The house is being designed by me.

But for some time the lovely Teresa and Silvia from www.arqtledo.pt have been advising and are taking the project through a new PIP, planning approval and onwards to completion.

We were constantly working through the various options with Teresa and Ronald who is the most creative-thinking man. A very long time ago an old friend of mine once said ‘there is no such thing as a problem as there is always a solution’ and this is how I think of Ronald. The latest solution to navigate all the various regulations was to apply to rebuild the old house – now it was proven to be a ruin – and then build a small building every 10m until we reach the location for the main house. It seemed like the perfect solution; each of the small buildings could be for a different activity and so it was that ‘Melides Cabanas’ came into thought. We sent the concept over to Teresa and set up a Zoom meeting.

All excited with the latest development, we clicked on the meeting and after the initial pleasantries, Teresa informed us that our proposal was not possible. We should be used to things never being straight forward shouldn’t we? The Camara would still have to give an exemption to the 50m rule and two weeks earlier Teresa had been informed that there would be no exceptions to the rule any longer. ‘Ok,’ we said. ‘Well there’s still the agriculture option that involved pine nuts and lavender – the rule for that was 30m, so easily achievable.’ “No, sorry that is no longer possible,’ comes the reply. The Camara have extended agriculture to 50m and yet again there were to be no exceptions. It did after all, look like we had bought some very expensive trees which in all honesty didn’t feel like a bad thing; when you are this in love you manage to make things work even if it is in a caravan or tent.

The last option was hospitality and as we understood it, that involved a hotel. Now I like hotels, I like them rather a lot, but I like staying in them not working in one. Our plan is to be able to drive our tractor – I’ll tell you about that in a minute – not to welcome guests and serve them drinks. Although now I say it, it does begin to have a certain appeal if the guests are nice.

‘Casa de campo,’ says Teresa. ‘You could do Casa de campo.’  Hold on, it looks like I might be welcoming guests after all! Silvia explains what Casa de campo is on behalf of Teresa. Casa de campo translates as country house and what we can gather is that you need a reception to greet guests and then somewhere for them to stay. Our plan all along was to rent the house out in the summer so this sounded perfect. The distance from the boundary is reduced to 10m for hospitality so this option seems perfect and the size of the property you can construct is dramatically bigger. Not that we need more for our house, but the extra will come in handy for the rental accommodation.

The zoom has been like going shopping and seeing the perfect pair of trousers, spending all day looking in different shops and then coming back to the original shop. It had taken an hour from being told our project was impossible to then being told we could do exactly what we wanted as long as we called it the right name.

We try to visit Melides at least every two months to keep a momentum going with jobs on the land and also, in truth, because being there, being around such kindness, friendship and incredible landscape is remarkably good for my health. Tiago who had helped uncover the ruin is proving to be a man of huge abilities. I tentatively ask him things about the land and back comes the answer, “Não tem problema, eu posso fazer isso.” which means, “No problem, I can do that.” The relationship works brilliantly – when we are there we discuss something that needs doing and at some time in the next month or two a message pops up on my phone with a picture showing the job either done or in progress. There is never any warning that he is going to start, he just gets on with it when he has a window of opportunity.

The work being done is stuff we can do while we wait for the permission to build, and it is incredibly thrilling. The land had become neglected and unloved, so it feels like we are giving it back its health, beauty and purpose. The trees we plant – and there are to be hundreds- will still be young in our lifetime which is why it feels so special to be creating something that will be so long lasting.

As I write this a picture has just popped up on my phone! Tiago has begun pruning our trees and the picture was of the first one done. We discussed this with him months ago and now is the time of year to prune your Umbrella Pines. We always wondered why some pines looked so incredibly perfect and some not so much. We had come to the conclusion that it was to improve the pine nut harvest and possibly it is, although I haven’t had that confirmed. The main reason is to prevent fire. There are very precise rules in place that determine the height to which you need to prune your trees, the distance between the canopies and the height of anything growing on the ground. We only learned this recently from the beautifully drawn and put together document that Teresa has submitted for our PIP application.