The Free City Walls of Tomar

May 9, 2018May 9, 2018 | Mairead

2018 4

(There is only one entrance… and this is not it)

This is my third time in Tomar. The first time was with the Camino walking women. We stayed in a hostel and went on a tour of the Convento de Cristo. The second time was last year with Denis and we did a quick tour of the castle/convent that overlooks the town but didn’t stay overnight. Now this year we stayed in the motorhome park and I went off to visit the Convento on my own.

2018 1

(View over of Tomar and the Convento de Cristo in the background)

The motorhome park used to be the municipal campsite but it was closed down several years ago, no idea why but when it opened up it was free. Yes free! It’s a paradise of wild grasses and trees with birds play fighting amongst the tall weeds. They really look like they’re playing. Dive bombing to hide in the dense greenery or landing on one of the tall stalks of wild oats that bend down to the ground with their weight. I actually think I can hear them giggle as they hop off and the stalk springs back upright. For us there are super clean toilets and cold showers and a place to dump and collect water. Perfect.

2018 11

(My new favourite imaginary place to go when I want to be still… and it’s real)

Yesterday morning started off cloudy. I waited for the sun to shine but it didn’t so I went off to the convent/castle anyway. As I had been here before I decided to mix it up a bit and go in the way I had exited the previous time. I thought it might be interesting to begin at the end and just see the bits I remembered liking. So I went to the back entrance. Except it wasn’t. An entrance, I mean. It was only an exit. There was a woman there and a cash register but there was no way she would allow me to come in the exit. As soon as I exited she closed the door, firmly.

2018 12

(Cute toilets at Convento de Cristo. Do not be put off by the worn door. In real-life real-old gets a bit battered looking. They have everything you need – real-old door, real-old tiles (floor and wall) paper, soap and hand dryer. Thank you Tomar!)

So I set off for the real entrance. I still wanted a different tour so it seemed like a good idea to notice things I had missed on the previous visits. I walked slowly through the big gate and had a look at the tile covered benches and beyond them into the orange grove (convent/castles don’t have one or two orange trees, they have groves – full of orange trees.) Then as I got closer to the ticket booth I spotted a sign for the toilets. I had not seen the toilets on previous trips and you do know how much I love the Portuguese toilets at their castles. This one did not disappoint.

2018 8

(The courtyard of the Convento de Cristo)

I thought I’d seen everything I’d previously missed so I went off to the ticket booth. On my way I spotted something very exciting. A man taking my picture. Ok, that’s not the exciting bit. The exciting bit is he was taking my picture from a position up on the walls of the castle/convent! I had definitely never noticed the (safe, securely railed) walkway around the walls before. Seems like this is the year of the walls. (Yes I know yesterday I said this was the year of flexibility, it can be both.) Also, it was in the courtyard, so I didn’t even need to go to the ticket booth… the walls at the Convento de Cristo are completely free. Thanks to the woman who would not let me enter through the exit I had found them.

2018 6

(Look at that great railing!)

The walkway snaked slowly around the site and took me about 30 minutes to complete because I was talking pictures at every turn. It was really great up there and I was completely alone. The man who had taken my picture was long gone and no one else seemed to notice this gem, not exactly hidden but maybe camouflaged by the other treasures around it. On the castle/convent side of the walkway I could see the orange grove and there were other walled gardens. On the outer side there was a forest of trees edging on to the town.

2018 7

(Tomar from the castle/convent walls)

At the very end of the walkway was a stone staircase leading to the courtyard. There was something magical about the space so I sat down on the last step and closed my eyes. I could imagine brave knights and gentle nuns and honourable monks who passed this way. I sat listening to the birds completely hidden from people walking unawares to the ticket booth. Have you ever been at a workshop or done a guided meditation where the facilitator says, close your eyes and imagine you are in a beautiful safe place? I usually go to the walled garden in Powerscourt but from now on I will be going to those stone steps that lead from the walkway around the walls of the Convento de Cristo in Tomar.

Although you can’t enter at the exit it is possible to exit at the entrance, so I did. Mairead.

One stitch after another…

April 30, 2018April 30, 2018 | Mairead

2018 1

(This is an old Roman road at the entrance to the olive farm)

Still here at the house with the oranges, in the town with the olive farm, waiting for Ruby to recover. The mechanic has started holding his head in his hands when he sees us… no translation necessary. It seems there’s still a problem. My mother reminded me that this is when I do craft stuff. I left the crafting stuff in the van.

