A time to be proud

Tonight at 8pm i changed channels on my TV but i couldn't understand what i was looking at. What was shown was people standing at the door to there houses and clapping there hands. 

At 10pm i saw the news for the UK something i don't normally do, perhaps i should more often. There where scenes all over the UK of people at 8pm standing at the doors to there houses clapping. They where clapping in support of the NHS and for all the care workers from cleaners right up to the very top Doctors.

I had missed the event and it did make me feel incredibly proud even though i no longer live in the UK.

NHS you are loved by one and all.

What will the world look like after the Virus

What will the world look like after the Virus.

Food shops are open but that's all i saw today but nothing else. How many people will be out of work after the end to this Virus a lot i think. Many businesses that are not doing well will just close and there staff will be out of work.

But what about young people who are finishing school only to find no work. Even for those coming out of University after studying for a Degree what do they do. Imagine after the transport industry has mass closures what this means is more unemployment.

I live out in the country but how about people in the cities i fear for a world that will change and not recover for a very long time.

What a shock i got

I mentioned yesterday about if you can help then please help.

I have just had a talk to someone i know personally who went out shopping and called to a local hospital. When they got to the hospital they where not allowed in but found hospital staff who had worked many hours and where having a few minutes rest. The food was donated to the hospital staff who gratefully accepted it.

If you look at the bigger picture this act was something that will not be forgotten  by those involved. It reminds me of something i did during the fires here in Portugal a couple of years ago. The feeling i got was something i will never forget.

So my friend your gesture will not be forgotten.

An urgent appeal

There are so many people who at these difficult times need help. I have readers from over 82 countries and i thank them all every one of them. May i ask if you know of someone near to you who needs some think of help Please offer help but don't put yourself in danger.

At this time your help may be just what that person needs.

Even a simple phone call to check that that someone who may needs help that call could make a difference.

Good luck and Stay safe

This Blog is about me BUT

It's been great to tell my story all about my life in the sun BUT.

Today i had a call form a friend to say to be up early because he was going to help me with something that was to heavy and to big to manage on my own Great now that would let me carry on with lots of other jobs until. An hour later he called back to say that the Government had declared that the country was in a Lock down. No travel and you can only go out to buy food.

After recent trips to Makro i have enough to get me by but the only thing i am short of is onions. I have lots of onion powder but it's not the same. There may be people near where you live and if you can do someone a good turn then think about other.

So i will finish by wishing each and every reader who reads about the life of this old Scouser.

On a recent shopping trip

On a recent shopping trip i called to a Makro trade store. I have a trade pass and decided to do a little shopping and the one thing i notice that nobody was told but everybody was keeping gaps in queues etc. The one things i noticed was that it looked like nobody was stock piling.

I next called at a local Aldi again people where keeping gaps no panic buying everybody well behaved. The local Minipreço supermarket close to where i live  also provided no hand spray.

I needed Yeast for my breadmaker and i go to a supermarket in a village near to me. I called on my way home and as i went into the store i was stopped to have some hand jell put on my hands. This was the only store that i had to rub Jell into my hands before i entered the store.

Sadly the National and International stores seemed to offer no hand protection.

Floods what did they do

Over about the last month or there about the UK has been flooded and i am told it nearly sunk.

I was walking by a river near where i live that had flooded some time ago. After the flood the river was widened quite a lot. The problem was the UK did not a lot apart from having flood defences in some places and some of these didn't work.

The pictures below show just what was done along this river. I am told that after the flood the local council had diggers go into the river to cut the river bank to make the river wider.

Trees are normally planted away from the river not right on the river side.

This is the best shot showing a stretch of the river with the trees right on the river edge. It works here but in the UK the owners of the side of the river would refuse to allow the rivers edge to be cut or they would want millions to give up there little piece of river to help avoid floods in the future.

Here you can see the bank being cut back if you look between the trees. The same between the trees of the picture below the river is being made wider due to recent floods.

