A Lovely Restful Holiday

As I write this post, we are happily ensconced in our rented Portuguese country house (not a villa) and are enjoying the very beautiful surroundings. Nestled into a hillside, on the edge of a village, and on the outskirts of a small town, we have a lovely secluded mature garden, with clementine and lemon trees and a gorgeous swimming pool to dip in and out of and apart from Tuesday, when we woke up to a very overcast sky, we have had lovely sunshine throughout.

Here's a picture of the view from the kitchen window. Bliss.

Do people really own homes like this?  The answer is yes. Lucky them. Check out the pantry - love it. I don't want to post too many pictures, as it isn't our house, but hopefully you'll get an idea.

After arriving early afternoon on Saturday, picking up the car and finding our accommodation and being given a tour of it by the agent, we later headed out to the nearest local town for food supplies, followed by a BBQ supper.

Our first full day here on Sunday was spent basking by the pool, getting used to our surroundings and then in the evening we headed out to dinner in the historic coastal town of Vigo, over the border in Spain. It was an interesting place to visit, but slightly further to travel than we expected, so we vowed to stay closer to home in Northern Portugal for the remainder of the holiday.

In spite of having a good WiFi connection here, I had a complete break from the internet for the first two or three days.  I didn't miss it at all.  I threw myself into reading, relaxing and doing a jigsaw, which never fails to help clear my mind of all thoughts of work. Here's the one I brought with me this holiday and completed within 24-48 hours of arriving.  I may do it again, but then again I may not.

The house we are staying in is beautiful. It's quite large and the three of us are rattling around in it a little. It feels like a priviledge to stay here, although we are paying for it. All of our needs are more than met and it is a very comfortable and enjoyable space to live for the week. It feels like our own small private holiday resort. We couldn't ask for more.

The only slight problems we've faced have been how to use the washing machine, the gardeners turning up on Tuesday morning at 8am to mow the grass and the fact that the pool turned green on us  the same day, whilst we were spending a lovely day in Porto, Portugal's second largest city after the capital Lisbon. (More in another post).

However, the agent came straight over and assured us that one of the chemicals had got low and that now that it has been replaced all should be well.  A pool technician then also came to check out what the problem was and we couldn't use the pool for five hours, on account of the chemicals they put into it.

We didn't get too stressed over it, however, as it's just one of those things.  Worse things happen. We've made up for it since and it has made us appreciate the pool even more, to have had the restriction of not using it. What is there to fret about really?

Anyway, tomorrow is our last day here, sadly, and we'll be heading home very early on Saturday morning.  We've had a very restful time, just what we needed and I have loved the peace and quiet. A perfect contrast to our normal, noisy and busy life in London. I'm not sure I'm quite ready to go back to it just yet, but there you go.

I hope you've had a good week, although I know it's been very hot in the UK whilst we've been here.  I have to admit that I'm not looking forward to coming back to such high temperatures.