Category: weeknotes

– in preparation for chinese new year next week, we went to the chinese supermarket (all the way in albufeira) and came back with bags full of goodies! i can’t wait to cook many of these — i really must get on with it, because my cupboards are practically overflowing… it’s a good problem to have, and i like having a kitchen filled with possibilities.

– so, in the spirit of using things we have in the pantry, i’ve made mapo tofu! next time, i’ll need to tone down on the chilli, because it was a bit too intense for me. 🥵

– on the way to the chinese supermarket, we stumbled on a british supermarket, so we had a look as well. i don’t know why supermarket trips to foreign stores are so exciting to me, but it feels like they’re filled with wonder and delights. to me, the british are kings of sweets, and we brought some packs of sweet stuff home, along with eccles cakes and wensleydale cheese. yum!

– i got my booster shot, woohoo! while it feels like everyone around us is getting their immunity by getting sick these days, we’ve been able to stir clear of that so far and have instead vaccinated ourselves. feels pretty good! :)

– every year, a postcrosser friend in china gifts me a hobonichi weeks. it’s a slim paper planner, with super lightweight pages, and the right combination of calendar + free space that i like. these gifts have been going on for 4 or 5 years now, and i’ve grown attached to the planners, looking forward to a new one as the year ends. i never know which one he’s going to get me though — it’s always a surprise. after a 2 months’ trip through the mail, my 2022 hobonichi finally arrived this week, and i was so happy — it has pandas on the cover and the text inside is all in chinese (turns out, this is a special edition that is only available in china). i love it soooo much! <3

week 3, rinse and repeat, with a few good things.

– cooked a fantastic corn pancake (玉米烙) that was a huge throwback to our time in china. there was a restaurant in our street that served these with sprinkles and we were practically addicted to them.

– we watched wadjda, and it was a bit of a punch in the gut. saudi arabia sometimes feels as alien as north korea.

– birdhouse #2 has been deployed! we checked the first one, but couldn’t see any birds coming and going. looking forward to the new tenants.

– we voted today in advance of next week’s elections, just to get it done.

– though we’re still playing catch up with work, things have settled down a bit more this week and i’ve finally had time to sit down and make a plan for the next hsk exam. i’m not sure it’s a feasible plan, but i’ll give it a go. at a rate of 10 new characters per day, i should be ready around… june-ish? we’ll see!

– this week, the boy went up a carob tree and hung the first of the 2 birdhouses my brother made for us some time ago. finally! can’t wait to see which birds will take up residence in birdhouse #1!

– we watched don’t look up, and it was hilarious and sobering. hard not to make parallels with the spectacular job we’re doing to curb climate change, the impending disaster of our time.

– birdwatching was “great” this week though, and spotted 2 new species that both had “great” on their name: one great egret and a few great crested gebre in the sapal of castro marim, which was a really nice place to walk.

– the almond trees are doing their thing!

– the first week of a fresh new year! a quiet week, with lots of planning and also lots of catching up for work. there’s always so much to do, and too few hands to do it… so one of the mottos for the year is to try to get better at delegating.

– doing wordle in bed with the boy in the morning. :)

– back to doing exercise… mostly in the form of riding my bike to the salt ponds and shooting some photos of birds. still counts, i think!

– taking notes on this unexpectedly nice list of 100 ways to slightly improve your life without really trying.

– i received a really nice and unexpected gift from a postcrosser, a set of cyanotype kits to make prints. i’ve been meaning to try these for years, but never got around to it. on the parcel, the person included a quote by writer iris murdoch: “one of the secrets of a happy life is continuous small treats”. sounds like a brilliant idea, and i plan to make an effort to dispense more small treats throughout the year.

– last summer, i collected seeds from carob trees that had fallen by the sides of the road. i soaked and put these on a tray before going north, and they are now sprouting. the guerrilla reforestation project is on! 💪

– i’m reconsidering my participation on the volunteering group, after some haughty interactions this week. what do you do, when faced with attitudes that you cannot stand for? do you leave, or do you stick around and try to improve the group? on one hand, i think life is too short to put up with this and i should just quit… but on the other, how are things going to improve if everyone leaves? so in the end i stayed and spoke my mind, but the whole thing left an unsavoury taste, and cast a shadow on the experience. :( i’m not sure where to go from here.

– returning home safe and sound on the last week of the year, after being thoroughly avalanched in christmas sweets… felt great! i had a nice time with the family, but i was definitely ready to come home, think about the year ahead, and have a quiet entrance in 2022.

– i ate so many persimmons these past two weeks! it was brilliant! my parents have a tree that had lots of them this year, and were happy to load my trunk with some for me to bring home. they were amazing, so ripe and juicy! probably one of my top 5 fruits.

– the fireplace has been going full speed ahead, making the living room a cozy corner where we hide in the evenings.

– we had a new year’s walk in the salt ponds and spotted 2 new birds, which i think was a good omen! one was a common snipe, and the other was an eurasian stone-curlew. both are super funky birds, but the stone-curlew definitely takes the cake, with its angry looking “eyebrows” and a very yellow eye. :D

– this misty morning view in cabanas. shortly thereafter, the clouds lifted and it was quite hot for a winter day.