2018 2

(Yummy yarn)

Then I remembered I had two balls of yarn and there was probably a crochet needle in my pencil-case. When I searched I found the laundry bag. Oh yes, the washing… thinking there would be a washing machine I carried our laundry the twenty-minute walk to the house with the oranges. There was no washing machine. First I hand washed the clothes, then I started crocheting.

2018 3

(It says Camel Wool…)

On the first day we arrived in this town we saw a shop with a sign offering accommodation. The lady explained the rooms were a bit far outside the town unless you had transport and we didn’t. As we chatted my eyes wandered to a colourful display – yarn. I realised she sold yarn. She had wool and cotton and a camel wool mix! Camel wool? Really? Anyway. Beautiful colours. Irresistible. I wanted one ball of every colour – just to look at. I bought two balls.

2018 4

(Granny square)

Crochet is very forgiving. Well at least it is the way I do it. My sister-in-law, Kate, taught me that you can join odd unmatched pieces of crochet work together like a patchwork quilt. So that’s what I have been doing ever since. Before that I was stockpiling squares, hiding them in cupboards, finding them when I was looking for something else. Taking them out to marvel at their colour, their texture, their comfort. Wondering how I could have forgotten them. The first one I pieced together made me laugh and cry, it was so surprisingly lovely.

2018 5

(Looks way bigger close up)

I kept crocheting over the weekend. I have no crochet books with me but I know one pattern off by heart, so that’s the one I’m doing. It’s called granny square and it starts with six stitches which are joined together to make a circle. By the third row it starts to look like a square and the square gets bigger as you continue. You can keep going until you run out of wool… or you decide this piece is done. I decide a piece is done when the work in my hand feels big enough, which is different each time. When it’s done you have to close it off so the yarn doesn’t unravel. The piece is actually finished when the yarn is cut. There is a moment when I realise something has been accomplished. Sometimes I notice this moment and sometimes I don’t but when I do it brings a feeling of contentment. Imagine if contentment was so simply attainable.

What if it is? Mairead.

Kittens and Coffee

April 26, 2018April 26, 2018 | Mairead

2018 5

(Spring, spring, spring)

We are still at the house of the oranges in the garden. Ruby is still at the garage. We have fallen into a different routine here. Normally we have breakfast and lunch in the van and get dinner out from time to time. This week we are having every meal out. So for breakfast we go to Padeira de Vila (I think it means town bakery) we went there the first morning and we just keep going back. They are really friendly and the way they make Americano coffee is perfect. Breakfast is coffee and a ham roll with orange juice. you can probably guess that the orange juice is not from a bottle. Today we had lunch, a toasted ham and cheese sandwich, I don’t know what kind of cheese it is but it’s amazing.

2018 2

(Poppies and daisies)

It is very unusual for us to repeat a visit to a cafe or restaurant but this week we are and they are starting to notice us. On the second day the waitress (when we were murdering the language with our order for breakfast) said, the same as yesterday? We were delighted and relieved, Yes, please! Em, sim, obrigada, obrigado! Today a lady who works upstairs at the solicitor’s office (see, we are practically locals) came in with an adorable kitten (sorry no photos, imagine a tabby kitten, the size of the palm of your hand, meowing loudly with adorably velvety ears) that someone else had found wandering in the road. The lady in the cafe gave her a box and a container for milk and milk and off she went.

2018 4

(Sunset from last week)

Thirty minutes later she’s back from the chemist with a bag of baby wipes, a lidded jar, a towel and what looks like a baby’s bottle. The kitten is up in her office and she hasn’t been fired yet. We all bond over her dilemma. We understand. We’ve been there. Kittens have such cute little faces. They are so trusting and loveable. How hard could kitten-adoption be? One so young would easily get used to a new home, even a motorhome…

2018 7

(Like a bird on the wire)

It’s getting dangerous to stay here much longer, between the lovely people the beautiful houses, the favourable cost of living and the cute kittens, we are in danger of making snap decisions with far-reaching consequences. Will know later today when Ruby will be ready, probably should keep away from anything cute until then.

Tchau, Mairead.

Thank you, Portugal!

