a week of quietness, all to ourselves. i love having people around all summer, but i also love these buffer weeks — weeks of recharging and doing things at a slower, less intense pace, focusing on ourselves. weeks to read books and sit down to enjoy the mail that has been arriving.

the chinese classes started again this week. the group is a bunch of 20-something year old girls and me, plus the teacher who seems very nice. we’re repeating the same hsk5 book, but since i started already midway through the second semester last year, i still have a lot of stuff to catch up to. hope i can do the exam sometime next year… we’ll see. i hope we don’t reach the end of the year with just me in the class, like last year 😅

i convinced the boy to participate in the “corrida entre pontes” (a 10k race that crosses 2 bridges in tavira) and despite some grumbling about not being in shape, he did it! and of course he did brilliantly, at a speedy 4:12/km pace. afterwards we went for pizza + dessert, and admired these huge, magnificent trees in our neighborhood:

i’m planning to ask the association that owns that house if they’d be cool with me putting a little free library in their front garden. 😍