Bacalhau salt Cod NO

One of the local supermarkets had an offer for fresh Cod not the salted Cod that is common everywhere. In over 10 years coming to Portugal and living in Portugal i have never seen fresh Cod on sale before.

The Cod was priced normally at 12.99€ per kilo but reduced on offer at 5.99€. At the supermarket They had 4 steaks for sale or one whole fish greedy me i got the whole fish. The fish weighed 5.185 kilo or about 11 lb the sales girl couldn't find bags big enough for the fish to fit in. It took some time for the fish to be bagged up for me but soon i was on the way home.

Below i have a picture of the fish on my work surface, i put my Iphone next to the fish to to show scale so you can see it's huge. I kept the bones and tail to boil down to make stock to be used for soup.  I managed to get 20 portions out of the fish and it's now all in my freezer. Below is the receipt showing the weight and price. So Peter got a bargain

A new country

I am pleased to say a big well come to a reader from A Southern African country. This country brings my readers now at 80 countries the country is Lesotho and thank you for reading my Blog.

This week another i have just noticed another two new countries where i now have readers. Turkmenistan and Namibia so i am up to about 82 countries something to be proud of.

I am looking forward to more countries joining my readers.

Panic buying

During last week i had a phone call from someone who was at the time short of transport. This person asked if i would that them shopping i said that they had only done a big shop three days ago.

No it's because of the Virus, i said why and i got the answer about the Pandemic after seeing the news the World Health Organisation had not declared a Pandemic. But my friend was sure there would be and they wanted to stockpile food. What i said was not something i could print. This was stupid as at point there where no cases of the virus in Portugal.

Now they had there own transport again i am sure that they will be out filling the house white as they say dry goods i say let them.

An exclusive

It's sad that over four years my Spice supplier has ceased trading due to ill health however there is still a supply of stock i can make use of. In the UK lots of Spice suppliers mostly sell to the public or they are very big and don't want to deal with someone who wants orders of 28 kilo each time. The quantity weight limit is due to using UPS as a courier where over 30 kilo there is a premium  price over 30 kilo packages.

One product i have that is very popular is Smoked Paprika but it's the same as you get from any supplier until now. I have searched far and wide until i found a supplier in Hungary. Hungarian Paprika is known to be the best in the world and i have just found a supplier.

It will be nice at the markets to be able to say these Paprika's are exclusive to me, the supplier has said that they are exclusive. Paprika in Hungary is graded by what is call the ASTA systemI will be buying an ASTA 190 that is a hot Paprika. A ASTA 160 that is a sweet Paprika and a smoked Paprika. I don't know if i will have these new product ready for the first market in April but i hope i can get them in time.

It's what our customers want

The supermarkets in the UK often say when questioned about the policy of have only perfectly shaped fruit and vegetables. We all know it's a load of crap it's about Control and the control they have over there suppliers.

Today i went into a supermarket i go for fruit and veg. On display where a few tomatoes that the UK supermarkets got rid of many years ago. Here in Portugal ok the tomatoes don't look perfect but they do taste  so good.

The red and green peppers also don't look perfect but the taste is so very good.

something i need to learn

I have posted photos many times and the pictures are passable but not great. I took a couple of pictures using my camera instead of my Ipad or Iphone.

Although the tank is 5,000 Lt and for tropical fish at the moment i have to condition the water and at present i don't heat the tank. So Goldfish are being used to cycle the water ready for the tropical fish.

I was asked to send some pictures to a friend but looking at the pictures and i used the flash on the camera. so for i have now to use my good came. I need to take better pictures than the ones below.

The thing is despite feeding regular these Goldfish are clever whenever i come in the room they come over just to get some more food.

The recent bad weather

I am not talking about the recent storms in the UK because we have had problems here in Portugal and floods.

While going over to a place called Seprins i saw the effect on the river Ceira had at the bridge i have to go over. The icture bew shws just how strong the weather had been here.

This is the approach to the bridge and you can see that it is a wide river.

Here on the left you can see part of the rubbish that was swept down the river in the recent bad weather.











