Category: weeknotes

– went to alentejo for a couple of days, to get out of home a little bit and explore different places. we stayed at a cheap-ish farmhouse with a super nice caretaker, got pampered by her breakfasts, got lost in the unpaved paths of the montes there, ate our weight in pork and migas, spotted some flocks of wintering golden plovers, and even took a selfie with the great bustard! well, not the real thing… sadly, the big bird continues to elude us, but we’re not discouraged and shall come back. 

– we watched the queen’s gambit, which made me realize chess seems to be much more of a game in which you study and memorize, than one where you just… play. it’s a little disappointing, but also intriguing. i still want to learn it.

– we ordered the little stones for the garden, so now all that is left to do is to put them there… all 7 tons of them. :| kind of eager to see the end result!

– we watched a tom scott video about chatGPT that was a kind of a fascinating wake-up call. i’ve tried the engine a few times and i’m still in awe of it — but like tom, it’s the kind of awe that makes me reel with the possibilities, that brings about the feeling of being on the edge of something big. being the kind of person who mostly writes (emails, posts) for a living, it’s dizzying to see a machine grasp the context of a query and draft a perfectly toned response to it. the implications of it are huge, and we’re only getting started.

– we went up to the hills here in tavira to have d. fernanda’s açorda de galinha, a soupy dish that mixes chicken, bread, chickpeas and mint. we hadn’t had it a long time, and it was really lovely to taste it again. it made me think that there are nice things to taste and explore at every corner, even in the corners we already know by heart… something we sometimes forget in the sameness of our days at home.

– i finished the third book of the neapolitan novels, half of it by reading the book itself, half on audiobook while i took care of the garden. some things in lina and lenu’s lives feel more settled, now that they’re adults with children, yet it all feels fragile and off at the same time… now only the final book is missing, and i’m ready for the conclusion. 

– physicsgirl, one of the youtubers we subscribe to and enjoy, caught covid last year, then had long covid symptoms that morphed into me/cfs… which, to me, is one of the scariest diseases out there. :( it’s been on my radar for some time, as i interviewed someone with it some years ago, and ever since then, the random cruelty of it often comes to mind. out of nowhere, a virus attacks your body and leaves you debilitated and drained of energy to the point where you cannot walk, eat or even talk. it’s a disease that is relatively unknown and understudied, and for which there is no cure. it’s just heartbreaking.

– phase 1 of the garden transformation is afoot: the garden has been sprayed with weed killers to rid it of the stubborn clover and grass. i’m not too keen on herbicide… but after 7 years of trying to unsuccessfully tame the weeds, i give up. it is what it is. next week we should order the little stones and the anti-grass cloth that goes underneath them. i’ve started planting the succulent patch on a reserved corner of the garden, but my dodgy back makes it slow going.

– the air fryer is still going strong! this week, besides roasting veggies for side dishes, we also did some zaatar chicken wings and also some creamy garlic chicken which were quite nice. i’m enjoying exploring it!

– started to knit a sweater for my future baby nephew! maybe knitting sweaters for small creatures will be more successful than knitting sweaters for grown-ups, which so far has proved beyond my patience and ability. i’m using these instructions, which seem simple enough.

– we started the process of hiring someone to help me with support at postcrossing. it’ll take time to interview, choose and onboard the new person, but at last i’ll get some help and (hopefully) stop being so overwhelmed by work all the time. it’s a start!

– i finished book #2 of the neapolitan novels, which invited a trip to the library to get some new books! i got book #3 of the series, then browsed the shelves for a long time and stumbled on a couple of books by portuguese authors (who, coincidentally, were themselves a couple). i love the library!

– we played the game with friends, and it was surprisingly challenging, despite the relatively simple mechanics.

– my hair is mostly white around the temples these days, so i paint it now and then (usually when there’s some event coming up) and let it run wild the rest of the year. we had a big meeting on the weekend, so earlier in the week, i painted it — this time, pure black. the color looks a little radioactive in its blackness but it gives me some wednesday addams vibes, and i like it! now, if only the hair paint would stop running into every pillowcase and towel, that would be just perfect.

– book #5 of the year was part 2 of joe sacco’s palestine series. still as gut-punching as the previous one, though the stories are so short and disconnected that sometimes you feel like you’re just getting disjointed glimpses, and not really the big picture. i guess reading a more broad book on the topic would help.

– we had a quote for transforming the space around our house into a minimalistic zen garden (aka, covering the floor with little stones), and we’ll probably go ahead with it soon. it’ll be nice to have a clean space that isn’t overgrown with clover and stubborn grass, and the succulents will migrate to a smaller patch in the front of the house. i look forward to the end result.

– it’s tree-planting season and so, off we went to marinha grande to re-forest a bit more of the huge pine forest that burned there in 2017. the weather was perfect, and it felt wonderful to be out there with friends, chatting the whole time and getting those tiny maritime pines planted. the ground there is mostly sand, which makes for really easy digging!

– we spent a couple of days up there with our local friends, before driving back south on sunday. they took us to explore s. pedro de moel, and we ended up having lunch at alcobaça, where the food (and especially the conventual sweets) are to die for.

– the month of letters is on! i started out strong, but failed to write in the days we were up north… no matter — i will try to do better the rest of the month, now that we’re back home and our calendars are free until the end of february.

– less than 50 days to taiwan! :D

– four books in four weeks… who is this person? 😅 i’ve finished elena ferrante’s my brilliant friend and dove into the second book of the series straight away. i’m kind of invested in the adventures of lila and lenu now — i want to know what they’ll be up to as they go through the teenage years, what’s the deal with lila after marriage, and what will come next.

– we watched after yang, which had some strong black mirror vibes, but was also visually beautiful. we also watched lead me home, a short netflix documentary about the homelessness crisis in california, and i still have so many unanswered questions about it… i can barely grasp the concept of there being over 100k homeless people there.

– i got myself an air fryer! i resisted for a long time, as i really didn’t want to have yet another big bulky appliance taking up space… but in the end, i caved in — and i’m happy i did! we did fries a couple of times, but we’ve also cooked brussel sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, meatballs… it’s like a tiny turbo oven, sitting right there on the countertop, that is 10x easier to clean and a lot faster to heat up than the oven itself. it has given me extra motivation to cook on days that cooking feels like a chore, which feels like an added bonus

– some friends bought a plot of land a couple of streets over from us, and they threw a little party to celebrate it. i’m happy to see them happy and moving closer to us, and i’m also curious as to how the whole “house-making” process will go.

– i’ve had a scratchy throat for a few weeks now, one that didn’t really get worse or better. it didn’t seem bad enough to take anything for it, but at the same time, it wouldn’t go away. having strong déjà vu feelings of numerous childhood tonsillitis (and corresponding penicillin injections), we went to the local hospital and were prescribed some disinfecting mouthwash and some anti-inflammatories. aaaaah, the relief to know it’s nothing serious!