My Mum

My Mum 92 years young and today one of my sisters sent me this picture. After a recent serious illness it's good to see Mum looking so well.

 I don't know apart from leaving a comment but i would like to know the countries that my Mum's picture is seen.
So please go to comment and just type the name of the country you are in.












Please Please Please leave me the name of your Country.

First the tent, well dust sheet

When i came to complete the bedroom i had my friend Robin come down to help me put up the plasterboard. Robin called a few days early while i was about to put the battens up ready for the plasterboard. Robin offered to help and watching how fast he was we did the room together. My van is to small for the timber i need for the wall battens for the walls so i must wait for Robin to be ready.

To keep the dust out of the lounge i have put up a dust sheet to try and keep my living area clean.

Today i started to sand the floor ready for varnishing. Sadly it means getting down on your knees when they are past there best. Taking breaks this took me three hours but i have lots of time.

Used scrap timber to get measurements.

I have got started again after a delay this week, I needed to measure just what timber i needed for around the opening i have made to make my lounge bigger.

I used scrap timber to put in place so i could use it to get my measurements from.
I want to cover the concrete Lintel with timber but it has to be chunky looking.
It was so easy to get my timber list by doing it this way.






I have new ceiling fans on the way from Liverpool, Led lights and ceiling light fitting. I have them coming from Liverpool because The light fitting i had when i moved here are not available here and i want them all the same. The same goes for the ceiling fan they all have to match.

North sea to Liverpool

Hi All

I am proud to say my Youngest son is doing a coast to coast tandem canoe row. He is going from Goole on the north sea to Liverpool and it's a total of 164 miles. This is the first time that anybody has donethis and i am proud to say my son will be the first to do it with his friend Damien.















If you can spare any money my son is doing this for a Hospice in Liverpool who looked after Anthony's Grandad my Dad. Also he is doing it for his fiancées Uncle who sadly has recently passed away. All you have to do is click the link below and any money donated goes direct to the Hospice.

Thanks

Peter

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/anthonycalder

We have all seen the pictures

On TV in the News and even on Expat Forums we have seen or read about the dreadful here in Central Portugal.

The Bomberios are really the bravest of the brave doing a job for FREE yes free as most are volunteers. Yes they are fighting fires and not getting paid for it fighting till they are almost exhausted. That brings me to the picture below, i don't know what site i found it but so tired.

Well earned sleep and we are all so Proud of each and everyone.









I am told by some local friends that they saw me on TV as i dropped of at the local Bomberios station where i live 96 bottles of water. These guys and girls need to rehydrate as they must sweat with so much clothing on while fighting the fires.

This is where i was up to before

I was able to get the beam in place before i had to move from my house due to the fires close by. Now i have to order the wall battens and plasterboard for the walls and ceiling joists and plasterboard for the ceiling. 

I have the light fitting and Led's and a ceiling fan ready so time to get some work done.

Told to go by The Police

There has been a huge fire the other side of the hills above my village but the fire was about 5miles away.

The police explained that the fire would soon be out but as a precaution we had to leave. The reason was that the problem was the smoke coming in our direction.

Today we got the all clear to return and i am glad that the Police took the action they did.

I had four friends all offering me a bed for as long as the problem existed. Friends are really there when you need them but i am glad to be back home.

The sun turns red

Tonight I was looking out again at the sky like I did last night. Tonight the cloud was very dark like last night but if you look at the picture below you can see the Sun is red. No it's not the sun at a new planet it's our sun but the sky is making it look red because of the fires far away.

Fires as bad as they get.

While i was typing last night about fires where the smoke blacked out the sunlight. Today when i got up i found outside ash was covering everything on my veranda and by my front door. I made my cup of tea and put my computer on for the BBC news as i do most day. But i was shocked by what i saw.

Since putting my computer on at a little before 10am i have sat watching the news. Below is an extract from the BBC online news site.

A catastrophic forest fire in Portugal has claimed at least 58 lives, officials say.

Most died while trying to flee the Pedrógão Grande area, 50 km (30 miles) south-east of Coimbra, in their cars, according to the government.
Several firefighters are among the 59 people injured.
"Unfortunately this seems to be the greatest tragedy we have seen in recent years in terms of forest fires," said Prime Minister Antonio Costa.
The death toll could rise further, he said.
Secretary of State for the Interior Jorge Gomes said that 30 of those who died were found inside cars, with another 17 next to the vehicles, on one road leading on to the IC8 motorway.
Another 11 died in a village next to the motorway, Mr Gomes said.

 We all look to the Fire brigade or as they are called here in Portugal the Bombeiros they are really the bravest of the brave.

This is only less than 50 miles away from me or less than 80 kilometres and i used to turn here to go to a market.

