nature

The Olive Farm

| Mairead

2018 9

(One of the olive groves)

There’s an Olive Farm in our adopted town and you can go on a tour. I went along on Friday. It’s just across the road from our garage so we had spotted it last Sunday but it was closed. I booked the tour online and then arrived at the farm at 10am. Two mini busses were arriving at the same time. It turned out they were both full of Sweden visitors on a holiday in Portugal. They had their own Swedish guide who lives in Portugal and speaks Portuguese and French and Spanish and… I can’t remember the other languages. She was so friendly and generously said she loves listening to the Irish accent (what accent?)

2018 2

(Tiago and the olive plant)

The tour was conducted by Tiago (Portuguese for James… like Saint James of Santiago de Compostela and you might remember S.Tiago in the church in Soure?) who spoke perfect English. His tour was really interesting and the first thing I learned was that there is no such thing as an Olive tree! Olives do not grow on trees. They grow on shrubs. In order to illustrate this Tiago brought us to the oldest trees on the farm. He told us they were definitely over 1,000 years old but because they weren’t trees you couldn’t measure their age by the rings. Also, the center of the main stem (or what we’ve been calling, the trunk) disintegrates with age so that the appearance looks like two trees… but it’s not even one tree, it’s a shrub.

2018 3

(One of the oldest olive plants on the farm. Can you see the center has disintegrated?)

Tiago explained the process of farming the olives. The yearly pruning by a Spanish team who are experts in pruning and only prune olive plants and travel to olive farms all around Spain and Portugal. The harvesting of the olives happens in September and is all done by hand by a team of thirty people. The number of people is significant, Tiago told us, because they want the time between the olive being picked and the olive being crushed to be less than 3 hours. So thirty people begin work on a section of the farm. First they lay gathering mats on the ground to catch the olives without bruising. Then one group of harvesters wear scissors on their hands and pick off the olives. The next group has combs (imagine a huge cartoon-sized hair comb) and comb out any remaining olives. The next group search for olives missed by the first two.

2018 1

(Olive flowers)

Then the olives are gathered into the pressing shed. They go through a washing machine, gentle cycle, then a hammering machine, then a stone grinding machine  – with actual stone wheels like the old days for grinding flour but in a machine (imagine a machine with stones? I was very taken by this.) Each time the olives go through a machine the output passes through a sieve. Anything left in the sieves will be used next year for compost. So from the stone machine (I think I like the stone machine because it reminds me of the Flintstones!) the oil goes into huge steel cylinders and each day they turn the tap at the bottom and at first they get some debris not caught in the sieves, then they get water and then oil. The day they turn the tap and just get oil the contents of that cylinder is ready to go to the holding tank. Tiago told us that even at this stage the oil is not ready, it is too bitter, it must sit for a while. I can’t remember how long, but I do know about being bitter and sitting for a while sounds very sensible. Just sayin’.

2018 19

(The stone grinding machine. Can you see the grindstones?)

Then it was time for tasting. I have never tasted Olive Oil… well maybe I should say, I never drank Olive Oil. I remember, for my whole childhood, we had a small little bottle of olive oil in the medicine cupboard. It was used when we had an earache. You heat the oil in a spoon – not too hot – and pour it carefully into the sore ear. It was never used for cooking. Of course as an adult I have used olive oil for cooking. I also mix it with balsamic vinegar for salads… but drinking. I was not looking forward to this. Tiago was such a nice young man I did not want to insult his olive oil but how could I possibly drink it?

2018 25

(Tasting time…)

At the beginning of the tour when we were out visiting the oldest olive shrubs one of the people on the tour asked Tiago if it wouldn’t be more efficient to dig up the old plants and put in new ones. Tiago explained there was no reason to do so as neither the quantity nor the quality of the olives diminish with the age of the plant and also it takes years for the young plants to reach maturity… about 20 years! So I suppose I was already feeling the love for Tiago and the olive farmers who tend and care for the old olive plants and I would definitely be doing my very best to swallow this liquid that I was more comfortable putting in my ear…

2018 21

(The huge cylinders. Can you see the tap?)