Now  this is what the river swept down from the surrounding areas from about maybe 10 miles away

The traditional dish of Liverpool Scouse

I have tried in the past to make a beef stew but nothing like my Mum used to make or even my Ex. I won't call what I used to make Scouse  because it never came close to what I have had in the past until now.

I was watching a YouTube video about a chef making Scouse I was working while I had the TV on showing YouTube. I followed the recipe to the letter and for the first time I made Scouse not a beef stew beef stew is for everybody Scousers make Scouse.

I made two portions one for my evening meal and the other to go in the freezer, if I hadn't put it in the freezer I would have had it for my next evening meal.

Power cuts

Power cuts are not at all rare but the last one was, the power went of at just 5.45pm just after I had had my evening meal. As it started to get dark I got out some candles and closed the shutters but my pellet burner went of and sitting in the dark reading was not for me. I decided to go to bed and have a good read of a book on my iPad with Kindle on it.

When I got up in the morning I checked two of my timers that control some of my lights They where over seven hours out. It didn't take to long to change my five timers that control most of my lighting. I was glad I went to bed instead of sitting in the dark and I finished the book I was reading.

During the fires of a couple of years ago the cuts we had where only for short periods of time. My worry at the moment is what effect my power went of and what damage was done to my filters in my fish tank. As the tank is 5,000 litres hopefully the bacteria in the filters will be OK.

I heard from my past

I very rarely go onto Facebook but today my son posted a picture of his van at the MOT. I noticed some messages and one was from the best member of staff i ever had work for me. I know if she reads this she will say but you had to say that, no it's the truth.

I owned a business in Liverpool and sadly because i have moved country doesn't stop me thinking about my previous life. Always i think of this one person and if she has a read of my Blog i hope she goes back to see some of the things i have done.

While i had the business my best mate Dave would do everything for me OK i paid him but. Yes this is a big BUT sadly Dave passed away a little while ago. Here i am on my own so doing anything is all down to me now.

I am glad to say I came here on my own we parted before I moved so no excess baggage. My major project at the moment is my fish tank. I have three solar panels that should provide enough electric to run all the lights, filters and pumps.

Shortly I hope to but a ruin not to far away from me and move my Orange trees and Lemon tree from my veranda.

More in future posts

Peter

3.98 Mbps never seen that before

Since I moved to Portugal I have had a battle with Meo my internet supplier. The best speed I had was about 1.75 Mbps what the means my speed was rubbish but I could manage. Many many times my speed got much worse down to as little as 0.06 Mbps but sometimes a phone call would get my speed up to something my computer could manage with.

Seeing the speed family get in the UK just made me feel worse. In Portugal there is a system and every business has to have on display a book called the Comlaints book. This is something that you only fill in when nothing else helps with your problem.
Finally Meo offered me what they said was all they could do to give me better internet speed. The offer was a Wifi router great for me IPhone and IPad the first test was my speed was 3.98 Mbps.


This speed was a speed I have never had in my house before never seen anything over 1.75 Mbps so what's my problem now.
Well it's this how do I connect this Wifi router to my computer just a little Wifi thingy that fits into the back of my computer.

Just where we go from here is this a happy ending to the saga about my internet speed maybe this is the end.

I used to have three Video shops

It's a long time ago that i had at one time three video hire shops. I went to a Library here where i live to attend a language class.

In the classroom i got a surprise Thousands of VHS video tapes.
After looking through i noticed that they where all films and all you need to do is ask at the library.

The little stream

A little while ago i mentioned about a dried up little stream.

I had picked through the bed of the stream during the summer to fill my 5,000lt fish tank.

I had picked every stone that i wanted and what i left was no good to me.

 We have recently had storms and the rain was as bad as i have seen in the last nine years.

I stopped today to have a look at the stream bed now and what a surprise i got.

To you the reader this may not look look interesting but to me this was a gold mine.
OK not gold but a wealth of stones and maybe i will go back to collect more in case i was to make changes into how the tank looks.