Parcels

We have received various parcels this week. For parcels too large to fit into our post box at the top of the track, the postman leaves a card telling us to go to the post office at Galizes to collect it. Galizes is about a 10 minute drive away. Jon showed his passport as proof of identification. Very straightforward.

A parcel arrived from Barry and Lorraine, who had kindly gathered together about a dozen films for us to watch. We don't have a DVD player but they play fine on the laptop, and we have some speakers plugged in as well and it works a treat. Cuddling up on the sofa to watch a film is something of an event for us and feels special.

Another parcel arrived from Viv and Michael, with a Christmas card and wrapped presents. The card has been opened but the presents will be saved for Christmas morning.

We had our main Christmas present (to each other) early, and it arrived yesterday by Fedex. The chap from Fedex spoke only Portugese, and he was asking for Jon to sign for the package. But Jon was in the bath. So I said "banho" and did an impression of Jon scrubbing himself off in the bath. I think the chappie knew what I meant as he let me sign for the package and beat a rather hasty retreat.

Our present to each other this year is a new GPS. We broke the old Garmin Legend the other day, and though Jon rigged the pocket computer/satnav to act as a handheld GPS, it just wasn't the same sitting in the palm of your hand. Our Garmin Legend owed us nothing and, because we used it so much, we decided to treat ourselves to a new model. Our new GPS is a Garmin Oregon 300 and, by all accounts, it's fab.

Mapping (to Ordinance Survey standards) is something we are having a problem with over here. Jon recently discovered that with our new GPS we should be able to upload maps to it that we have calibrated in Google Earth. It's all very experimental at the moment, but if it works it will be a boon.

This morning there is a mist hanging over the valley, but it's early at the moment (0800) so hopefully the sun will burn that off by mid morning. Yesterday was warm and sunny, but the previous two days were wet but mild.

We also experienced our second thunderstorm. It came over us so fast we barely had time to unplug everything, including the telephone, when there was an enormous clap of thunder right overhead and the electricity went off.

This time we were armed with torches. Twig was inside safe and sound, though obviously terrified. Jon sorted the electrics, it was just a trip of the switches. After that the storm moved off very quickly, thank goodness.

River Beach at Coja

Well, last night...the thunderstorm came, and it was the grandfather of thunderstorms. At first I thought it was Jon's belly protesting at the borlotti bean bake we had eaten, but no, it was the real thing this time. This meant the Skype appointment was off with Mom. On the scary scale, I thought the storm was probably a 8/10 (with 10 being really really scary) and Jon thought it was a 2/10. But then Jon has been in Cwm Eigiau (Snowdonia) in the middle of a thunderstorm with lightning striking very close by. So it's all in the measure, I suppose.

We knew thunder was in the distance as the internet connection became intermittent, but then the sky turned darker and the rain came, and it rained and rained and rained for several hours. Lightning strikes in the valley all around us. The electricity went off and on, and then there was a really close lightning strike, that sent all our electricity off. Fortunately the trip switches did their work so we were soon back in action and there are power surge sockets in the house to protect the electrical equipment.

And this morning, there was a mist hanging across the valley so that the hills on the opposite side weren't even visible. But by about 09.30 the mist had burned off, and we were in for another scorcher, but the air was more crisp and full of the smell of pine trees and eucalyptus.


We had a venture into Coja to look around a bit more. We found a nice pavement cafe and then we found a river beach (praiya fluvial) that, at weekends, will be brimming with locals. There was a strategically placed bar/restaurant. We even ventured to ask for the menu to see if there was anything vegetarian, but it was all full of meat and fish dishes such as Chanfana (goat or lamb stew) or cod heads, so we decided to come home and cook for ourselves. We enjoyed home fried chips and a Spanish omelette made with peppers and tomatoes fresh from the garden...perfection.

Taking it easy now, just for a change, chilling out.