OMG Portugal on BBC World Service! Just when I’ve been saying it’s like the New Zealand of Europe here, all quiet and inoffensive, there she goes all crazy and radical and free loving! The Parliament here voted on Friday to permit gay marriage in Portugal. Thank god they avoided the embarrassment of a public referendum, where the idea surely would’ve sunk like towels at a Sydney sauna. The economy certainly doesn’t need any ‘no’ votes at this point and a bit of garage tourism (gay+marriage = garage. Good eh?) could be just the sport. Them gay peeps with their disposible incomes and their gayness – mixing it up here in wouldn’t-know-the-difference, and golly-we-need-cheering-up Portugal. Yay. Just don’t try kissing in front of the police, advise Teresa & Lena, the lezzos who started it all. What kind of cops don’t like watching girls kiss? What the?

Speaking of puckering up – here’s Zézito. The too-cute-for-his-own-good prime minister, José Socrates (who wouldn’t vote for guy called Socrates?) is the man behind this radically democratic idea of letting people do what they want so long as it doesn’t hurt anybody. The bill still has to be reviewed by a committee, avoid veto by the super conservative party-pooping president and face another round of votes in the parliament. The papers are saying maybe a rainbow-coloured dance party in April. Standby for Dykes on Bikes on the Avenida da Liberdade. Vroom.

Back when my neighbour and I were more neighbourly we shared the following exchange on the subject.

Him: Same sex marriage blah blah. What I’d like to know is: who does it benefit?
Me: Them. Just them. No one else. 10% of the population. Two people in this village. That’s all. Practically noone.
Him: Huh?
Me: Well, here in this village it’s only 10%, in Sydney it’s more like 50%!
Him: Huh? Who?
Me: Yeah, anyway, I think should they say no. No to all marriage. Seriously, there should be more government control over who can get married. It just shouldn’t be allowed.
Him: Huh?
Me: Well look at the murder rate! Another one dead yesterday …”violençia domestica”.
Him: Er, yeah, ha, ha. I just think marriage should be just for one purpose.
Me: Yeah, like, for sex.
Him: No, no, we have sex outside marriage in Portugal. I mean for children.
Me: Oh, yeah, if a couple don’t have children they should get divorced. And no one over 45 should be allowed to get married. And those couples with fertility issues… Divorced. The government should make sure that everyone has children. Lots of children.
Him: Erm, no, I mean…I don’t know why we are discussing same sex marriage when there are so many important things they should be arguing about.
Me: I agree! What with the “Threat From Al-Qaeda” they must be more important issues on the agenda. Some people want to marry each other! Do we really need to even hear about it?
Him: Yeah! I don’t even want to hear about it!
Me: That’s right, they should just pass the bill and get onto more important things.
Him: Huh?
Me: They should just pass the bill and let us all get on with our lives.
Him: Yeah, pass the bill and let us get on with our lives. Right!
Me: Yeah!
Him: Yeah!

Discussing the issue with the Women’s Group Neighbours (plus one silent husband, he doesn’t count apparently) I pointed out that it was not about Gay marriage, but Same Sex marriage, as it is called in the Prtgse media.

WGN: Oh yeah?
Me: You know, for people like me.
WGN: Huh?
Me: You wouldn’t mind if I got married, would you? I need a wife over there. Someone to keep the place clean, do the cooking, warm up the bed…
WGN: Yeah that’s true.
Me: So if this bill gets passed I could just get married to a friend and she could come and stay. It would be great. She’d inherit everything, if I died…
WGN: Well, if you don’t have kids…
Me: Exactly. You wouldn’t want everything going to my terrible cousins…
WGN: No, of course, it’s good that you give it to your friend then.
Me: And she could sleep in my bed, and…
WGN: Woooah there… steady on… giggle giggle…
Me: But I sleep with the cat and you don’t mind. What’s the difference? Why can’t I marry one of the pets? That’s what will be next here you know. Like in America.
WGN: Huh? What?
Me: …and Australia, and England. Everyone marrying their own dog and stuff.
Silent Husband: Yeah I saw that on the TV. Yeah. It’s true, they do that over there…

I try to amuse myself. God help me if they ever learn English… or how to use the internet… I’m a dead man/girl/person!

OK here goes. 2010, post 1.

Strike me pink if it’s not impossible to be inspired/enthusiastic/full of heartfelt resolutions when it is still raining. Take a look at this:

It may as well be a graphic illustration of my biorhythm chart for how it reflects my attitude to the new year.

