form to read it.

We also made Persian quince marmelade which is one of my favourites, It turns bright red if you let it cook long enough and since I love cardamom it is both beautiful to look at and to eat.
the recipe for the Persian quince marmelade is here

quince with cardamom and figs and brandy

We have made apple sauce, carrot and cinnamon marmelade, plum chutney,limoncello, orange liqueur with star anis and rum topf
recept på god limoncello

Limoncello, rum topf and orange liqueur

The the best lemon curd I´ve ever tasted was made the other day. The colour was so yellow so it almost looked artificial but the colour came from our eggs. Our chickens are so happy and eat so healthy so their yolks are insanely yellow, almost orange. Our lemons are organic so the taste of this lemon curd is pure heaven.
The recipe for the best lemon curd ever is here

lemon curd-look at the colour!

If you book with us we will make sure you will be able to taste some of our products. In the future you might even buy them. They could make great gifts for the cat sitter or family and friends.

if you want to book for the season of 2015 click here

/Åse

We know that the headline is a misquote

hooligans

Our veranda isn´t what it used to be, a place to sit and relax and watch our gorgeous view. Nowadays it is filthy and dirty with dirt all over from our pots and plants.

Two days ago Lars came shouting about that someone, a wild dog?, had been on our veranda, in our pots, digging and throwing up on the veranda floor. Who could it be? We had to look out for this animal and try to chase it away when it came along next time.

Later that day one of our dogs behaved strangely. He was charging at the front door, barking like mad and growled a lot. Was it the wild dog outside? Now we could take it by surprise and tell it to leave, scare it off so to speak.

We looked out and saw this....

Our rooster and his ladies acting as hooligans

attacking the plants

Chicken droppings everywhere

The chickens are so tame and friendly so they tend to "hang" outside and wait for us to come out and feed them. Whenever we are inside nowadays they are outside because they can hear us.

The thing is we don´t want them to shit everywhere and to dig up our plants but it is sweet at the same time.

We think we have to put up a gate or something to keep them out.

/Åse
 if you want to book for the season 2015 click here

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Market day in Caldas da Rainha

Hi

Segunda- Feira, Monday in Portugese, is the big market day in Caldas da Rainha. Yesterday when we were cleaing up in the front yard and hade a big fire we saw that we didn´t had any more straw for the chickens. So first thing this morning I went down to the marketplace. The Caldas market is quite big and you can buy a lot of things that you don´t see in the markets in Sweden like  chickens, ducks and a lot of different tools. I found the straw, but I couldn´t resist to take another picture from the market. If you would like to make your own aguadente (moonshine) you can easily buy your new machine in the market.

Machine to make your own destilled

Straw

Gracie laying an egg

After the market I and Åse started to clean the chicken coop and as you can see one of the chickens, Gracie, jumped straight up into the new bed. She was happy and we got another egg. Now I and Baldo are off to our agility class

Have a nice evening
/Lars

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A perfect day - for a fire and more ....

Hi everybody

Today there was a lovely weather. There was no wind and the temperature was around 15 degrees celcius a perfect day for a fire. We have as we wrote yesterday started up the renovation and cleaning for the next season.

the fire

There were many animals who were really interested in our fire

first - the worms (the victims)
second - the chickens (the lucky ones)
third - the dog (the hungy one)

The lucky ones

There were a lot of branches from all our fruit trees and the wine and of course a lot of leaves from all the trees. We had collected them in different piles and after a while when we had burned a couple of them the chickens came. There were a lot of worms and our chickens loved it.

One of our dogs were laying in the sun and was sleeping. When the chickens came he all of a sudden remembered that he was hungry (he is always hungry) and there was his favorite food just one meter from him. He started to lick his lips. It was lucky for us that he was tied in a tree otherwise we probably had lost one of our chicken,

the hungry one

To summerize this story, we had a lovely day and burned a lot of branches and leaves, the chicken had a lot of food and hopefully we will have a lot of eggs tomorrow, Of course Lennon our hungry dog had a lovely evening meal so we hope that he is not so disappointed. When we went in we also had a new booking for the next season.

