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.

Sunshine and Breeze in the Countryside

April 17, 2018April 17, 2018 | Mairead

2018 4

(Sunset by the lake near the mining town)

We’ve moved on again, just 90 minutes south of the mining town to the middle of the countryside. There’s no town nearby just sheep, although they could be goats, they are very far away. Our neighbours have a binoculars but we don’t know them well enough yet and we don’t speak dutch… But I am incentivised.

2018 5

(Our view today)

Because in the distance I can see Spain again. It’s probably about twenty kilometres away but without the binoculars I won’t be able to patrol the border. I can just make out a line of small trees, possibly olive trees, very close to the Spanish side of the river bank so there may well be a Spanish man doing some gardening. How would I know for sure though without those binoculars?

2018 2

(That’s Spain way, way over on the left.You might be able to make out the river)

Our view from the door is just lovely again so I may just keep my attention on what’s right in front of me. I’ve been making more cards and painting the pages of a book to make it an art journal. It’s a tricky process because you can only paint two pages at a time and then you go off and do something else until they dry and then turn the next page over and start again. It takes days, weeks or months to cover even a small book. But here the pages dry really fast because of the combination of sun and heat.

2018 3

(The sheep (or goats) are out there somewhere)

That’s probably what put the washing into my head. I was on my fifth page of paint/dry/turn when a thought struck me – we are running out of clean clothes. Now I’m third in the queue behind two french ladies for the washing machine. I only hope I can get the unmentionables on the line before the sun sets… If we didn’t need to fill up our gas tank, I’d be happy to stay here for a long time. Unfortunately the nearest petrol station that sells gas (for cooking and heating water and the fridge when we’re not connected to electricity) is close to the coast. We will leave in the morning.

They’ve left the binoculars on the table outside their motorhome… Mairead.

The Mining Town

April 16, 2018April 16, 2018 | Mairead

2018 9

(The lake near our car park)

It’s sunny! In fact it might be a little too sunny…. just joking! It’s just perfect, perfect. We have moved to a new location beside a very peaceful lake, it’s also near an old gold mine. Well, the gold mining was back in the day when the Romans were here. The most recent mining for copper ore ended in the 1960’s.

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(The resident stork at the old mine)

What we didn’t realise, when we were at the border post (watching my man from Spain) was that we were parked on the docks beside the site of the old mine train. The copper ore was transported from this town to the border town by train. Then it was loaded onto huge sailing ships bound for England.

2018 1 1

(Can you see the copper coloured water?)

We went for a walk to see some of the old buildings. The buildings are just walls and chimneys. The only occupants now are the storks. The earth has a deep red colour and weirdly so do the trees piled on the side of the road. As we got closer to the open mine we could also see other colours, yellows, white and even blue. This is our second day without electricity so we’ll have to move on tomorrow which is a pity because there’s a little museum in the town that’s closed on Mondays. Today is Monday.

2018 1

(The trees look red)

You know I suppose it’s obvious but no two towns are the same, they don’t look the same of course but they also don’t feel the same. It’s like the combination of all the people who live here, combined with all the actions and intentions of all the people who ever lived here, add up to a place. This place is very interesting.

From a lovely lakeside in south-east Portugal, Mairead.

You can see Spain from here…

April 14, 2018April 14, 2018 | 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

April 13, 2018April 13, 2018 | 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.