Resolutions huh? Well I say the world had better be making some resolutions about treating ME better this year. Because, hello, I have been putting in a hefty effort and all I get is RAIN and a headache or TEN.

Actually I can’t go on like this because my default setting is, actually, optimistic. I can’t help it. I know it’s not rational but it’s not my fault. I was made that way.

Take today, for example. It was good. Today I met someone in the medical profession who knows what she’s doing. Today, suddenly, I found out that I do not have breast cancer. This is a big achievement seeing as I’ve been banging on about this lump under my arm since, like, last February FODER-SE PORRA FILHO DA PUTA. Sorry, bad words, just slipped out.

Yeah, it’s amazing when the system works – you tell a doctor in the morning “I gotta lump” she sends you off to people with machines who take a look and they say “You gotta lump”, then even to someone else with another machine who says “yep, really gotta lump, you know?”. I say, yeah, I KNOW that’s what I’VE BEEN SAYING FOR ALMOST A YEAR NOW (and then I start telling the story about getting bitten by a mole, and their eyes glaze over… I really should have never said a word about the mole. I think that’s where it all went wrong. Retrospect. Don’tcha hate it). Anyway my lump has now received the recognition it has always wanted and it’s not breast cancer, and that’s the end of that. Yay.

Now there’s just the brain tumour to get sorted. See if I can get that done tomorrow…

I’m feeling better already, and lo! Is that the sun?

If only I could write something… but while I am not making resolutions I have decided, maybe, I should stop eating so many pastries this year. It’s not healthy. It’s not attractive. Other people are cutting the lard, so can I.

But strike me pink again if you can’t see the link between these ideas. No pastries = No words! And my other (not) resolution is to do five posts a month. It’s a conflict of interest! Something’s got to give!

Speaking of giving, here’s resolution #3 (I give in, looks like I am making resolutions after all): Earning a Living. There may still be some hope of achieving this through writing, especially if my dearest readers use the support button below. Look, down there, on the bottom right hand frame of the window – support. I promise not to spend it all on pastries.

Seeing as tinyartdirector is on holidays the pictures on these first few posts will not be up to the usual standard. Sorry. But at least, because she’s away, I can get away with calling her tinyartdirector, because I’m sure the owner of that intellectual property won’t mind so long as you visit his blog. Just don’t tell him that his 4-yr-old is working for me now.

And now for resolution #4. Building a house. If I can keep writing, earn a living, not spend it on pastries, get fit and healthy, I can then build a house. And if I’m building a house, it gives me something to write about. It’s a self -watering system. An automatic feeder. Recycling my renewable resources.

I don’t want you to worry that my posts will be this lame all year… There are lots of tasty things to look forward to like How to Order Coffee (with pics at the best cafes in Lisbon). There will be a Five Favourite: Museums. And lots of Day Trips… nice not-so-famous places to visit. There will be the usual gossip about the neighbours and the complaints about Portuguese beaurocracy. And building! Yes there will be building! So stick with me, dear reader, I can’t do it without you…

I’d like to finish with a shout-out to some of the great people I’ve met this year. Especially to the Other Emma in Portugal who introduced me to the life-saving doctor. And to Little Wolf, and the Other Australian in Portugal, it’s great to know you. Let’s build it!

I’ve been a Christmas fugitive for most of my life. For many years I was quite happy to go travelling at this time of year and I’ve spent many Christmases in unusual places and in a very un-christmassy way.

Once I spent the whole day on trains from Austria to Holland. That was a true refugee’s Christmas, watching and meeting other people who have disconnected with tradition.

Having an entrenched routine with your with family at home you can easily forget how many people don’t actually celebrate Christmas at all. However, you’d be mistaken to think that in Non-Christian countries it’s business as usual. My Christmases in Egypt and Thailand, while not being normal, were not completely tinsel free.

But now, after three cold Christmases in a row I’m having saudades for home. For the heat, for the beach, for the sun, for the champagne of Christmas in Sydney. And of course, for my family and friends. Perhaps that’s the purpose of this winter solstice holiday – the deprivation of the cold makes you need the feasting and family hearth.

