2011

Happy Birthday Mr Barnes!

we had a nice birthday day chilling out at home - i cooked him Thai style fishcakes follwed by Beef Wellington, washed down with a couple of bottles of posh vinho.

back on the quinta we've been out tidying up- weeding round the fruit bushes and digging even more manure into the vegie garden. we sowed some broad beans and started some seeds off in the tunnel. want to get a good early start on the vegies this year!

Happy Christmas!

The boys did a grand job on the Christmas dinner- doing a five bird roast- boning out two quails, a chicken, a duck and a turkey, all filled in with home-made stuffing and roasted for about 3 1/2 hrs. in the Esse. It was a roaring success and the meat was tender and moist -we'll definately do this one again- maybe next year we'll try it with even more birds.

We've eaten well and shared some nice bottles of wine- chilled out, and been for some good long walks.

Wishing everyone a happy holiday and Great New Year- thanks to everyone who sent cards and pressies xxxx

Olive Harvest 2010

Almost exactly a year to the day we again find ourselves picking the olives here at Velagota. Only difference from last year was the weather- we had to keep dodging the showers! (good excuse for a wine break!).

Only slightly more than last year- the weight came in at 160kilos. The nice thing about this quinta is the harvest seems to be fairly early which means we are some of the first into the press and avoid the huge queues which will occur over the next week or two.

Shame it's all over for another year!

Some friends of ours are offering a great olive picking experience this autumn!

http://www.quintadopinheiromanso.com/olive/

Autumn

Can't believe it's autumn again already. The area's terrible bushfires and drought seem like a distant memory all of a sudden.Lots going on on the quinta as usual. The house continues to progress slowly- the outside is pretty much all painted now and inside improvements include handrails on the main stairs and (more importantly!) a large wine-rack!

We had a great time with Pauls mum- visiting the beach one day and introducing Twiggy to the sea!

I helped the neighbours with their grapepicking last weekend- a brilliant day and the experience gets better and better every year with more understanding of the language and banter!

I've also been busy making Fig jam and am currently making lots and lots of Soap!

summer stuff!

We've been busy cracking on with the house- painting outside and some inside aswell!

really nice to get a bit of colour and put some of our bits on the wall!

It's turned very hot here over the last couple of weeks- up to 40degrees quite often and the fireplanes are busy.

I've been planting up a couple of ponds for some people here- nice place to be when it's hot!