Earlier I mentioned that we were planning to fence the land.

Not in a ‘keep out’ way, but I think in order to help focus on what we have. 7.5 hectares is quite an area to get your head round and in fact on our most recent visit the fence has proved its worth.

You see, Saskia doesn’t have a great sense of direction and on one beautiful Saturday while wandering around looking up at the umbrella trees she became completely lost. The advantage of the fence is that at least she can only get lost in 7.5 hectares and not wander off onto other people’s land! I feel that in the coming years this will be the main use of the fence – to keep us in.   

Now back to the installing of the fence. As you drive around Melides and Comporta, you spot little signs nailed to fence posts. It’s the most perfect piece of advertising and very quickly you get the impression that there is one main fencing company – MTL www.mtl.pt.  I measured the perimeter only to discover it was 2000m long! Now the thought of building a fence 2000m long fills me with horror so thank goodness for MTL. We flew out to Melides for a week, to be there while it was done and to meet António from MTL and three of his men. At this point I learnt something new about Saskia. I knew she had been able to speak French, I had never actually heard it. The guys couldn’t speak English, my Portuguese is non-existent – I will learn – and suddenly Saskia starts speaking French and so do the guys! Now I have rather a liking for the French accent and without oversharing, this is a great moment!

Anyway, back to the fence. The story from here is rather short as they finish it in 3 days. 3 days for 4 men to do 2000m of fence and two gates. I challenge anyone not to find that incredible. No moaning, no complaining, no going off to other jobs, just 3 days of solid work and every time I show up, huge friendly smiles and a bit of a chat. What a joy! They also had a tractor, I love tractors. Not your big new tractors but your battered old, had a full life kind of tractor and this put a delightful thought in my head. I now had 7.5 hectares of land and without any doubt a legitimate reason to buy a tractor.

I am a practical man and always have been. In my teens I worked on a farm and used to drive a Massey Ferguson tractor that I loved, until one day my face connected with its steering wheel with the help of a bale of hay. The pain of that moment has vanished, and the love of the tractor has returned so can you imagine my delight at discovering a website called www.olx.pt that is awash with all sorts of agricultural delights as well as – wait for it – drum roll please – a red Massey Ferguson from around 1965 in full working order! We bought it – of course we did – and as usual Tiago came to the rescue and went to collect it and took it back to his farm because not only had we not thought about how we would actually collect a tractor from over 100 km away, but we also hadn’t thought about where it would go.

The last visit of 2020 was in November, and it was minus 1 in Manchester. We stayed in Isabel’s Airbnb which is the house that was part of the house that is now our ruin. I hope that makes sense! We arrived after a long day – it’s only a two- and half-hour flight but it seems to always be a long day – Isabel meets us and as we get out of the car and stretch upwards to the sky, like you do after a bit of a journey she says ‘you are among friends now, you can relax’. What a beautiful statement and what a way to be welcomed.

We had bought a shipping container and it was arriving at 9.00 in the morning, so I had been told. At 8.00 – still in bed and wrapped in fleecy sheets which is another story and a complete revelation – the phone rings and it’s the shipping container delivery man who appears to have been told that he is delivering to Comporta. As usual my lack of Portuguese shines out and we manage to communicate the actual delivery location in English. The main problem is that we don’t really have an address as the address on the deed seems to cover most of the area of Melides that we live in, which is called Pinheiro da Chave. 25 minutes later the lorry arrives and 20 minutes after that the container is in place and waiting for its new resident; our tractor. As always Tiago comes through and delivers the tractor that night with a smile and then, I think, amused laughter as I shout with delight while driving in circles at something close to 2 kmph.

That last week was a triumph. It was really the first week we had treated like a normal working week rather than a holiday. Isabel’s broadband was incredible, Saskia could sit out in the sun – in November- and work, while I pottered up and down the land pretending to be busy on our 1965 Massey Ferguson.