/Lars

If you want to book for next season

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Sunny Silvercoast - Summer 2015 preperation and a lot of other things...

Hi

Home made lemoncurd

As the season of 2014 just has ended the preperation of next season has just begun. We have a lot of work but there are also a lot of fun. We are living our dream. Today we had a lazy morning with a perfect breakfast. Åse has made an incredible lemoncurd with our own eggs and lemon. This together with a lovely toast is a perfect start of the weekend. Look at the color!!

Casa Jardim - start

This week has been perfect for outside work and renovation. So started with Casa Jardim, outside painting and and a new tile is more or less ready. If the weather keep being good we will continue with the other apartments next week.

Casa Jardim - work in progress

This morning we also went to the beach with dogs, Baldo (or as the Portugues freind says Ronaldo) was runing like a maniac. The dogs just love it and so do we. Who wouldn´t like this view.

And we also would like to say happy Lucia to all the readers, The spring is already here and the summer of 2015 coming up soon.

view from our morning walk 

 /Lars

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The Portuguese way

Idag blir det ett helsvenskt inlägg, "den gamle" sitter vid tangenterna. Idag kommer inlägget handla om the portuguese stile of solving problem och gas.

Hur hänger detta ihop portugisiskt sätt att vara och gas, det är självklart att det finns ett naturligt samband mellan dessa två saker.

För att göra en liten kort återberättelse för att uppdatera er läsare är status följande. På vår gård använder vi gas för uppvärmning av vatten samt matlagning. Gasen finns på flera olika ställen på farmen. I början av juli tog gasen slut i vårt hus, vad gör vi nu? Jag åkte ner till macken som säljer gas med våra stora behållare, blev hänvisad till ett annat ställe som skulle leverera gasen direkt till vårt hus. För att hitta detta ställe hjälpte en kille före mig i kön att hitta, troligen för att jag lät hans farfar gå före mig i samma kö och köpa kaffe på macken. Lite av karma skulle jag tro, det var ingen karta han ritade utan han körde helt enkelt före och visade vägen. Väl framme i affären beställde jag två stora gastuber, leverans direkt under dagen, kanon allt på rull igen tänkte vi, men hur skall vi betala detta, killen som levererade ville ha kontanter, ca 150 euro vilket vi inte hade, så han sa att vi skulle betala i affären. Tyckte detta var lite underligt att behöva betala direkt i affären så jag ringde och bad om faktura vilket vi skulle få. Inget hände.

En månad senare när vi har hyresgäster händer samma sak igen, gasen tar slut, inget konstigt i sig men nu har vi en skuld och måste få ytterligare leverans, detta fixar sig smärtfritt men man poängterar vid leveransen att vi redan har en skuld till bolaget och bör betala omgående till affären. Allt frid och fröjd, idag var vi påväg ner till stan för att betala, jag hade som ni säkert förstår ingen aning om var affären låg och hade naturligtvis inte kollat på nätet eller via GPS:en. Hustrun var inte helt nöjd och sa "varför kollar på inget i förväg så att det går enkelt". Kände mig lite dum men jag kollar inte särskilt ofta i förväg eller gör planer. Så jag sa "jag frågar någon så kommer vi fram" Första personen jag frågade vara fransman, och blev livrädd när jag frågande honom på felaktig portugisiska med Göteborgs dialekt.

Åse fick nu syn på en polisbil, och sa fråga dem om vägen. Sagt och gjort jag gick ut och frågade polisen och de tyckte inte detta var speciellt konstigt så de sa att de skulle eskortera oss till affären vilket de även gjorde. Helt underbart jag har kommit helt rätt, i Portugal finns det en majoritet som inte googla eller kollar vägbeskrivningar i förväg utan helt enkelt frågar om hjälp. Detta innebär att jag har hamnat helt rätt, jag är inte underlig som inte kollar i förväg, till och med ordningsmakten tycker detta är helt normalt.

