I have to return to the UK now after this all-too-brief visit. Here are some images I’ll be keeping in my head as well as on this blog.
Young oaks silhouetted by the rising sun. (There are almost as many oaks as fruit trees here.)
Cloud-filled morning pine forest
The pool on the top terrace
The waterfall on the middle terrace
I’ll also be taking back a much fitter body and a huge sense of pleasure gained from working the land with traditional hand tools rather than modern petrol-driven or electrical implements. The €6,50 wooden-handled sickle with serrated blade that I bought in Arganil market has been only marginally less efficient than a €250+ brushcutter/strimmer would have been at tackling the bracken and brambles, considerably more environmentally friendly, much cheaper to run, and better for my physique into the bargain. It’s enough to make me seriously wonder whether in fact we need a strimmer after all.
Michelle April 30, 2009
Love the pic of the cloud in the forest…hope you had a good time.Your pics all make it look so different from the last 2 times I was there-it was wet winter both times whereas now it just looks so lush!
Quinta do Vale April 30, 2009
Oh yes! It was a very good time. It was so comfortable being there on the land, despite the absence of anything that modern life might define as “comfortable”. It’s a strange thing — there’s no big WOW! factor to being there, just a sense like your feet all cosseted in a favourite pair of old woolly socks. Already it just feels like “home”; somewhere you automatically take care of in the way Em picked up that hoe and started working the minute she first set foot on the land. It was so hard to leave the place I didn’t even get over to yours until last Saturday! Even harder to go back to the UK again …
But needs must and hopefully this time it won’t be so long until we’re all back again.