The Real Portugal in Juggling with Hedgehogs

One of the things I never want to be accused of is sugar-coating anything, or presenting a ‘fake’ life on social media. So, this is a balancing post. Yes, we have pursued our ‘dream’ and so forth, but I can’t say it’s been in any way idyllic so far. I’m sure, as the weather improves, and we get some of the issues with the house sorted out, it will be lovely, but right now? Oh dear me no.

But we knew all this before we moved here. Some things, we really really didn’t, and some things I’m very angry about. But. We came here with a healthy dose of ‘we’re going to have a lot of work to do’ so that’s not a surprise in any way.

Following on from the previous post, the plan was to sail over to Spain, drive down from Santander, stay overnight in a lovely hotel (more on that later!), then come to our house, meet the owners, see how the central heating works (HAHAHAHA!!!) and so on.

Most of it went like clockwork. The ferry was actually blissfully relaxing. We were SO tired from the moving, boxing, packing, lifting, cleaning and running around trying to say goodbye to people (Paul never got a chance to say goodbye to his mother, poor love - and there’s a WHOLE other story in the middle of that too, which I’ll come back to), by the time we got on the ferry, we just wanted to collapse. So we did. It was a 29 hour sail, and with little to do other than walk about the ship, eat, drink, shop and watch bloody football in the bar (no thank you), sleeping was the favourite option. We had a perfectly nice cabin with en-suite facilities, and the shower was blinking fantastic, so we just dossed in the cabin a lot of the time.

When we arrived in Santander it was absolutely pissing down. We had walkie talkies set up as we were driving 2 cars. Paul’s car was so heavily loaded, we were both worried it was even going to make the 6 hour journey into Portugal, but thankfully, it did. We stopped a couple of times for petrol along the way, and had tapas in a little cafe/bar in Salamanca, but it was dark by the time we arrived at the hotel I’d booked. A Russian hotel called the Stroganov (I know, right? In Portugal!). We struggled to find it, had to call the owner, but eventually got in. And oh my god. The owner was BARKING MAD. I mean, just fucking WEIRD. The rooms in the hotel itself are also weird, but that was kind of the appeal to me. Here, have a look: http://hotelstroganov.com/en/

If you care, we stayed in the starry sky room.

It’s seriously bonkers. And as I said, that was the appeal. But I lose it a bit when a place is bonkers in a bad way. Like, the bathroom. Gorgeous bath, mirror on the fucking CEILING (fine if you’re 23 and fit as a flea, but I don’t want to see my wobbly bits ta) and so on. Matching bathrobes, slippers, towels, the blinking lot. But you couldn’t possibly use the shower, as it was only handheld (WHUT?), and the soap dispenser was on the wall so high up, that if you’re sitting in the bath (which is the only way to get a full body wash without drenching the entire room) you can’t fucking REACH it. I hate this type of thing. It just shows the owner of the hotel has never actually sampled the rooms herself. It’s an absolute must if you’re renting out accommodation to make it actually accommoDATING. It wasn’t. The room was luxurious in a truly Gothic kind of way, but light switches were in the wrong places, and the bathroom issue…stuff like that. It just annoyed the shite out of me.

Owner lady told us breakfast was at 8.30 the following morning. We told her we wouldn’t be having breakfast because we had to be at the bank at 8.30 so would be leaving at 8. She laughed. Laughed IN OUR FACES and said ‘this is Portugal, no-one does anything on time here. Breakfast is at 8.30’. Which struck me as a weird dichotomy. She was basically saying no-one is on time, EXCEPT ME and you will DO AS I SAY. Frankly, I was too bloody knackered and scared at this point to argue, so we said we’d have breakfast.

We had breakfast. It was shite.

Nobody cared that we were late arriving at the bank to get the cheque and the one piece of our experience in Portugal to that point that was really good was the guy at the bank, whose name is Rafael, who was not only ready for us, but already had the cheque printed and ready to go. He was helpful, kind, spoke good English, and gave us extra information we hadn’t asked for. So we got the cheque, and then we went to the house.

Whereupon we discovered the heating wasn’t working, because it had been off for so long, there was air in the system and so on. Owner didn’t have a clue how it worked (I found myself wondering if he had every lived in the house quite frankly!) and didn’t seem to care much, but said he had called a plumber who would be round later. OK fine. Then we were told there was no mains water, only bore hole water, because the mains had been switched off. Good job I brought the Berkey filter then wasn’t it? You can drink ANYTHING if it’s been filtered through a Berkey. So yay for that.