… but it was absolutely delicious! Really, it was. I’m not just saying it. I am still amazed. I really enjoyed the tour and learned a lot about olive oil. Like, it doesn’t last indefinitely in your larder (or medicine cupboard) probably up to two years but the way to check? Drink some! And if it’s not rancid then it’s still ok and the tests show the vitamin content remains good too. Also, light and heat make it go off faster, so keep it in the dark and away from the cooker.

I will be drinking my olive oil from now on… Mairead.

Thank you, Portugal!

| 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.

Oranges and Lemon

| 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.

You can see Spain from here…

| Mairead

2018 1

(The view today)

We finally moved on from Serpa. We’d been there ten days, the longest time we’ve spent anywhere on this trip. We were still missing it when we arrived at our new spot on the Spanish border… until we opened the door and saw our view. There are no facilities (no water, no dumping, no bins, no toilets) but it’s completely free and beautiful and the sun is shining. It is also really peaceful.

2018 2

(If you can see a road going up the side of the hill on the left… that’s a Spanish road.)

There could a problem with the internet and phones… but I spotted a cafe when we were winding our way down here, maybe they have wifi. It’s the weekend so one night without internet connection will be fine, right, Denis? I can hear hens crowing and pigeons cooing and tiny birds chirping. And just over the water is Spain. There’s a bridge, we could even visit.

2018 3

(What’s this?)

There’s a strange fruit growing at the far end of the car park. Could it be figs? Well, there’s another thing to imagine – figs growing in the car park by the river. The man in the yellow boat from the first pictures is working in his vegetable garden in Spain. He must have dropped over to Portugal earlier to have a coffee. I see he has a chair waiting for him when he’s finished work. Oh hang on he’s taking out a fishing rod. He’s moving the chair closer to the river bank. He’s taking a long time to sort out the fishing equipment.

2018 6

(There’s a rusty old winch machine near us)

I took my eyes off my man in Spain for a moment and he’s disappeared. I am feeling a strange sense of responsibility for him, no one else is watching him. What if he falls into the river? It’s ok, he’s back in the garden. Must have just been taking a break with the fishing rod.

From my patrol station on the Portuguese/Spanish border, Mairead.

ps Linda (remember who gave me the craft kit?) is running a great workshop in Glendalough next weekend (21/04/18) called MindCraft. There’ll be mindfulness and stories, you’ll learn how to make pebble craft pictures and quilling and you get a lovely lunch. Find out more on MindCraft.ie (or on the Facebook page.) It’s a fun day and you go home with your very own work of art! Tell Linda I sent you and she might forgive me for swanning off to Portugal!

pps My man in Spain is safely sitting in his chair, fishing.

Inner Wellbeing

| Mairead

2018 1 5

(Flower seen on the indirect route)

The rain has stopped! I see the light! Well… not sunlight but light nonetheless. It’s time to get more input (I mean take more photos). So when I woke up this morning instead of turning over in the bed, I got up, had breakfast and did my meditation. It’s still fleece, hat and raincoat weather so I shoved everything on and waddled out the door. Then I took a different route to the old town. Made me realise it takes time to get familiar with a new place. A similar thing happened in Beja.

2018 2 4

(Can’t have too many flowers…)

Here in Serpa the old part of the town is very easy to navigate and it’s not really possible to get lost in there because if you keep walking very soon you’ll arrive at the wall. When you find the wall you won’t be lost anymore. We are parked in the campsite and the campsite is situated outside the wall, so normally I take the direct route to the old town and wander around safely inside the wall. Today I took an indirect route and found some pretty input (you know, pictures) outside the wall.

2018 4 3

(I think this is an orange flower bud! It was on a tree that looks like an orange tree)

There was a park getting a makeover, a little flower garden outside someone’s house, very, very old olive trees and a place to sit down for coffee. I was surprised to realise that it was warm enough to sit outside which is my very favourite thing to do at the moment. While I was sitting outside I wrote in my notebook. Writing always helps me understand what’s going on in my inner world and since this has been a frustrating week I was definitely looking forward to finding out what was going on in there.

