Category: weeknotes

another quiet week over here. i feel very much overwhelmed by the amount of things that still need to get done at work, but i’m also terrible at delegating… so here we are, in a perpetual state of mild distress. it’s nothing new, and i deal with it the best i can, but it still feels unsettling to not have a grip on what i want to get done.

in other news:

– really enjoying the second-hand camera our friends gifted us. i haven’t learned half of what it can do yet, and already i can get decent shots of the black-winged stilts that cry like loud squeaky toys whenever we get too close.

– speaking of birds, we’ve become the kind of people who can immediately spot something moving in our peripheral vision and, more often than not, know what bird it is. i’m not sure how this happened, but it feels like a super power!

– yesterday we were driving to a farm to grab a “too good to go” basket and thinking about the last time we had eaten meat… and we couldn’t remember when it was. our eating habits have changed over the last few months. these days, we often eat just once per day, and meat is more of a “special occasions” kind of thing. feels right to me.

– because of samuel west, we started watching all creatures great and small, and it’s been a welcome break from youtube. i hope one day we’ll be able to walk those green pastures of the british countryside.

soooo… where were we? it’s been intense, these past 2 weeks, lots of ups and downs.

– we published the results of the world postcard day design contest and there was much drama over the juries’ choice. 🙄

– a fire broke out on the hills nearby on monday, and it kept burning for 2 days, destroying a lot of area… including our beloved park with the deers. :( the deers and everyone else were fine, but it was still scary and too close for comfort.

– the boy finally made a mini “can camping stove” and it actually worked!

– it’s still summer! apart from a few really hot days earlier in the week, temperatures have been perfect. we’ve been meeting with friends who have their holidays in the area, and it feels brilliant to see them and their kids again. hurray!

– it’s been a week of medical scares, one with the boy’s father (he tripped and hit his nose on a chair, blood everywhere), and one back here at home, with one of our friends having some acute pain that seemed a lot like appendicitis, but turned out to be a urinary tract infection… they’re both ok, thank goodness!

– by midweek, we wrapped things up in the north and drove south. after that, it’s been just catching up with our friends, petting and cuddling their dogs, playing boardgames and eating good food. the weather is still warm, but not as oppressively hot as in july, which is perfect.

– i’ve finished the anthropocene reviewed, by john green. i knew a lot of the essays already from the podcast, but it was still nice to read them in book form. i’m surprised the one about the st. peterburg’s seed potatoes didn’t make the cut — it’s the one i have the strongest memories about. next up: blockchain chicken farm by xiaowei wang, a book about high tech in rural china.

– now that the house is ours, we’re looking into installing some heating, likely in the form of a fireplace insert with ventilation. i hope it works, and that this winter will be a bit more bearable, temperature-wise. ideally, we’d be exploring taiwan by then… but i don’t think that’s going to pan out, judging by how things are going pandemic-wise. :( something for another time!

– i’m fully vaccinated! :D had my second shot on monday, with zero side effects apart from a slightly sore arm. hurray! feels great to be doing my bit to mitigate this pandemic.

– i managed to burn my hand twice, once by touching the oven, and once by steaming my fingertips (ouch!).

– after releasing the bee-eater, we drove north to catch up with the family. it’s fresh up here, and i’ve been wearing trousers and coats for the first time since azores.

– the medicine is working its magic and the stupid nail fungus is on its way out, woohoo! it’ll still take some months for the whole nail to grow clean, but i can already see the improvements. plus, how amazing is it to be able to just call a doctor, send them some photos and blood tests via email, and they’ll call me back with a diagnosis and a prescription? we have a private health insurance “just in case”, but sometimes it’s really freaking convenient.

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!