Faial update

 There is no excuse for the lack of updates but sure laziness. Often friends are asking for updates and we  forget that our daily activity which becomes our norm and perhaps uneventful to us, is still interesting to the flip side of this life.
Sandrine shared some corn seed she had ordered on line. I planted the seed and with in a day or two the birds had filtered the earth and enjoyed these jewels. I was fortunate to save a few and these were the results. They were too beautiful to eat, so I will save the seed for next year and try again.

Sitting outside a coffee shop I noticed the crossword on a public wall. While enjoy the warm sun, my mind found a few Portuguese words in this block of letters which I think is some cryptic clue.







What you are seeing is the dump, where household rubbish and garden and building material are disposed of. When we first arrived, we made regular visits for treasures, we found many useful items, either sculptures for the garden or furniture to be restored. Now look at it, flat, nothing. I did not explain too well that the household and garden have two separate sections, this is the building section and there is nothing. Everyday they must bulldoze it flat but the big question where are they pushing it to? The mountain behind is Praia do Norte.

I was just too slow with the camera but this was a gorgeous site. A farmer was coming round the corner and this lady he knew was coming out the shop with her shopping and he offered her a lift - in the back of the tractor.






A rogue fennel plant emerged in our garden, so I let it be, it did well and produced many heads. We picked and then by rubbing the florets the seeds fall out. This is time consuming but we must of harvested close on 1kg. I use it for a digestive tea mix, add it to our homemade muesli and the Portuguese make a great flat biscuit with cornmeal flour, butter, sugar and fennel seed and cook it slowly, in the forno which has cooled down after baking bread. I love these biscuits. I can not remember their name right now. Cheese is a great accompaniment too.

After a storm it is always interesting to visit the beach, to see its transformation and the treasures mother nature has washed up. Most of it is a sorry site, dead birds, a lot of plastic, many shoes and fair amount of driftwood. But on this occasion there was Sargasso seaweed and that was like finding gold that our garden would value. We gathered what bags we had a filled them up. It was not light work and the car was not close by. They recently put up beacons to stop cars coming down onto the beach. It was still worth the hard work.







Good way to sell more chillies - DO YOU KNOW PEPPERS ARE AN APHRODISIAC















The most  rewarding tree in our garden. We have planted, plum, orange, lemon, apples, fig and this tree a Tamarillo. I love it. Fruiting happens from November - December and they almost look like Christmas lights. So after a years growth we have fruit. We have since planted two more.











You might remember my birthday gift of various seeds, these were the carrots. Sweet and Delicious. Best advice if you are going to cook them and want to enjoy the two tone colouring, boil them whole, otherwise you loose the colour. Another definite for next year.

This sheep was constructed from old bits of polystyrene and there were other up cycled animals around the store and closer to Christmas they came together for the nativity scene at the entrance of the store.

On the 8th of December the shops were open in the evening, making special Christmas displays. The evening was perfect and there were many families out enjoying the crisp night. Different organisations and fregusias put their craft work out to display and raise money for different causes. The items to the right come from our village.