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weeknotes, 9/23

– our friends from russia came to visit us for a few days. it was really nice to see them again, to chat and to meet the newest member of the family, a 2-year old who is chatty and happy to engage with strangers, happy to lead them by the hand while saying “tuff tuff” (let’s go!). her vocabulary is really sweet — for instance, “ffff! fff!” (the sound of blowing air through her lips) means “to sleep”, and “miam miam” means “to eat”. even with the language barrier, we got along brilliantly!

– they brought lots of things from russia and uzbekistan for us to try, and one of them was half a kilo of pine nuts! pine nuts are just normal nuts in russia apparently, but here they are such a special commodity that their price is just astounding… i had never seen so many pine nuts together in my life! my favourites are definitely the sushkis though, the slightly sweetened hard cookies that you eat with tea.

– the boy’s allergies have been acting up a bit, which means a lot of wheezing in the night… and a lot of waking up for me. because of this, i thought to get myself some earplugs… but i don’t like that most are single use. while researching, i stumbled on reusable silicone earplugs that you mould to your ears and decided to try them out. they’re a bit like children’s playing putty: you roll them in your fingers to warm up and then just kind of stretch them on your earlobes, pushing a little to make a seal. the soundproofing is quite noticeable, and i’ve managed to get a few good nights of sleep this week. hurray!

– i also got a new bag and water bottle that i’m quite happy with. the back pain has been a bit bad this year, so when i saw this bag at ikea that looked like a cheap copy of the fjällräven that everyone seems to love, i went for it. the water bottle is just something i found randomly browsing online. it’s really light, and fits the bag perfectly. win-win!

– all the books i “read” this week were children’s books: todos fazemos tudo, um dia na praia and where the wild things are… but the book the kid most enjoyed was dr. seuss’s fox in socks, which our friends twisted their tongues to translate into russian, with hilarious results! :D

general

weeknotes, 8/23

– the gardens are finally done, hurray! the front bit became the succulent garden, and the back is now covered in little white stones. even though the expanse of white stones makes everything look a bit alien and desolate, it also makes it feel clean and tidy. at last, i feel like all the maintenance weight of keeping a backyard has been lifted off our shoulders, and i’m thankful for that. neither me nor paulo have big green thumbs, so it’s better this way.

succulents have very little maintenance though, so that i can handle!

– some men appeared in the wilderness that is the back of our house one day this week, and started putting some poles and wires on the ground. scared that some weird construction would start there, we asked them what they were up to… cows, they said! sure enough, a few days later the cows came. i guess we have new neighbours now!

– with tiny bit of cheating, i got myself a library card from a US library… which, as if by magic, opened up access to thousands of books in audio and digital format, downloaded straight into my ancient kindle. the digital loaning system from US libraries is amazing and i don’t understand why european (or is it just portuguese?) libraries don’t have this feature. it is game-changing, and i’m enjoying it immensely.

– that said, the book that i finished this week was physical and from my local library: i read “o duelo“, by local illustrator inês viegas oliveira. it’s the story of two men who have a disagreement and decide to fight it out in a duel… but as they walk away from each other with their guns in hand and their backs turned, one of them just keeps walking and walking and walking… until the world around him seems to filled with life, there’s so much going on and slowly the will to fight is gone. so in the end, the whole book turns into a letter to his rival, inviting him to come check out this nice place he ended up at. it’s beautifully illustrated, with a message that feels ever so fitting to the times we’re going through.

weeknotes

weeknotes, 7/23

– 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.

birdwatching

european stonechat

i like stonechats (aka, cartaxo comum). they prefer to perch on top of things, making them super easy to spot and photograph. plus, their colors are quite striking (at least the males), so they easily stand out from other birds. they’re so common here.

the females are a little bit less showy, more muted in their colors, but still easy enough to spot, high on a fence or stick.

we rarely noticed them before we started birdwatching, but once you start looking (really looking), they’re everywhere!

pretty things

…you know what i’m saying?

“When I am feeling dreary, annoyed and generally unimpressed by life, I imagine what it would be like to come back to this world for just a day after having been dead. I imagine how sentimental I would feel about the very things I once found stupid, hateful or mundane. Oh, there’s a light switch! I haven’t seen a light switch in so long! I didn’t realize how much I missed light switches! Oh! Oh! And look – the stairs up to our front porch are still completely cracked! Hello cracks! Let me get a good look at you. And there’s my neitghbor, standing there, fantastically alive, just the same, still punctuating her sentences with you know what I’m saying? Why did that bother me? It’s so… endearing.”

― Amy Krouse Rosenthal, Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life

stumbled on this quote the other day, and found the thought really moving. another book to add to the book pile!