We had a really good look around the house, which was cold, damp and the paintwork was way worse than I remembered, but hey ho. I was still just keen to get in and get started making it ours. After the owners had shown us around they gave us the keys to the house. Which struck me as ridiculous, because in the UK you don’t hand over any keys until after contracts have been exchanged and money paid. But there we were, with shedloads of keys. There was also a huge sideboard in the hallway the owner was keen to sell to me. I liked it, and I agreed a price with her, but I also knew Paul didn’t like it, so warned her that might not happen. It hasn’t happened, she’s arranging to get it removed, because Paul really doesn’t like it, and I don’t like it so much that it’s worth the aggro for me. Paul is going to turn that downstairs hall area into a library room, so we don’t need a huge marble-topped sideboard taking up room.

So we trundled off to Tabua around lunchtime, to have something to eat and find the notary office and so on. We really struggled to find the Notary, but the lady in the cafe where we ate helped us to do that. So we had a pizza and coffee, and then went over to the office.

After an amount of waiting around, we were ushered into the room, and Paul and I were asked for our passports. Oops! Paul didn’t have his. I had mine, but it was necessary for us both to have them. Cue a mad dash back to the house with the owner bloke to get into Paul’s car and dig out the passport. Owner lady, her lawyer and I went back to the cafe. When Paul and the owner got back, I was ushered over the road to the financas office, where I had to pay the transfer tax and land registry for the house - again, at this stage, we still haven’t signed any contracts. They did everything backwards.

When we got back to the Notary office we were told we had missed our slot. If we were not able to complete the process that afternoon it would be a 2 week wait. This was when my IBS kicked in and I was running to the loo every 5 minutes. We couldn’t have a 2 week wait. Our furniture was already en route, due to arrive within 3 days. There was no way we could wait 2 weeks.

So 4.30 rolled around and 4.45 rolled around and my trips to the loo got ever more frequent.

But in the end, we were ushered into the room, where the process was done at lightning speed by the Notary. Document signed, cheque handed over, hands shaken, and then I had to pay the Notary fee - which was double what I had been quoted. For. Fuck’s. Sake.

But then we drove back to OUR house, and unloaded Paul’s car, blew up the airbed, the air sofa and dug out our essential kitchen bits and pieces. Tried to get the water heater going - that worked at least. House was perishing cold, all we had was an electric blanket which we got onto the airbed, and that helped us get through night one. Was bloody cold though.

The following day, the former lady owner took me to help me get the electricity and water switched over into my name. The man in the shop where one goes to do all of that stuff was unbelievably rude to me (because I don’t speak Portuguese to his satisfaction), and the more rude he got, the more I smiled at him. The nastier he was, the nicer I was. When we left the shop, I insisted on shaking his hand and thanking him profusely for all his help. I’m not letting people like that get to me.

On the Wednesday, we were informed our furniture would be delivered on the Thursday. The delivery guys actually arrived on the Wednesday evening and came for a recce before telling us they would be back the following morning at 8.30 to unload.

By god, Thursday was hard! They had 2 lorry loads of stuff, and our driveway has a low archway with vegetation growing on it, so the truck couldn’t come all the way up the drive. It’s about 150m long, so the 4 of us humped stuff out of the lorries from 8.30 that morning until gone 5pm, with the yappy dog across the road barking at us the entire time.

That dog. People, that dog.

We had been warned about Portugal and barking dogs. We were warned to check the area where we were going to live for dogs. We did. When we viewed the house, the yappy dog was there, but it’s a little dog, and we didn’t think we’d hear it being up over the road in a massive very thick-walled house. We were wrong. That dog. Shit-a-brick. It doesn’t bark. It SCREAMS. I’ve never actually heard a dog sound like that before, but it hates cars. It barks at every car that goes by. Thankfully, the road isn’t that busy, but I actually want to kill that dog. Although really I should kill the owner, who leaves it out there all day long barking at everything that moves.

So there we were, week one. No mains water, no heating and a shitty yappy dog over the road that never shuts up.

Are you loving our life in Portugal yet?

The furniture and boxes filled the entire house. We couldn’t move for boxes. We had no idea where anything was (still don’t really) but now we had a mattress to sleep on (no bed, because couldn’t find it), which was far better than the air bed. Air bed and sofa were put back in their boxes (and thanked for their comfort) and some semblance of slightly better camping out in the house ensued.

The piano arrived. I was so excited to see it again, and play it. And then I played it and it sounded SO badly out of tune I haven’t been able to touch it since. I’ve finally found a tuner (and he’s charging me silly money) to come and tune it next Monday.

Our friends contacted us and invited us to meet them on the Sunday at a local beauty spot. We decided after all the humping and carrying and huffing and puffing and living like tramps we deserved a day out, so we did that, and OMG it was so beautiful - and warm and sunny the entire day. We really felt we’d done the right thing that day.

Doesn’t last long though, that type of thinking.

