What a peculiar week. What with 'Tittygate' and 'Tyregate' and trying to remind ourselves that this isn't a holiday; that we don't have to spend every day visiting somewhere new or taking advantage of every ray of sunshine or worrying about tan lines. Yet at the same time, without any of our worldly goods, including a permanent home, a radio or a cheese grater, it's not that easy to settle into a domestic routine.
The little house we're renting is ideal for the moment, in that it's cheap, perfect for the animals, and has the basic things we need i.e. a bed, a stove, a fridge, a washing machine, a shower, a table and chairs, two small armchairs and a barbecue.
We have brought with us the remaining life essentials i.e. a few clothes, lots of knickers, bedding, two saucepans, two knives, two forks and a spatula. And a bottle opener obviously.
Our days so far have been spent looking at properties, walking the dogs on the beaches, going for runs around the lagoon, looking for wifi, getting a lawyer, wondering what on earth you do with bacalhau and sorting out a fiscal number. Also listening to unfamiliar birdsong and effusing over wild flowers and the smell of eucalyptus. And pinching ourselves.
Our evenings have been spent sitting in little armchairs surrounded by tea-lights, listening to all the music on my iPhone (via the mini speakers and amp that I so cannily packed), trying to pronounce Portuguese words and drinking cheap alcohol.
The cats have all been allowed to venture into the garden, after being confined to the house for several days. Generally cats are very wary creatures and will gradually get their bearings, bit by bit, and flee back into the house if so much as a rustling leaf should alarm them.
Not so Fat Babs. As soon as we opened the door she marched straight round the side of the house and pointedly waddled up the garden path without so much as a backward glance, her furry legs swishing around each other like a fat girl in a too-tight velour onesie. She headed straight for a hole in the fence and disappeared into the farm yard as if to say 'I'm not living with you bunch of wankers a moment longer'. She came back of course. She's streetwise that cat. Probably just wanted a crafty cigarette. Proper Valleys girl.
A few nights later we thought we'd lost Titty. She disappeared for hours and hours. Titty is not like Fat Babs and it was completely out of character for her not to come when called. After several hours of searching (which included Rich wandering the streets of the village with a bottle of beer in his hand shouting 'TITTY! TITTY!' in a girl's voice), we sadly came to the devastating conclusion that she must be dead. There seemed to be no other possible explanation. Trapped or poisoned. Tragic.
Before bed - drunk, tearful and bereft - we had one last look in the barn next door. And there she was, eyes like saucers and crouched under a vehicle, stalking rats, mice, bats and birds and having the time of her life. Bloody animal.
(Leia the Dud Bengal hasn't actually noticed that she now lives in a different house in a different country and the dogs care not where they are as long as they are with us. I love dogs.)
For several days, we've noticed a tapping sound coming from one of the front wheels of the Landrover. You can only hear it when the windows are wound down. May have been going on for weeks for all we know, but definitely at least several days. Rich said it was a stone in the tyre tread and yesterday, trying to locate it, I spotted a metal tack embedded in the tyre.
Rich: Blimey. That shouldn't be there.
Me: Well, no. Clearly.
Rich: We need to get it out. It'll give us a puncture.
Me: If it was going to give us a puncture it would've done so by now. Let's leave it.
Rich: I don't like the look of it. I'm going to pull it out.
Me: No. Don't do that. It might be plugging the hole. If you pull it out the tyre might go down. Leave it.
Rich (looking doubtful): I'm not so sure.
Me: JUST BLOODY LEAVE IT.
This morning we had an appointment at 10am. As we piled into the Landrover, Rich did that dramatic thing he does.
'OH MY GOD!' he shouted, pointing at the front tyre, which was completely flat.
Me (really pissed off): DID YOU PULL THE TACK OUT?!
Rich: (looking sheepish, says nothing)
Biting my lip and without saying 'I bloody told you!' even once, we set about changing the tyre. This isn't that easy in a long wheel-base Landrover Defender. Having eventually worked out how to get the spare unbolted from the back door and how the enormous jack probably worked, it turned out the spare tyre was completely bald. Because when we last needed a new tyre about two years ago Rich had just decided to put the old knackered one on the back and forget all about it. So basically we had just travelled across Europe with no spare tyre. I KNOW. Unbelievable. I wanted to kill him.
The rôles in our relationship have never been particularly traditional but in our case putting the rubbish out and ENSURING THE VEHICLES ARE ROADWORTHY are HIS jobs. (And cleaning up cat sick, obviously.)
He was saved from the full blast of my fury by a particularly pushy estate agent, but that's another story.
House hunting has been up and down. When we were here in March we fell in love with a property that we had every intention of buying as soon as we arrived here last week. But when we went to view it again (for the third time) we promptly fell out of love with it. This was mainly because, since our last visit, the owners had nuked the entire 10,000m2 plot with weed killer and it looked positively post-apocalyptic. As a an organic gardener whose intentions are to grow vegetables this fairly broke my heart and the whole place completely lost it's charm. And you can't by a house that has no charm, can you?
So, it was back to square one. The good news is that yesterday we revisited a place we first viewed a year ago - a cute, boxy little place in the middle of a large, flat, virginal plot. A blank canvas, if you will. We think it may be THE ONE. Watch this space.
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