I övrigt blev jag erbjuden jobb i veckan som hantlangare för byggnation av tak, detta är en annan historia med det går bra nu.....

Sköt om Er

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Guests at the farm

We are now in the middle of July and the weather is weird for the season. We woudn´t know this of course since we only have been here for three months. But others, Portuguese, keep saying this. It is not so hot which we kind of like since we are working but our guests would like better, warmer weather.

Since April we have had 22 people/guests at the farm. It might not seem so much but for us it is quite overwhelming. Everything is new to us, we don´t speak the language, we cannot find our way around the area, son´t know anything about farming, vines, wine making, pruning, tractors and different types of fuel that goes into all our machines.

Our guests have all been lovely, supportive, positive, helpful and spreading happy happy energy around. We need it, thrive on it, feed on it because sometimes we are a bit sad, feeling melancholy, longing for our children, to read a Swedish newspaper, to understand the news on the telly.

Today lovely guests to off for Lisbon and a couple of days ago another pair took off for Barcelona. We feel a little left behind. We miss all our guests already.

Then we look out the window or look a the view from our veranda and sigh. This is where we want to be, to work together, spend time together.

On Tuesday new guests arrive. Then we go again.

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Ase

Safety first, we from the land of "security"

Hej, idag är det den "gamle" som skriver, datorn är kidnappad. Ni har säkert tänkt hur skall det gå för den gamle i ett nytt land och nya arbetsuppgifter. Som ni vet tar jag inte speciellt mycket foto så ni kommer att få en målande beskrivning på dagens lösta uppgift som går in under temat säkerhet.

Först av allt finns det många olika öppna brunnar i Portugal, vad menar han???? Öppna brunnar, det är ju alltid lock på brunnar så att man inte kan ramla i eller... I Portugal gäller samma regler som överallt, dvs att brunnar skall vara säkra för barn, djur mm. I veckan upptäckte vi en "öppen brunn" med ett säkert lock eller inte.., brunnen var täckt med plywood som var lika porös som silkespapper, bärighet ca 0,5 kg. Brunnen var bara ca 5 meter djup så den var inte speciellt farlig eller... såvida man inte är större än en mindre kanin

Dessutom höll brunnen på att rasa, så uppgiften blev att säkra det hela, sagt och gjort idag är brunnen fogad och ett nytt lock på plats. Det känns riktigt bra att få dessa detaljer på plats så att vi kan undvika tragiska olyckor som inte kan repareras.

Så idag tar jag mig ett eller kanske om sanningen skall fram några glas av gårdens vin med gott samvete.

Sköt om er alla, be good out there

"Den gamle"

Big lunch

Yesterday I took our guests down to a car rental company. Thepriny had rented a car for three days which is a very good idea when you´re here. You get to see so much more of the area then. And a beautiful area it is.

I had printed a map from the web and written numbers on it. On the back of the page I had explained what to see and do in the closest surroundings. I found out later that they had gone to Nazaré.

Nazaré sen from Sitio

Lars was painting the doors around the pool area because they are very worn down and painted in all kinds of colours. Hopefully they will all look better when they get a new lick of paint on them.
I did some paper work by the computer and some gardening.

We decided to do some long needed shopping, paint and new sun matresses for the sun beds and off we went. But since it was lunch time we decided to go for lunch at a place we had never been before. They ofered lunch bufféts and their reputation was good.

For 10 euros you got to eat as much as you wanted and they had two different soups, salads, cold cuts, cheeses, many many hot dishes and a table with oh so many different desserts. Also in the price were something to drink and coffee.

We ordered a glass of wine with our meal and then another one. We ate. We ate salads, meat, cheese, pies, rice, and too many samplings of the sweets. Then we had to go home and lie down. No shopping was done.
We were so full and tired after the red wine.