2018 6 1

(Huge urns seen on the indirect route)

What was going on was craft related. I know how important crafting is to my general wellbeing but usually when I need it the most I don’t choose it. It’s like meditation is most useful when you’re feeling stressed or upset but that’s the one time you couldn’t be bothered doing it. Or going for a walk is great for clearing your head but it’s the last thing you want to do when your head is full of junk thoughts. We are our own worst enemies.

2018 8

(There it is! The Wall pops out to tell me I’m not lost! It gets sucked back into that house when I turn my back…)

So my inner world was grateful for the cards I made this week and told me to keep making them. I have often been dismissive of card making, wanting the time I put into making to yield something longer lasting. My inner world told me that it really doesn’t matter how long the thing you make lasts. It does it’s job during the making. (Like a Sand Mandala (google it) that takes a week to make and is then swept away.) What job does making do? It nourishes your inner world.

Nourish your inner world, people! Mairead.

Cut and Paste

| Mairead

2018 4

(Very close up of ice on the bike seat, northern Spain)

Well wouldn’t you know it, I talk about taking photographs and then I completely stop taking them (it’s cold out…) Instead I’m doing something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time. Cut and paste photos together. Not sure how to do it yet. Well I can do it with a scissors but I’m not sure how to do it digitally. So I’ll give that a go and add the results here.

Cut and Paste Picture

(Motorway services restaurant in Spain😳)

Hmmm, I find technology very frustrating… Probably shouldn’t blame technology though. I expect it to work a certain way and am disappointed and frustrated when it doesn’t. In this case I don’t have the right software to do the thing that would be a doddle with a scissors and paper… If I had a colour printer here I could do that. I always expect technology to work faster too. Learning how to use it is not part of the plan. So I’ll try something else…

2018 5

(Fuzzy close up of seagull feathers, northern Spain)

This is not very satisfying, I must admit. Maybe I’m going too extreme. On the next one I’ve moved the balance dial just a little and now it’s possible to see the house lights in the distance. So maybe that’s the trick – small balanced changes.

2018 3

(Sunrise at the lighthouse northern Spain)

Might be time for us to move on, the pigeons are starting to think we’re a fixture here. There’s one looking in the window at me and another tap dancing on the roof.

From the pigeon fields of Serpa, Mairead.

Road Trip

| Mairead

2018 4 1

(There was an amazing sky last night)

We went driving around the countryside today. That wasn’t the plan but that’s what happened. We woke early and my plan was to go take pictures at the beach 2km down the road. Off we set at 9.30am and we were still driving at 10am. We missed the turn. We arrived at a golf resort, a very pretty gated community. We eventually did find the beach and I took the pictures and then we returned to the town with the castle, Alcacer do Sal.

2018 5

(The beach at Comporta)

We planned to stop at the free aire in the town but it was closed off, possibly for some festival or market for Easter. We had a coffee by the river to re-group. The coffee I like is an Americano but I have not (until today) known what it’s called in Portugal. I have managed to order it each time using hand gestures and knowing the word for water and milk (with extra nose wrinkling for no milk, thank you) The very happy cafe owner told me, without using any English, it’s called solo. I will need to road test this at another cafe but for now I think it’s correct.

2018 7

(The peaceful barragem)

We found a new place to go. A barragem. That means a dam, seemingly there are lots all over Portugal and they usually allow overnight camping. We drove for about 30 minutes from the town and then pulled off onto a narrow road and arrived at a place in the middle of nowhere, buzzing with camper vans. There was a cafe and even toilets. When Denis turned off the engine and I opened the door the sense of peace was huge. I went off to soak it up and take pictures and Denis started work. When I got back it turned out there was one thing missing… internet.

