Category: weeknotes

there hasn’t been a lot going on — mostly listening to the boy coughing and being in pain, testing his blood, and trying to rule out diagnoses one by one. as time passes and bloodwork get more complicated and increasingly specific, so too does the worry increase… right now he’s on his second course of oral corticosteroids, which are thankfully keeping the cough at bay. they’re not without drawbacks though. :( fingers crossed this mystery will soon be figured out.

to pass the time, the days have been filled with light entertainment. together, we watched nyad, tenet, the awakening of motti wolkenbruch, the diplomat and the lost city. plus, i’ve watched bridgerton and read lots of light stuff (department of speculation, in real life, ali hazelwood’s novels, sheets) on my own. currently making my way through my name is lucy barton and the high mountains of portugal (a book i picked solely for the intriguing title).

in better news, the little raised bed we installed a month ago is full-on producing already! radishes, lettuces, spinach and chard are making their way into our salad bowls, and it feels like a little miracle of mother nature. i didn’t expect things to grow so much this late in the year, but the weather has been quite warm and sunny, even in november.

speaking of miracles, we saw an osprey the other day, hovering around the salt ponds in town! raptors are not our speciality at all, so it was extra satisfying to be able to not only see but identify one so clearly. we’re now up to 130 birds in our life list, and i’m getting a little competitive. :)

and last but not least, swimming. a lot of swimming has been happening lately, and it makes me happy. the pool is some 6kms away, but i can ride my bike there through the salt ponds and get some extra workout. plus, our local municipal pool is glorious: olympic sized, wooden ceilings, huge windows that let the sunlight into the pool… and for less than 1 euro each visit. i’m so grateful for this luxury.

– i finally reached inbox zero on my work mailbox! 🎉 this is a rare event, which happens only every few years for me. it feels amazing to see that folder empty, and i’ve been doing my best to keep it that way. the boy has been helping with the most difficult stuff, and iris, our new teammate has been a steady blessing too.

– the lebkuchen dough is ready for its 2-month rest, ahead of advent baking season! our trusty food-processor almost died in the process of making this sticky dough, the poor thing.

– my father reports that the olives from our olive tree that he took north some weeks ago, are eatable! two weeks with running water to lose the acidity, and now they’re ready to be seasoned. amazing!

– the rain is here, and there was so much wind last weekend that lots of trees fell down all over town. it’s kind of heartbreaking, seeing big trees drop like that and be immediately cut down.

– i’ve been playing with dall-e, the image engine. at some point it gave me this lonely santa, who looks like something out of a movie. what’s the story here? who is he waiting for?

– after a month or so of respite, the boy’s non-stop cough is back again… sigh.

– i’ve been a bit restless with my reading, dipping my fingers in lots of different books and not finishing that many, but last week i read through “making comics” by lynda barry, which is a bit like jumping into her art class and given assignments and exercises to do. i wish the library had more of her stuff.

– we watched the one piece live action, and i loved it!

ooof! i got a little distracted, and three weeks have passed in the blink of an eye!

– world postcard day was a whirlwind of excitement and postcards! this year, we decided to put some limits in place on the number of postcards each person could send (so that the algorithm wasn’t straining as much to find addresses)… but things actually backfired and people ended up asking for more addresses than normal 😅 i think somehow we made these addresses sound like a precious resource, and everyone decided they better enjoy them! even then, things went really well, with much enthusiasm and many, many postcards. makes me happy.

– we had the parents over for a few days on that week, and it was nice to catch up with them and taste all the produce that the farm has been growing this summer. we also picked up olives from our own olive tree for the first time! it’s hard to believe we’ve grown this tree from a tiny pot.

– on one of my sleepless early mornings, the thought struck me that maybe i’m entering perimenopause… i googled a few of the random symptoms i’ve been having (erratic sleep, weight gain, heart palpitations, joints pain, frequent headaches) and it makes sense. at least now i can stop worrying about disconnected issues, and be reassured that this is a normal part of life.

– i finished the back pain book i mentioned before, and i don’t want to jinx it, but… i think it might have worked? 😳 i haven’t had much pain for a couple of weeks at least, and no one is more surprised about this than me. i hope it stays that way!

– we went to the birdwatching festival in sagres, and OMG, it was amazing!! part of it was just the fact that we took a 4-day break in sagres (a place we really like). but also, just the amount of great activities organized, and how they opened our horizons — not just for birds, but culturally as well! we had a really nice time, and are planning to go again in future years.

– i started a raised bed in the backyard! right now there’s lettuce, broccoli and beetroots growing, and also some other random seeds. i missed having a place to grow herbs and a few other things.

– played a quick round of galaxy trucker with friends, and it was nice! also, watched the second movie of the guardians of the galaxy series. our friends are big fans of the marvel universe, and have been trying to initiate us. :)

– took part in the sessions to help build the rules for the new food gardens that will soon pop up all over the municipality. looking forward to seeing more empty spaces being filled with plants and food!

– this was a good week for books. i’ve finished fatherland, a bbc dramatisation of a book by the same name. halfway through, i realized it was not the book i had bookmarked (which had the same name)… but i went ahead and listened to it all the way through, and it was enjoyable, despite the dark theme. i also dragged my way through the wizard of earthsea (it didn’t quite work for me), and pardalita, a portuguese graphic novel that i read during a conference about vegetarianism at the library. i like it a lot more than the moderator of the panel, who didn’t seem able to keep a straight line of thought without going into a million tangents.

– also started reading healing back pain, a book i’ve heard about over and over again. it was written by a doctor decades ago, and his whole thing is that chronic back pain is often caused by emotional causes (like anxiety or anger), and not something that is actually physically wrong in your back. it sounds a little woo-woo… but there seems to be some evidence to it, as a lot of people are miraculously cured after reading it. i don’t know how i feel about the idea yet, but having had some measure of back pain for over 10 years, i’m happy to give it a go.

– the rota dos petiscos continues, with a few more fish dishes in tavira! looking forward to venturing out a bit too, when the occasion comes.

– one week until world postcard day!

– the weather changed on the first of september like clockwork — suddenly it’s much fresher, and it even rained a tiny little bit. the moon was biiiig for a couple of days, and the high tides turned the town into little venice, like they always do.

– we had friends over for dinner one day and were enchanted by their chatty 2 year old. and then other friends arrived and stayed with us for a week. i’m happy that people come to us, that our doors and arms are open and welcoming, that we have long walks and boardgames and shared meals and conversations to look forward to.

– the town announced the launch of the food gardens, an initiative i’ve been helping out with for some time now. we want to turn the lost spaces here and there (the odd and forgotten bits of land) into open spaces where volunteers can produce food for the community. the legal framework for these has been a long time in the making, but it’s finally seeing the light of day. i’m excited for what is coming!

– also, the mediterranean diet fair took place, the largest event in our quiet town. it’s the end of the summer season and it goes out with a bang: workshops, food demos, seminars, guided tours, concerts, food… it feels like the whole town comes together in nights filled with energy. we saw miguel araújo’s concert — he was great!