Category: weeknotes

back home in aveiro for a bit of a strange week, spent mostly back and forth caring for an iron-deficient senior (who required a couple of blood transfusions to get back on her feet). i empathize, because my usually low ferritin levels are currently being dragged even lower by a malfunctioning baby box. 🙄 ah… the joys of perimenopause!

still, the week had some fun stuff in it! on friday, i went to a “peking opera mask workshop” by the local confucius institute, where we learned about this art form and even painted our own masks. i also got to meet my teachers in person for the first time!

and on the weekend i spent an afternoon with little niece, looking at my brother’s new chickens and old tractor, and also taking the kid on her second ever halloween walk. halloween is not a big thing in portugal, with just a few kids trying their luck here and there — but there’s one small village nearby that goes the extra mile, and we went there to check it out. whoa, i was not expecting such a mega production… and so many people!

the kid came home with lots of lollies and gummies and loved the whole thing, though afterwards she was so exhausted from all the excitement that she just fell asleep without having dinner…

a week in aveiro, back at the desk!

the boy passed the 1500kms run milestone in 2026, which is huge! he really upped his running this year, and has a half-marathon coming up next week.

the painter came and did some touching up on the wall that was damaged by the water. it was looking a bit darker than the rest of the wall, and we thought it was because the paint was still wet… then, later that same day, he came back and said “i used the wrong paint! i will paint it again!” :D ahah! but now it’s perfect again, and the insurance covered it. pfew!

the chinese history course turned to buddhism this week, and i read piranesi, which had an unexpected plot. i also read begin again, from the library — an oliver jeffers’s book for grown-ups, for once! :)

the parents farm is filled with figs, soft persimmons and quince — all my favourites! got back some cholesterol results this week though, and the numbers are creeping up again… so i’ve decided to make sure i walk a bit everyday, at least 5000 steps (but ideally more). walking seems to be the one thing that tends to keep my numbers in check (they’re never as good as when we come back from holidays), so i’m experimenting by changing just that one factor and see how that goes.

we gave the little one her first push bike, a kind of early christmas present. she’s took to it like magic, gliding through the grandparent’s yard like she had been doing it all her life. we investigated ladybugs and played in the swings — everything is new and interesting to her! what a gift to be able to rediscover things through her eyes.

and then, we packed our suitcases and took a couple of flights to a place we love and miss… but more on that next week! :)

world postcard day week is always a very intense work week around here. but everything went well, lots of postcards being sent around and no crashes or unexpected algorithm panics. hurray! i guess we’ve kind of nailed this, for now…? i’m a bit afraid to say it, as it might tempt the universe into teaching us a lesson. but it went well, i wrote some postcards, meetups were held, libraries joined in, and there was even a postage stamp in honor of the day… which is pretty wild, when you think the event didn’t even exist 7 years ago. :|

tavira was just as lovely as ever though. sunny days. patient ladies at the post office that bring out the book of stamps when asked and wait for me to choose my stamps. meeting friends. riding my bike to and from town through the salt pans, always filled with huge amounts of salt being picked up this time of the year. all of this is comforting and familiar… but i feel like we’re slowly saying goodbye to it too. keeping 2 houses is tiresome, and i’m starting to resent all the time we spend going back and forth between then, and also the overhead of keeping a second place that we’re mostly not using. :( my heart is a bit divided between north and south, and craving quietness and time for itself.

we came back north on an unlucky train that was 2.5 hours late, but we live so close to the train station (on both ends) that it’s hard to mind. the train carries all the bits and pieces we want to bring without charging extra. it’s kind of perfect… except for getting carsick. 😅

on sunday, we went to check on all our seniors, which are all ok, and little niece, who was spending time with the grandparents at the village.

i finished reading a couple of books last week, anxious people and the disabled tyrant’s beloved pet fish. the latter was one of those chinese crack novels — just fun and chaotic, and i guess what i needed on a heavier week. and i finished listening to you’ve been pooping all wrong on the train too, and that was nice (turns out, the secret to good pooping is mostly fiber, movement and routine!).

also, i feel like i complained and the universe heard me, because everyone had their cameras on in the latest chinese class! hurray!

a very quiet week in tavira.

chinese language classes started again, and i confess i’m a little disappointed. it’s my own fault: doing the same class for the third year in a row isn’t ideal, but there are no alternatives at my level and i feel like the weekly checkpoints are still helpful. so i persevere, and try to find ways to make the same classes more interesting in my head.

at the same time though, what is this new trend of online classes where everyone has their camera off…? i feel bad for the teacher, who gets zero reactions from the students and is just talking and asking questions to a bunch of screens… so i keep my camera on, but i’m always the only person in the class who does it — it’s me and the teacher, looking at each other pitifully. :/ i feel really disconnected from the class, which doesn’t help.

i’ve been enjoying being back south, though… it’s not just quiet here in the literal sense — it’s also metaphorically quieter in my head. we cooked a strange new recipe and had toasts in the local café that is usually filled with an interesting mix of construction workers and foreigners. there was pizza and japanese food, and we watched calle málaga (oh, how i missed our little cine-theater!) and sentimental value.

this time around, we came by train and the car stayed in the north, so we’ve been managing just with our bikes. it’s been surprisingly easy! the nearby supermarket has all the essentials and occasional trips to the big shopping mall that i ride by on my way to the swimming pool help supplement the rest, with occasional train rides to faro for the boy to get to his appointments. i’m glad we can make this work — not just for the savings, but also the environment.