2018 8

(Pretty flowers at the barragem)

We said goodbye to the neighbours from the Netherlands who had great English (and German and Spanish and probably Dutch…) naturally. We’re in a new town, there’s a castle 20 minutes walk away and a cafe approximately 70 meters away. It’s not as peaceful here but it does have internet.

From Peaceful Portugal, Mairead.

The view is blue…

| Mairead

2018 7

(The view from the bedroom, blue sea, blue sky, blue bunting)

Every stitch of clothing had been washed and the sun came out so we went for a walk down town. When we arrived yesterday it was too wet to venture very far, we just got the groceries and did a load of washing. Going over and back to the machines I passed our view looking out to sea but it was too misty to see anything.

2018 3

(See the sea in the gap?)

It was a great surprise this morning when the mist lifted and we could see our view. We are on the edge of the town of Ericeira. We had never heard of it… possibly because we’re not surfers… yet.

2018 4

(The fishing boats on the land and the little dots in the sea are surfers, the ones in the sky are seagulls)

Our walk took us downhill all the way to the sea and the fishing port. I’m glad we were walking because these streets are the narrowest yet. There were surfers in the water and fishing boats on the shore and people gathered in groups talking and laughing and drinking coffee and eating amazing looking pastries.

2018 5

(Close up of a flying surfer)

The rain held off and the waves entertained the watchers and the surfers. Heading home was, as you’d expect, uphill all the way but the photo opportunities gave us an excuse to stop and catch our breath which was fortunate.

2018 6

(I liked the name on this building – Ericeira Business Factory)

We’ll be heading to Lisboa tomorrow morning but first we’ll be washing the van and pumping the tyres and filling up with diesel and water (including the windscreen washer) and groceries. We’ll be sorting out the other waters too. It looks like the weather might be changing for the better here so that’d be nice.

I’m ready to tidy away the umbrella and rain coats, Mairead.

To Lisbon by river…

| Mairead

2018 1 3

(Art in the park… looks like LEGO but made from plastic crates)

After the ruins we moved an hour further south to a small town called Villa Nova da Barquinha. It is right on the river Tagus. That’s the river that starts in Spain and runs out to the sea at Lisbon. When we arrived we parked as close to the river as we could. I did think, what a fast flowing river. It was definitely rushing past.

2018 4 3

(Another art piece, my favourite, stone columns with wire trees)

Also, the reviews in the parking app. mentioned that it was a quiet spot by a nice park and although it was beside a nice park, it wasn’t very quiet. Cars arrived constantly all afternoon and even thought it was raining most of the time, the occupants would hop out and go down to the edge of the water. Then they’d get back into their cars and drive off. By 6pm it was getting dark and the arrivals and departures had decreased.

2018 5 3

(Can you see the crime scene tape? The river was the suspect… That’s our parking space on the right)

Denis had just put on the burgers when a knock came to the door…. that’s unusual. A woman from the neighbouring (Belgian) camper was telling us that the police (who were just outside erecting crime scene tape…) had arrived to tell us all to move further away from the water for our safety. They (or maybe the water board) would be opening a dam tonight because of all the rain and there may be flooding!

2018 2 3

(Three meters deep here)

The cooking stopped and everything got fired into a cupboard (except for the frying pan, it was still hot so I held on to it) and we started moving away from the water. We moved about 200m up the road, me with the frying pan still in my hand directing the reversing. Denis returned to the cooking and I retrieved the things from the cupboard.

2018 3 3

(At least the ducks are happy)

Later that night I realised all the cars during the day were checking out the river, it’s probably not normally so high or so fast flowing. The cars continued to visit and so did the police but I fell asleep without too much trouble. But then at midnight… I’m awake, wide awake. Every sound is the sound of a river flooding and taking the van and us off to Lisbon… and not in a good way. I eventually got up and made myself a calming cup of Camomile tea while silently repeating that’s just a thought, that’s just a thought. Last time I looked it was 2am and then the alarm went off at seven.

While I’m feeling a little tetchy with the tiredness I am grateful we weren’t transported to Lisbon, Mairead.