Author: ana

about me

bee-eater update

remember the bee-eater from week 27? turns out, the little guy had some spinal trauma and paralysed legs, and we were told the prognosis wasn’t great… so we held our breath and held on to hope for a while, and it paid off!

although he wasn’t 100% recovered, the doctors at rias thought he was strong enough to have a good chance of survival, and the timing was right to release him before they all migrated to africa… so off we went to do that. our friends were around and took some really nice photos.

isn’t that the most beautiful bird? i was a bit sad we hadn’t gotten pictures of it on the day we delivered it, as we were too scared to hurt him further, and thought for sure we would never get another chance to see a bee-eater so close again in our lives… but he pulled through, and so we were lucky to be able to send him off. :)

i did a little video too, to mark the day:

hurray! fly safely little one!

just life weeknotes

weeknotes 29/21

this was a half week, work-wise. we have friends and dani staying over for some time, and as they had a few days off from their work, we took some time off as well to accompany them to the beach, make crafts and jigsaw puzzles. it felt really good to just take it easy and catch up. some other highlights:

– paulo took the second dose of his vaccine, with barely any side-effects at all. hurray! mine is coming tomorrow, and i can’t wait.

– to celebrate his full vaccination, we ate a bola de berlim. :)

– we met not one, but 2 chameleons in manta rota!

– unexpectedly, we were gifted a second-hand camera with super zoom, which is perfect for bird-watching! here are some little terns, black-tailed godwits and flamingos we saw this week in olhão. the image is really clear even at maximum zoom, and you can even read the code on the ringed flamingo we found!

just life weeknotes

weeknotes 28/21

week 28’s notes are being written a bit late, but i didn’t want to let the week pass without marking the fact that we finally did it — we bought a house! :)

we drove all the way to lisbon not quite sure whether everything would work out in the end, but it was fairly straightforward: the legal person read the text out loud, we signed underneath, and passed over the check. we then paid some fees on the way out and done! it felt surreal how quick the whole thing went in the end (despite us having to wait around quite a bit of time). i guess we’re now the owners of a little piece of cement in tavira, and no one can kick us out!

i still have mixed feelings about it. on one hand, i’m reasonably sure this is a good investment, and i’m relieved we won’t be kicked out in the near future as the market is crazy at the moment. on the other hand, so much of our savings are stuck in this house now (and we still owe money to family)… my mind is filled with “what ifs?”: what if the market goes down? what if we need the money suddenly? what if we have to move north?… none of these are unsolvable, but being solvent definitely gives us more freedom to move — which is something we’ve treasured all our lives.

for now, i guess we’ll enjoy this newfound feeling of stability, of knowing where we’ll be for a little while. we’ll finally install some heating in the place and fix the infiltrations, and i might even revamp the garden at some point. looking forward to this new chapter!

analogue wednesdays

analogue wednesday #266

looking up.

just life weeknotes

weeknotes 27/21

it’s been an eventful week around here!

– deers! ? we went walking in the local park today, and the guard let us feed the deers, which seem to have significantly multiplied since the last time we were there, a couple of years ago. they were super curious and came over afterwards to check on our picnic too.

– i finished reading a beautifully foolish endeavour, which was a great sequel to an absolutely remarkable thing. it reminded me that i like fiction, and should probably read more of it.

– the bamboo is still shooting upwards, now growing at a rate of 10cms/day… whoa.

– we helped both an 80 year old and a bee-eater this week! the 80 year old was slumped on the side of the road, having fainted from the heat after a bike ride in the midday sun. after the ambulance people declared him well-enough to go home, i gave him a ride and the boy rode his bike back. the bee-eater (one of the most beautiful birds you can find here) was found by the boy on the side of the road on one of his runs. he ran past him, and when he came back he was still there… so he came home, showered, and we drove by again — still there. :( the little thing was having trouble flying, so we picked him up before he was run over by cars, and drove him to RIAS. hopefully he’ll be in good hands and back flying soon!