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weeknotes 50-51/23

on the last week before coming north, we cleaned up the house, made some last christmas shopping for the children, wrapped up the presents and ate everything from the garden — i even made caldo verde with the leaves of the broccoli plant! :)

on the first days in the north, i saw my niece LJ, the cutest 5 month old ever! she’s in a really nice phase now, laughing easily at everyone and charming us all.

then we drove further north to be with the parents for christmas… only to find them infected with covid. :( so it’s a bit of a lonely christmas this year, every branch of the family in its own home, and the boy staying with his own parents. my ears hurt from all the mask-wearing, but so far i’ve managed to stave off an infection. fingers crossed it stays that way and that everyone will be bug-free by new years!

because there’s not much to do, i’ve managed to do a bit of reading to wrap up the year: i’ve finished the sweetness at the bottom of the pie, bird by bird, check & mate and olive kitteridge, as well as a few children’s books. each one of these was great for its own reasons: some for the surprising format, some for being really well read by the author, some were just comforting in their predictability… it’s been a good year for books.

just life weeknotes

weeknotes 49/23

a mostly quiet week, spent running errands and trying to get the presents for all the family. i finished 2 very short audiobooks: how to keep house while drowning and train dreams. the first in particular stuck with me, its compassionate advice applying to much more than just house chores.

we’re full on “pre-christmas mode” around here, and one of the things i must do is to use the vegetables i have in the mini plot before we head north. so today i took all the chard and did a nice stir-fry with it. it’s still amazing to me that i can grow these things with some seeds and a bit of dirt!

and on the same vein, sometime ago the town was offering some free 300L plastic composters, to those who wanted them. i signed up for it, and forgot about it until they emailed me last week! so this week we had a little workshop to learn how to work with them, and will soon be receiving the dalek-shaped contraption. i can’t wait!

and last but not least, this gorgeous hoopoe, just chilling. :)

just life

weeknotes 48/23

– my new hobonichi is here and the first date on the calendar was november 27… so of course i immediately jumped into it. :)

– lately, i’ve been kind of fascinated by ultramarathons, and we watched a few documentaries about them this week. i’m not a runner, but i admire people who can run the whole day, and then the next day, and the next day, and the next day ad nauseum for weeks on end, up and down mountains. like… how?! i can’t even make it around town for a 5K…

– friends from abroad staying over always means re-discovering our region through their eyes. we overdosed on portuguese classical dishes and desserts, did the touristy things and even taught one of them how to solve a rubik’s cube!

– i finished listening to the high mountains of portugal, which was a curious and strange book. the title is misleading (or perhaps ironic?) and the country portrayed is a strange version of portugal where weird things happen… though not weird enough to call it a fantasy novel. maybe the title created expectations in me that didn’t pan out in the end.

– it’s 2 weeks until we head north, and already the pre-christmas anxiety is setting in. i don’t know why i seem incapable of just enjoying the season. even though i realize i don’t even have to do much in the end, i feel stressed by all the errands, the demands on my time and the close proximity of an overwhelming number of people… i know i’ll appreciate a lot of it in the end (and this year, there’s the added bonus of a baby niece!), but it’s not my favorite part of the year.

birdwatching in portugal just life

weeknotes 47/23

we spent the week in beja!

we had a postcard meeting this weekend and used our house swapping membership to spend a few extra days there, in a cozy and super central apartment. the week was passed birdwatching, walking the narrow streets of beja, people-watching in centenarian cafés, admiring all the pretty tiles and filling up our bellies with alentejo’s many delights.

we went into a local museum with works from jorge vieira, and only later did i realize that he was the same artist who did the huge “man-sun” metal sculture on expo 98. the museum focused more on his ceramic works, and the boy and i admired the one above, which we both thought was a pig until someone pointed out the horns… 😅

and naturally, there was some birdwatching too! nothing too fancy, but we logged a few new birds, like a red kite, eurasian jackdaw and a spanish sparrow, which looked rather mean!

weeknotes

weeknotes 44-46/23

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.