The air was full of smoke

I looked outside a little while ago and the sky looked dark. Where the sun should be the sky was just a red colour but unrecognisable do to smoke. In every direction it just looked smokey and with a reasonably strong wind the sky is now getting clear.

It's that time of year sadly it's fire time and living in a village surrounded by forest we rely on the brave Men and Women of the volunteer fire brigade called locally the Bombeiros these brave people are mostly unpaid.

The sun is hidden by a covering of smoke in the sky let's hope that where the fire may be that all the Heroes come home safe to there families.

An hour later and the sky looks on fire scary.

Oh dear me the heat

It has been a hot sticky week and it took me longer to get what i wanted done. I have been treating myself to Strawberries and cream every night this week. Today on the way back from the market i called to get some ice cream only because i had a cooler box with me.

Pity the quality of the picture turned out not as good as it should.










My treat tonight was loads of strawberries, strawberry ice cream and topped of with whipped cream. Now i did deserve every bit of my treat.

It's been a long week this week

 I have bed space for three visitors and myself makes four. I also had a spare bedroom and this bedroom would be better opened up to give me a big lounge. So this week I started to take a wall door and the door frame down ready to put a new concrete lintel to support the floor above.

 But the heat here this week in Portugal has made it difficult to do as much work as I would've liked to have done and it's taken me a week to open up the wall. It's not my lack of being able to do the job I could easily if I'd been inclined taken the wall down in a day unfortunately due to the dust and having to get rid of all the rubble it's taken me a week. Just to get the opening done.

Next week I should get the concrete lintel fitted and I will be ready to get started on the walls. The walls will be battened out with timber and plaster boarded over. But that's another story for another day.

Family found and reunited

I Mentioned  the story about finding somebody's family  somebody's long lost family.  I went on a site called Genesreunited.com and from there we found family that my friend didn't know he had. The reason he asked me to look for him was because I found somebody from my past.

Everybody who knows me knows not to call me before 10 o'clock in the morning that even goes for my family.  Today I got a phone call a little after 8 o'clock in the morning on my mobile I have reason to be concerned if I get an early call in case it's from a family member whose work is dangerous so I answer the phone. Is that the bad news and early call could have been no it was good news because my friend had gone back to the UK and met up with his family he knew nothing about.

Knowing that you have been instrumental in helping somebody find long lost family is a good feeling to have. I will end the story now and I can just say I'm so proud of what we've both done my friend and myself.

When it goes wrong who do you call " The A team " Pharos

It must be difficult when you run a big successful company and outside of your control something goes wrong.

I recently had an order from one of my Spices suppliers go missing. Not having any contact with UPS i had to go back to the Courier company who if you read my Blog will know i use Pharosparcels in Scotland. I sent an email late at night so next day it would be seen by the staff when there office opens, No it was answered by the owner a few minutes before 11pm at night.

Yesterday the 11th June i received my missing parcel but instead of 28kilo it weighted no more than a couple of kilo but it had my Label on it so in i went to open it. Upon opening the parcel i found that i had in my box a very expensive part for a sound mixing system.

I took pictures of the label and the contents and emailed them to UPS and Pharosparcels and left it at that till early this morning when i received an email from Pharos to let me know where we are up to in finding my parcel.

Even when something goes wrong Pharos are there for you.

Thanks The Pharos team.

A problem getting timber

I have a big problem getting timber with Chicco being closed due to a serious injury. Due this problem I have a number of jobs I can't complete until I can get old aged timber, new timber is not the same colour as aged timber.

The last major job I have to do is to insulate what was a bedroom next to the lounge until now. I am taking the door away and the wall between the door and my log burner to give me an L shaped lounge. I will batten the walls and add insulation and then plaster board the walls like I did in the previous bedroom.

I already have the Coving and Led lights for the ceiling and for behind the coving. Today I took down the door frame preparing to get started but mainly so I could set out where the concrete beam is to go.

The Bombeiros

I am naturally proud of being from Liverpool as i have said before. But i have been reminded about the Fire Brigade here in Portugal or as they are called the Bombeiros. You find these brave men and women all over Portugal. These brave men and women risk there lives every time there is a call for there services.

About two years ago there was a fire the other side of Arganil in the direction of Coja. During that fire two/ three fire fighters lost there lives but the most tragic part was that one was a lady and she was pregnant.

The white tank below the helicopter is a water tank for the Bombeiros to get water to fight the fires. This water tank is in my village and it's only about 100 meters from my house.

When i was looking for my house before i moved here i saw the vehicles that the Bombeiros use. Coming from a big city i am used to ultra modern fire fighting machines but not here. With some roads in the area i live as narrow as 2 meters in places. How would ultra modern machines get down these roads and up some of the tracks. If you saw some of the machines you would think that they should be in a museum but they do the job.

The day of the picture above there where four helicopters that day taking water for a fire past Colmeal. I know there was four because of the registration numbers on the side of the body of the helicopter.