April 25, 2018April 25, 2018 | Mairead

2018 1

(Normally closed these shutters keep the house cool. Can you see the thickness of the wall?)

We are staying in a house on the edge of town, did I tell you that? It’s a very cute traditional Portuguese house. It has shutters on the windows at the front and very small windows at the back and really thick walls. Which all helps to keep the interior of the house very cool. So cool in fact we wear an extra layer when we are inside. It’s the original air conditioning. We have been here three days and I’ve only just realised that something I have been imagining with you, has become real… There are oranges growing in our garden!

2018 3

(Oranges growing in our garden)

Ok I know it’s not technically our garden but it is kinda our garden for today and probably tomorrow and the next day. Einstein seemingly said imagination was more important than intelligence… he was probably thinking of oranges. As well as the oranges, there’s a vine, possibly an almond tree (do almonds grow on trees?) a couple of different palm trees, something that looks like woodbine and a fruit I don’t recognise (picture below.) There are birds tweeting and cars passing on the road outside. Over the road is a field with rows and rows of small trees in blossom but I don’t recognise them either.

2018 1 1

(Unidentified fruit)

This unexpected visit to a real Portuguese house and garden is lovely and the powerful shower is truly lovely. This unexpected week in a small Portuguese town is very different to the way we have been travelling and being temporarily not in control of our destiny has brought up interesting messages…

2018 4

(Also don’t know what theses are…)

Like how much support we have received from the communities in the towns we have travelled through. We have been here in Portugal for two months today. Without the parking spots they provide for motorhomes, without the water and the emptying places, without the electricity and the refuse and recycling bins, without the great mobile data rates, we couldn’t do what we do.

2018 2

(…or this shrub. The flowers smell beautiful)

Sometimes we need a bit of a jolt to realise how incredibly lucky we are and how maybe we’ve been taking it all for granted. Today is a holiday in Portugal. I googled it but at the risk of getting it completely, insultingly wrong, I will find a real Portuguese person to tell me the story. I think it’s going to be about peace and freedom…

Obrigada, Portugal, you are generous and kind and beautiful. Mairead.

Just in time…

April 24, 2018April 24, 2018 | Mairead

2018 1

(Ruby being winched backwards into van hospital)

I’m exhausted. It’s 6am and I’ve been awake for an hour… Denis is snoring loudly this night/morning! I feel a huge fraud saying I’m exhausted when here I am here in a beautiful place with everything working out for my good and I am complaining. Two of my friends have just completed big projects, one had a third of her team missing and the other has a Mum who is very ill. I’m sure they are exhausted. My own mother is in pain and miserable with an ongoing physical complaint. I’m sure she’s exhausted. And you, you have challenges that no one knows about and you bear them yourself. Are you are exhausted? One person’s challenge is someone else’s dream day. This is just my story but maybe any story can be a symbol of every story. It’s a long story so I’ll go back to the beginning or even before the beginning…

2018 2

(Very organised garage)

Less than a week ago I wrote “Something I really love about the motorhome is the flexibility. If your plan doesn’t work out it’s not the end of the world. Another plan is always possible. I’m not naturally optimistic, I have to work at it. Sometimes I am more comfortable thinking about what bad thing could happen so that I can work out in advance what I will do about it. Ruby and this was of living is helping me practice and I actually love optimism. Google it, I think you’ll love it too!”

2018 4

(The boss mechanic won all these trophies playing five-a-aside in the 80’s)

Well you know what they say : be careful what you wish for… I had googled optimism at the time and loved that it said, “…hopefulness and confidence about the future…” I have always loved the word hope. It gets a bad press because it’s related to being attached too rigidly to a specific desired outcome. Maybe I am too attached to a happy ending but I think I love hope because when the ending comes I understand I will (eventually) find the happy in it. In the meantime hope keeps me going. So my definition of optimism is: finding the happy in difficult situations.

(Ruby is still in surgery…)

And then we are stuck on a small street in a small town and I don’t know what’s going to happen next. I get through the day finding plenty of happy but don’t sleep that night. My mind is racing… How will me manage until Monday? How will we get water? What if we can’t get internet? What if they can’t work on the problem on Monday? What if the police come to move us on or arrest us? How will we contact the mechanic? If they don’t come how will we push the van around the corner and down a narrow street with cars parked on either side? Will it fit into the doorway? If it does fit where will we stay? How will we get around without transport? How much will this cost? How do I empty the black water cassette so that the mechanic isn’t overpowered by ammonia fumes if this takes longer than a few days? How do we communicate with the mechanic? On and on and on… Answering my mind’s questions is exhausting.

