When you have a wood burner .. be prepared

Although it does not look very high, it is too high for me.

my second attempt at cleaning my chimney …

The vacuum cleaner was pretty useless!

Manuel to the rescue

My neighbour seemed to know what he was doing

For the past week, my wood burner in the living room has been getting harder and harder to light. Over the last year I have become pretty good at getting it going on a bit of paper, a few twigs and a pine cone, but i knew something was wrong when it was struggling to light with pine cones, fire lighters, half of a paper back book, perfectly chopped kindling and my gas torch !!!
Eventually the penny dropped that my chimney was blocked. My friend, who normally sorts these things out is in hospital, so I thought I would see if i could sort it myself. I am not able to go up ladders, ( not that my ladders are long enough) and so decided to try cleaning it from the bottom of the pipe upwards. How hard can it be ……????

First i tried shoving a long piece of hose pipe up, but realized that it was not flexible enough to get around the bend of the chimney half way up .
Next I tried plaiting some telephone cable I found in my shed, and attached a piece of plastic pipe over the end. That was no good, the cable just bent into a ball.
My final idea was to push the hose of the vacuum cleaner as far as I could up the chimney, cover the hole with a cloth, and switch it on. Maybe it would suck the blockage out.

Well I would love to say it worked, but it didn’t ! I sort of knew it wouldn’t. My vacuum struggles to suck up a tiny stone, or a dead fly from the floor. It was more a case of wishful thinking .

My mind started thinking of silly ideas then. Maybe I could catch a squirrel and release it up the pipe. Or push my neighbours nasty, yappy little dog up the hole.

In the end I asked my elderly neighbour Manuel( 76 years of age) If he knew someone who could do it. He nodded his head, said something I couldn’t understand, and wandered off. Within minutes he was back with his long ladders, and what looked like a metal cable for towing a car.
He shot up the ladder, and had the job done in a flash. I stood below with my heart in my mouth, hoping that i would not soon have another person to visit in the hospital, and was so relieved when he was safely back on the ground.

He saved the day. My wood burner is back to being toasty hot and easy to light again, which is great.

If you are living In Portugal , and have a wood burner installed, then unlike me, I would suggest you find a couple of people locally who un-block chimneys, well before you need them. It is not as simple as picking up the yellow pages and looking under chimney sweep !
I was fortunate to have such a lovely, and capable neighbour to help me out. Otherwise I would have been in for a cold week end .

My brain needs a holiday !

For the last two weeks nothing has been how it usually is. Especially me.
I have been going through the motions of my usual routine, with the addition of a trip to the hospital in Coimbra 4 or 5 times a week to visit my friend.

This weekend it hit home that my friends health scare, and the major operation that followed, has had a bigger effect on me than I realized.
Let me explain ..

Before the operation I was joking that I had spent so much time at the hospital that I should make my next posts about it.

Since the operation I have been unable to visit the hospital, due to having a cold, and so I told myself I would have time to catch up on my blog, which was overdue.

Definitely easier said than done.

The extra time has allowed my brain to dwell on how fragile life is, and generally “over think”

It could not be cajoled out of thinking of such things by settiing it another “task” however. The more I tried to concentrate on writing a post, the more impossible it became.

Therefore, I have decided to give my brain a holiday from writing posts. I will not be giving it any dead lines, or setting it any assignments.

Instead of trying to think myself into writing and giving myself tasks to complete, I am going with the flow.

Whether that be chopping wood, baking a cake, watching a movie, walking, or playing my guitar

And when I feel able to write a post that will happen too.

April showers …. but it’s only March !

In February I mentioned that the Mimosa trees were flowering early. They are usually coming in to flower around now .
At the time, Mario who owns the bar nearby said that this was not a good sign. He did not elaborate, and I was left wondering why not. I thought it was great. I thought that Spring had come early, and that it was lovely to see all the colourful yellow trees.
Now I am beginning to think Mario was right.
Since the beginning of March we have had rain almost every day ( for at least part of the day ). We have had some very windy weather too, and the Mimosas are looking very sad at the moment. Lots of the younger trees have fallen over. It is as if the flowers have become so heavy with the rain, that the weight of them has pulled the trees over.
Mimosa is a bit of a weed here, and so it is not a bad thing that nature is thinning them down a bit. Where one has fallen there will be at least a dozen seedlings to take its space .

The only problem is that in many places they grow right next to the road. The roads have become an obstacle course over the last week, with trees, mud, and stones covering half of the road in places.
I have done the slalom run to Coimbra 5 times this week, and am hoping that the conditions improve soon.
Luckily there is very little traffic on the roads around here. If this were happening in the Uk, I hate to think what accidents and traffic hold ups there would be.

So, it looks like we are getting our April showers early too.
I wonder what weather we will have to look forward to in April, ?

Change of Plan !

My tiny crafting area .

My workshop renovations are at a bit of a stand still for the time being , as my DIY man is unable to continue with the work at the moment.
I am continuing my smaller crafting jobs on the kitchen work top, but the lack of space is a bit of a nuisance, and I am unable to do any of my leather work.

The next part of the renovation was to put in a small bathroom, and a kitchen area.
As there is no water plumbed in the other house yet, and the electrics are very basic ( one light bulb and a socket) the next stage will take a while, once it is underway.
So, I have been having a think and ….. CHANGE OF PLAN !

A year ago I was in my workshop space, with no lighting, no heating, and my windows and doors falling out.
Already the place is a million times better, and so I have decided to tidy up the space, light the lovely new fire, get a work table put up, my leather bench back up, and start using the space as it is.
When I need water, I can take over a few buckets and bowls, and heat the water on the stove . As for the bathroom, I will just use the one in this house.

Although it would be wonderful to have it all finished, and looking lovely before I use it, sometimes things don’t go to plan.

I believe eveything happens for a reason, even if i don’t know what that reason is. I also believe in making the best of a situation, and so that’s what I am going to do.

Let the tidying begin !

Lights, camera, action

The cinema in Lousa

This week I have been reading all about the Oscars, Hollywood, and who won the little golden statues.
I love going to the cinema and watching movies on the big screen, and am happy that I can see all the latest movies here in Portugal.
Films are shown in the original language here, with Portuguese subtitles, which is great news also.
When I lived in Spain I rarely went to the cinema. Films were dubbed into Spanish and I always missed parts of the story due to not understanding enough of the language, and I never got used to watching actors I knew speaking with strange voices. After sitting through Lord of the Rings in Spanish, I decided never again !
In Portugal all major towns and cities have multi plex cinemas.
The easiest way to find out what’s on for the week is to Google search the words Lusomundo cinemas, and then choose the town nearest you,on the lusomundo website.
For me it is the city of Coimbra. Coimbra has two cinema complexes.One with 6 screens and another with 10, so plenty of choice.
One thing to be aware of is, although the movies are in the original language, the titles are written in Portuguese. This is ok when the film is Argo, or Lincoln, but others are harder to work out. Sometimes the name is not a translation of the original title. An American movie on at the moment, Take this Waltz, is called Notas de Amor ( love letter/ note) in Portuguese .
When this happens,I type in the Portuguese name of the film, but I also type in one of the actors names.Usually this brings up the film name and reviews in English.

As well as the multi plex cinemas, there are a few small independent cinemas still in operation.
I have one near to me in the town of Lousa, and I believe there is also one in Miranda da Corvo.
At present the one in Lousa opens on Sunday afternoons only. It is a lovely little cinema,and shows some good movies,and I feel it is worth supporting. This week it is showing Argo,and tickets are only 3 € which is brilliant.

So If your not sure what to do oneday, why not check out what is on the silver screen, and have a lovely time at the movies.