Week 2, I had to work. So we set up a desk in the corner of the living room, because the downstairs office is full of boxes. And I got online and I got my lovely work colleagues on the webcam, and all was fine with that. Day one, I tethered to Paul’s phone. Day two, our internet came, and it’s AMAZING. Faster than anything we ever had in the UK. TV package, phone package (although we have no phone anyway) and fibre broadband. I was made up with that. I’m paying 34 Euro a month for it, and it’s stonkingly good. So yay for living in an urban area with decent access to ‘tinternet.

Towards the end of week 2, I was contacted by a lady who lives nearby who I know from Facebook. She asked if we’d like to go out with them and some friends on Saturday night for an all you can eat and drink curry. 15 Euro a head, and they would pick us up. Yes please.

Paul is quite shy around people he doesn’t know, so it was a struggle for him, but we both really enjoyed the night. The couple picked us up and proceeded to argue with each other the entire way to the restaurant about the route to take. Which tended to interrupt any type of conversation we had embarked on. Slightly annoying, but also quite amusing. They did exactly the same on the way back.

They must not have hated us, because they’ve invited us out again tonight. This time, we’re going to a steakhouse. We’re meeting them at a local supermarket and following them there this time, so we won’t have to endure the car bickering.

Previous owner lady brought us some electric heaters to keep us warm while we were grappling with the issue with the central heating boiler. She had tried calling a company that fixes boilers, but all they did was promise to call me and then not call me. It went on for almost 2 weeks. In the end, another friend who lives here put me in touch with another company that did some work for her. They came straight out, diagnosed the problem, took the failed part away, promised to order a new one and fix it for us, and this Monday, we had heat. It’s burning through our gas cylinder at a rate of knots, but we can put the heating on to take the chill off when we need to. Former owner also ordered us 3 cubic metres of firewood, which we had fun moving when the guy delivered it right onto our driveway outside the garage doors!

The gas cylinder bloke was wonderful. He brought us a cylinder, we asked him for another and before we’d turned around he’d snuck back and installed a second one.

I’m still waiting for the central heating people to send me a bill…

So now, we have heating, the mains water is available, but still not connected to the house, because we need some pipework for that, and we have a mains water meter, which Paul fitted on the wall outside.

We’ve had 2 people come and measure the kitchen to give us a quote. We’ve had a pool guy come and assess the pool to see how that can be converted into a a saltwater swimming pool, and they’re also going to get their painter to come and quote us for painting the entire exterior of the house (that’s not going to be a cheap job by any means).

There is loads to do here, the kitchen is DIABOLICAL. We had to take the doors off the cupboards because they stank and we couldn’t even put cups and plates in them. With the doors off, it’s much more tolerable, but all our kitchen stuff is still in boxes in the little room that adjoins it (which we’ll be knocking into to make one large kitchen as soon as it’s humanly possible.

Not a chance that’s going to be done this side of Christmas though. So we have a big, damp, draughty, cold house that’s in dire need of paint inside and out, has holes everywhere, and has sprung a leak above the wine cellar (kitchen wall, somewhere under the sink). Paul is monitoring that and trying to find where the leak is coming from, but it’s no quick fix.

On Sunday, one of our trees fell down and landed on the garage roof of one of the neighbours. We spent the entire day gradually chopping the branches off and pulling them back to our side, desperately trying not to do any damage. The owner of the garage joined in, and after telling us about his 1969 ‘precious’ vehicle and his electrics, and on and on, he basically insisted Paul fix the corner of the roof where one piece of slate had broken off with silicone. Paul gave him the silicone and he did it himself, refusing Paul’s offer of gloves, and ending up with his hands in a right state (which Paul found highly amusing). I came indoors, the bloke completely ignored me the entire time I was out there. Even when I spoke directly to him, he ignored me, so I just thought ‘fuck you then, Mr Neighbour, you don’t exist either’. He was the second extremely rude Portuguese person I’ve encountered since being here.

To balance that however, we have English neighbours around the corner who brought us firewood and wine when we arrived (we really must invite them out soon to thank them), and lovely Niki who has invited us out again tonight. We don’t want to only socialise with English people though, and we really have to get to grips with the language. Unfortunately, all the free local classes are held during the day, and we’re working, so that’s not going to work too well for us.

I think, once we get this winter out of the way, things will improve a lot. The house is far from beautiful at the moment, but it can be. There is no rush to get things done, but the kitchen is an absolute emergency. The kitchen and both bathrooms actually. And an efficient heating system. Once we’ve got those things sorted out, the rest can be done on the downlow.

I haven’t regretted coming here though. Sometimes I do, when I’m a bit chilly, but I’m loving having this big house and this enormous garden, and the peace and quiet (when the neighbour’s dog shuts up).

It’s not perfect, that’s the thing. But location-wise, we’ve made a fantastic choice. We’re close to great amenities and beautiful countryside - and 3 large vineyards that sell Portugal’s best wine cheap as chips. Swings and roundabouts, eh?

Last updated November 07, 2019