After the much needed rest we went and got the shopping done. More gardening was done and since I had had a siesta after lunch I had a problem sleeping at night and read too for too long.

Sometimes I think you need days like this as well.


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Ase

Bad duck

Yesterday we ate the duck we had bought from the very kind neighbour. It was delivered to our house ready to cook on Saturday and was alive that very morning. It can´t get more fresh than that.
We had gusets from Sweden arriving so what could be better than to invite them for dinner and serving this absolutely farm fresh duck?

I looked up a nice recipe, French classic Duck a Lórange or duck in orange. We got organic oranges and now had this organic duck so what could suit better.

I cooked it in the oven and made a sauce according to this recipe with peels of oranges and the liver and heart to make a stock first. It smelled lovely and promising.

The steak thermometer was broken we noticed after a while and we had to guess how long the duck should stay in the oven. The recipes I had  read stated 90 minutes but this one was ready long before that and came out tough like rubber. What a shame! We also felt a bit stupid in front of our guests. Here we offer them dinner, bragging about this lovely duck and it ended up like sole of a shoe.

Next time we will make ourselves first so we learn how to cook it first.

If you want to rent one of apartments, maybe cook a duck or two yourself contact us at
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Ase

Wrong chickens and a duck

We decided a month ago that we wanted to have some chickens in our much run down and dirty coop. We wanted fresh eggs. The bio ones you buy in the stores here are sooo expensive.

So of course I aked my son Adam and his friend Jesper, when they were visiting if they could help us cleaning out the coop and get the chickens for us.

When I got home from school 6 very scared and small pintos=chickens were in the coop.

We have now fed them, given them frsh food and water every day and they have grown alot. Now they dare to come out and sand bathe.

Not far from where we live there is a man and his wife growing a lot of vegetables. They don´t live there just keeps a plot for chickens and ducks raising them well. One day the man, who is German asked if we wanted to buy a duck, not a live one but raised for food. Since they treat the animals well in a eco friendly way we agreed. The price was 5 euros/kilo and it would come ready to eat.

Today the man and his wife brought the duck and at the same time we asked to come and look at our chickens to see if we were doing ok keeping them.

They took one look at them and said that we had bought the wrong ones. The ones we had was a kind that you just brought up to eat. Who could have imagined that there even was a difference. The ones we had in our coop were frangos (meat chickens) and not galinhas (egg chickens). These ones apparantly only lay eggs in one cycle and then die!!!!!One egg can get stuck in their bum and they will not survive this.

So we have to kill them before this happens or they will suffer. The man kindly offered his help to do this if Lars would attend as well "since he has to learn how to kill them anyway" ???????

The man will il the first one and show Lars how to prepare them for eating and then Lars will have to do the rest. I am not going to be anywhere near when this happens, more likely indoors crying.

Well the duck looks lovely in the fridge and tomorrow we will eat it.

Have a nice evening

The vineyard

The vineyard we have bought is situated on the Silver Coast of Portugal. It is located on a hill about 10 km from the coast, over looking a valley.

It is peaceful, quiet and you can hear the bees humming and the birds sing.Yet is close to Caldas da Rainha, a bustling town with all amenities and the motor way to Lisbon.

We have about 2200 vines producing about 4000 litres of wine per year. There are also about 120 fruit trees, olives, pears, apples, figs, grape fruit, plums, medronho, peaches, oranges, lemons and quince.

lemons for your G&T

pick fresh from the trees

Other trees on the farm are eucalyptus, cork trees and many different palm trees. Will add an entry about the palm trees tomorrow.

There is a beautiful garden with many many flowers. There you can read or just meditate.

roses

 We also built a new pool and are now in the process of painting the pool area and making it pretty.

new pool night

new pool day

If you are interested in renting please contact

ase.rexius@live.se

Have a nice day