gallery & blog

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wishing 2018 to be a year of joyful possibilities, peace and love for all

Christmas at Rural Escapes Portugal

As our first year comes to a close and we cosy up to the log burner, we are given time to reflect on all that has happened during 2017. It is hard to imagine that just a year ago we were living in a truck, we had a compost toilet and 6 hectares of wild land . Since then we have achieved so much with thanks to all of you who have supported us either through your words and comments on social media and conversations or through physically coming here and helping us build, water the land, dig, carry, cut my hair :-), chop, cook, clean and share expertise and ideas. The list is endless and so are you. I am going to make an attempt to write down all the names of people who have come here to visit and to help. We want to take this opportunity to say a HUGE THANK YOU from the depths of our hearts for helping us to create a space for many others to enjoy …

Thank you Roger T, Neel, Ali, Guy, Akira, Hannah, Dan, Kevin, Steve, Dan, Sam, Todd, Nick, Holly, Joshua, Roger, Nedege, Natalie, Sonny, Nieve, Tasha, Nicky, Anna, Danilo, Charlotte, Li, David, Tom, Jennifer, Vanessa, Helen, Suzanne, Isabel, Uncle Ian, Maxime, Elise, Stephanie, Sophie, Melina, Nova, Nicky & family, Jessica, Jameen, Stefan, Anthony, Charlie, Rogila, Astra, Luci, Jane, Andy, Wayne, Maria, Angelina, Jac, Bina, JB, Jemma, David, Nick, Lucinda, Sebastian, Anna, Hugh, Ben, Heidi, Steppe and Liz.

We hope to see more visitors and friends next year and returners too. You are all very welcome.

Wishing you a very MERRY Christmas and a year of joyful possibilities, peace and love XXX

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winter activity …..

Mani & the yam

Since the tragic fires in Portugal in June and October of this year that caused so many deaths, the Portuguese government has now ordered that everyone must clear their land by March 2018. Well we had already planned to do this back in June, but had found ourselves in a catch 22 situation as we needed heavy duty machinery to clear the land, but because of the danger of the machinery causing sparks we had to wait for the dry fire season to be officially over, and fire season didn’t end until the beginning of November, which felt like a never ending wait!

We are relieved that for the past 6 weeks Pedro and his team have been clearing the 6 hectares of land, driving tractors up and down the steep hills clearing and creating new paths. Meanwhile we have been burning much of the shteva, dead branches and old eucalyptus leaves that were piled up high in various places around the land and slowly the land is beginning to reveal itself to us.

We were delighted to find a large field at the bottom of the valley, this had previously been overgrown with brambles and shteva etc. The field is rich with fertile soil so we are excited and optimistic about next years harvest and will begin to plant our veggies when spring approaches. I dream of growing peppers, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes, cabbages and salads, cooking them fresh from the land.

We also plan to plant almond and carob trees on the south side of the valley, as this is the driest part of our land and neither of these trees need a lot of water. Ellis will also dig some swales at the top of the hill to collect rain water. These are trenches that run along the contours of the land, the collected water will then slowly be absorbed into the ground and hopefully over time should begin to make the south side of the hill more fertile. We are learning all these techniques through books, YouTube and many conversations; it is all a bit of an experiment of trial and error for us.

Watch this space!

creating fire

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gardening frustrations

I can’t tell you the frustration I feel – the hours of endless watering, the examining of each plant, the excitement when a watermelon which we named ‘Walter’ suddenly appeared and grew from a mouth watering golf ball, to a delicious looking tennis ball, to a scrumptious hand ball yet ended it’s life quite suddenly by splitting open to reveal it’s pinkish yet unripe insides which seemed to reflect my own wounded insides as I carefully broke Walter off his stem, gave him a sniff and tossed him onto the compost pile – a quick burial for a quick yet promising life!

butternut squash

It appears you can’t get the city out of me after all.  And so I am left feeling quite deflated at the idea of gardening – it seems like a lot of hard work for little reward and yet others LOVE IT including my neighbours who will often drop by with lots of fruit and veg saying they have so much this year they don’t know what to do with it, so clearly I am doing something wrong.

But let’s not give up  all hope! I have promised myself to continue to learn the art of veggie growing and to begin this autumn by digging up the land, investing in some manure and hopefully we’ll see more veggies next year!