Home Building

As many (all?) of you know, Sunday Feb 9 was Super Bowl Sunday in the US.  Well, one of Pat's birding sites moved the "b" and created Superb Owl Sunday with a page dedicated to all things owl.  That's what Gerrit is going to celebrate on the second Sunday of February from now on.  

On Monday we had a very successful shopping safari.  Much of it was exploratory, just stopping at places to see what they had.  We picked up a load of gardening tools and groceries though, plus some address numbers for the coming streetside mailbox from one of the coolest hardware stores ever.  The hardware store stop had to be quick, but we vowed to return and give it a close inspection.

On Tuesday the tech for the water heater tank and the HVAC arrived, and we discovered that he had installed the original water heater tank and solar heater here back in 2014!  He works for Tecnilima, a local Ponte de Lima appliance and technical shop, and has been here for years.  We love making local connections like this.  He spoke English quite well, so Gerrit's earlier laborious translation of the problem into Portuguese was not necessary.

The tech took apart some of the tank shell, found and fixed the problem, and all was well.  The tank is quieter now and runs much more efficiently.  He also saw that the solar water heating panels were not running at the proper pressure, so he will return to fix that and to clean and maintain the panels.  As for the HVAC unit, it was simply not wired up!  It was probably never connected when the house was first built (it looked brand new inside), and now it works fine.  Total technician house-call time, with sophisticated tools and expertise: 1 hour.  Total charge: €60 ($62).

We ran across a Portuguese to English phrasebook known as "English as She Is Spoke", written in the 19th century by a Portuguese fellow who clearly didn't speak English.  Here are some of his English "familiar phrases":

• Have you say that?
• At what purpose have say so?
• Put your confidence at my.
• At what o'clock dine him?
• These apricots and these peaches make me and to come water in mouth.

And here are a few English "Idiotisms and Proverbs":

• The necessity don't know the low.
• Few, few the bird make her nest.
• He is not valuable to breat that he eat.
• Nothing some money, nothing of Swiss.
• Burn the politeness.
• To craunch the marmoset.

Timeless nuggets of wisdom there!  It reminds us of the Monte Python "Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook" sketch, and may in fact have been the inspiration for it.  You can read the whole hilarious story here.  Mark Twain, a contemporary, thought the phrasebook was a flawless comic gem.  Unintentional, but a gem nonetheless.

The mailbox arrived, Gerrit mounted the impressive-looking brass numbers on it, and then got to work installing it on the wall facing the street.  Not so fast, pilgrim.  That turned out to be way more difficult than he anticipated, but after some aching muscles, chiseled-out granite, and a scratched-up mailbox it was finally in place, slightly out of plumb.  As our Brit handyman was leaving Gerrit was just finishing up the job and he pointed out all the flaws to him.  The Brit replied, "You know what your problem is?  You're an engineer.  You want everything to be perfect.  No one will notice."  He has a point.

As we both worked on the mailbox, our neighbor Alexandrine just down the hill saw us and came over to introduce herself.  The former owners of Casa da Rocha had told each of us about the other, and we had a nice conversation.  Her English is quite good, certainly better than our Portuguese.  It was really nice to meet her, and to integrate another bit into the neighborhood.

Our quiet electric wood chipper arrived, delivered to the local neighborhood hub Café Martins.  After a confusing phone call from the proprietor Nuno in Portuguese, Gerrit drove down to pick it up.  It was quite heavy and large, and as he maneuvered it toward the door a stranger tapped him, nodded at the chipper, picked it up, and strode with it to the car.  The kindness we have experienced here is really heartwarming.  It doesn't hurt to be old and feeble, though.  It's kind of like having a "Help Me" sign on your back.

When we left our apartment in Gaia our next-door neighbors wished us farewell with a gift of an excellent bottle of Portuguese sparkling wine.  We just enjoyed that a couple nights ago, toasting them and our new home.

Today Pat noticed an itinerant shepherd grazing his small flock on our lower undeveloped land.  There is plenty of wild grass down there, and it was such a pleasant sight to see.

And we close this post with some homey photos of a steak and brussels sprouts dinner and mist in the valley.

(As usual, you can click on any photo to enlarge it, scroll through them all, and click outside a photo when you're done.  Also, you can click on the bold underlined phrases to play the audio.)

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