2018 1 1

(There’s a river just up the road from the garage)

There was something else pushing it’s way quietly into my mind as I tried to find answers. Big Picture. Think about the BIG picture. The big picture has none of the little details that my mind was concentrating on. The big picture requires me to stand way, way back to look at the situation. The big picture is like a landscape photograph with green trees and flowing water. there’s me sitting quietly by the water writing, there are birds in the trees and they definitely look like they are singing. I am safe. I am warm. I am still. My mind is quiet. The answers come in the perfect time.

2018 5

(Lemon blossom and…)

Even though I like the big picture and how it makes me feel I still resist it. I want to answer all the questions. I have to answer all the questions or bad stuff will happen. The thing is, there is no way to answer the questions… until the precise moment an answer is required. For example, the question, how will I empty the black water cassette? got answered when I woke on Monday morning at 7am. The answer was clear, walk to the public toilets rolling the cassette behind you, there will be less people on the streets to see or smell you. I have no idea how many people saw me (or smelt me) doing that walk of shame because I was concentrating on the ground and even if there were people judging me, it was not a shameful thing… actually you could call it heroic – I saved the mechanic from ammonia poisoning. My point, it was the perfect answer and it arrived just in time, no sooner.

2018 7

(…lemon blossom bud)

And just in time is a recurring theme… Just at the precise time we needed to communicate with the mechanic a dutch couple who live in the town and speak Portuguese arrived to collect their car. They translated and offered further translation by phone. Other questions didn’t need answers because they didn’t arise… we had just enough water. There was just enough clearance to get into and manoeuvre in the garage (remember the skill of the Portuguese drivers? well this Portuguese mechanic could manoeuvre with centimetres to spare while outside the van pushing it!) Just in time we found a place to stay with wifi and within walking distance of the garage, so we didn’t need our own internet or transport.

We still don’t know when Ruby will be fixed but it’s probably going to be just in time… Mairead.

Everything is fine, just fine…

April 21, 2018April 21, 2018 | Mairead

We had a bit of an adventure today…. Ruby broke!

2018 3

(Ruby on her way to the garage…)

We moved this morning from the orange and lemon campsite during a thunder and lightening storm. We arrived in a small town with very cute small streets and the rain stopped and it got a bit warmer. Then Ruby’s clutch broke… and we were stuck on one of those cute small streets for four hours. Yep we were.

2018 1

(Can you see the planks of wood? They will become important later)

It is an example of the truly amazing agility of the Portuguese drivers that they were able to manoeuvre around us. And there was not one beep of a horn or a cross word. In fact people were coming out of the woodwork to help us. First, there was a man sitting patiently as he waited for his wife and saw our predicament. He directed Denis to a mechanic (as luck would have it the word for mechanic sounds the same in Portuguese) while I stayed in Ruby and searched high up and low down for the emergency triangle. (An emergency triangle is one of the things you must have in your vehicle in Europe… let this be a warning to you…)

2018 1 1

(It was a bit fiddly but I managed to assemble our triangle)

I found the triangle after only a little hyperventilation, managed to wrestle it out of the plastic wrapping and stand it behind the van and then I just sat inside communicating my apologies as expressively as I could to the passing motorists. Within an hour Denis was back with the mechanic who didn’t speak any English, although he didn’t need to, it was clear we were stuck. Then an English and Portuguese speaking Ireland-loving Swiss doctor knocked on our door (yep!) and he translated between Denis and the mechanic and his boss who has just arrived. Turned out the doctor spent a very enjoyable holiday in Ireland and loved all Irish people and couldn’t do enough for us. He was offering to go home and get his jeep to tow us to the garage but the mechanic reminded him that it’s illegal to tow vehicles in Portugal (another useful piece of information, you’re welcome.) We have to ring him on Monday to tell him how we got on.

2018 2

(Ruby getting a lift from our new friend)

The street was bustling with people by now and Denis was on the phone to the emergency breakdown people who said they’d be there in 45 minutes. The man with the tow truck arrived in 40 minutes. Everyone was gone home for lunch when he arrived. It took an hour for him to manoeuvre Ruby into place. She’s a little low on the back so he had to use numerous planks of wood under the back wheels to keep her from scratching along the ground as she was winched onto his truck. It’s not as simple a procedure as you’d imagine. He had to run through the whole wooden planks in reverse when he dropped us off at the garage and here we sit… on the road outside the garage.

2018 4

(That car on the left is a BMW and we were too close to put Ruby down here… eventually the tow truck man had to put her down in the street and both he and Denis pushed Ruby to the curb. Me? I was steering)

The garage is closed until Monday. Then they will investigate our problem and order a part and hopefully we’ll be motoring by Tuesday. In the meantime our grey water is empty so no problem there. We will be making great use of the public toilets in the town so that’s fine. We have a half tank of clean water so that should be okay. But our battery power will probably only last until Monday morning, we will need to do something about that then. Our wifi will probably last until Monday too but I haven’t seen a MEO (mobile internet provider) shop in the town so we may have a challenge with that. And lastly we are parked in a place that’s not designated for motorhomes so we may be getting a visit from the GNR (police)… but you remember our friend the policeman in Soure? Hello Rui! He’s still following us on Facebook and he did say if we every needed his help…

To be continued… Mairead.

Oranges and Lemon

April 20, 2018April 20, 2018 | Mairead

2018 6

(A gift from our French hosts)

We are moving slowly along the Algarve again today… about 15 kilometres from last night’s spot. In the middle of the countryside again at a French campsite… well the owners are French with very good English language skills. We were here a couple of hours when the lady arrived at our door with two oranges and a lemon! Imagine that!

2018 4

(I forgot to include this yesterday, saw it on the beach. I think it’s some kind of sea urchin, close-up it looks like a toy)

Such a simple thing but hugely satisfying to receive. Of course we can buy oranges and lemons at the supermarket, we have been buying them but these ones grew here in this campsite. Imagine, your very own orange tree! I just never get tired of imagining that! And what about a lemon tree?

2018 1

(Wildlife from the day before at the castle)

I have a bit of a cough this week and I’ve been making lemon, honey and ginger drinks. I couldn’t wait to try out our lemon. It might be better, fresher, more medicinal than the ones that have to travel by boat to the supermarket. I bet I’ll be fit as a fiddle tomorrow.

2018 3

(This might be an orange tree. It was at the castle)

I think it tastes the same… as the ones we bought last week in Lidl. I really thought there’d be a difference, a big difference. I was starting to feel better just anticipating the medicinal properties. Maybe the ones in Lidl grew here too. Ha that’s gas! Or…

You don’t think she got them from Lidl, do you? Mairead.

Life’s a beach…

April 19, 2018April 19, 2018 | Mairead

2018 1

(There was a boardwalk to the beach so we took a quick look…)

The Algarve area of Portugal is very popular. We’ve been officially in the Algarve for three days now but most people (or maybe just me?) think of the Algarve as the coast and the beautiful beaches. So today we arrived in that part of the Algarve and we went to the beach. We couldn’t stay though because it was full up…

2018 6

(My feets in the sand! It was warm!)

Well, the first two beach side parking places we tried were full. So we went a little (5 minutes) into the countryside and we can just make out the beach (well, if only I had those binoculars, I could.) and we can definitely see the sea. The wild birds are singing and there’s a few hens doing what hens do…crowing? cock-a-doodling?

2018 5

(Denis looks so excited to be in the sea… oh, maybe he’s complaining because of the cold? It is the Atlantic)

I was a bit concerned that we might find it more difficult to find places to stay once we arrived in the far south especially as it’s getting later in the season and the weather has turned. (Fingers crossed.) But here we are in a lovely place that we might never have found if we’d been able to stay at the beach.

2018 3

(The tide was way out)

Something I really love about the motorhome is the flexibility. If your plan doesn’t work out it’s not the end of the world. Another plan is always possible. I’m not naturally optimistic, I have to work at it. Sometimes I am more comfortable thinking about what bad thing could happen so that I can work out in advance what I will do about it. Ruby and this was of living is helping me practice and I actually love optimism. Google it, I think you’ll love it too!

It’s all good, Mairead.

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