There are good things about Christmas over here, of course. Snow would be one consolation; Portuguese food traditions like leitão (suckling pig) and all the sweet things are good… and this: I love the christmas lighting in Portuguese tiny towns. Sydney’s bling,  trees, santas and sprayed-on-snow never did a thing for me.  Maybe because it’s light until 10pm there, and dark at 5pm here that some pretty supplementary light is welcome and charming. Maybe it’s the combination of old buildings and the slightly retro-looking motifs that suck me in. It helps put some cheer in my christmas gloom, anyway.

Most elevating of all are the funky recycled decorations in Figueiro Dos Vinhos. Sometimes recycled art just looks like a pile of rubbish. But someone has put some thought into these. They twinkle, glitter and shine just as they should. Or maybe it’s the spirit of the concept that gives them life.

From my point of view they are giving the finger to the climate change skeptics I’ve been tolerating this week. I realise they are stupid, illogical or simply deranged,  but they still get my goat, because it’s my planet that they are advocating we ignore.

And here is this tiny little council, in the middle of an antiquated unfamous country, showing that they are enlightened, proactive and they care. And then it seems to me that the war on skepticism is already won.

Many of you will have forgotten that I am building a house. I understand how you feel. I tried to forget it myself, but as anyone who has built a house knows, you are reminded of how much there is to do EVERY TIME YOU STEP OUT THE DOOR.

This is probably just the right moment to remind the doubters out there (not you, dear reader, I’m sure you’re all with me… oh.. I see…ok, maybe some of you are with me) that this is not a RACE and I have had a MIGRAINE for the last six months, not to mention there’s been a GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS, which has forced some of us to take it SLOWLY OR DIE FROM STARVATION. OH-KAY-EY?

I’m going to say this once, just so we are all clear. YOU CANNOT BUILD A HOUSE BY YOURSELF. That’s right, YES, I know that. And YES, I will be getting the crew in sometime soon. As soon as this headache goes away and the winter is over and I find that last 50 grand I left somewhere. So BACK OFF, or I’ll get the chainsaw out again.

Along with the billions of common frustrations that come with building a house there is the less famous annoyance called not building a house. I had my hands on some stones the other day (was covering the ruin walls to stop them from ruining some more) and felt that dotted line of joy just to be near them again. The craving just to get on with it is driving me loco.

But – there is some news – I did have the angle grinder out. Eons ago I went on a hunt for gates (actually I can look up the blog to when the great search for gates began… it was August. As I said – Eons ago). One gate was needed for the last garden stone wall to be finished and the other for the bathroom stone wall. Couldn’t build the walls without knowing the width of the gates, you see. And unlike new stuff, you can’t rely on a standard size with an antique, or an old-piece-of-crap velharia anyway.

Long story short, found gates in next village, great colour excellent price. Going to be gorgeous. Trust me.

Needed to remove the old hinges and bits before handing them over to the serralheiro to fix new ones, so out came the angle grinder. Just as I was thinking that I really don’t like metalwork much, nor do I like the blunt and rather vicious instrument that is the angle grinder, I became hypnotized. Rather than just saw off the hinges, I cleaned them up like you’d never know the hinges had existed, then I moved onto the rust and old paint. It must have been the extreme noise that ushered me into the 8th state of consciousness you can only get with power tools. It’s not entirely unlike an MRI scan at 3am in a foreign hospital with a migraine. You can really lose yourself in there.

YES earplugs, YES I WAS thankyou, doubter. Now piss off or I’ll GRIND you.

Now that the gates are sitting somewhere waiting for new hinges, I might actually be planning some wall building. Now that it’s sub-15 degrees. And raining. Oh hang on, there’s snow forecast for tonight. Brilliant. Er, I doubt it.

I first fell in love with the olive tree in Greece. On the Peloponnesian plains thousands of orderly planted cool grey-green trees, punctuated by lines of stone walls, provide much appreciated shade for goats and sheep. The still landscape is silent except for the throbbing of heat and insects. It is a biblical, olympian and everlasting scene.

For some people, palm trees are the symbol of holiday and escape, but for me, olive trees are the sign that I’m deep in foreign lands, far away from home. So when I first saw my house, with its view of an olive grove, I was well persuaded. It pushed my magic button, so to speak.

Although I’m not so passionate about eating olives, last year I was still pretty happy about picking my own fruit, and then preparing and marinating my very own olives. Especially as this variety isn’t usually for the table, it’s for making oil for cooking.

This year I got into the process of making olive oil. It’s a perfectly simple and unadulterated process. You pick the olives at the same time as pruning of the vertical and central branches of the trees. With these fruit-yielding branches on the ground, they are stripped or beaten of fruit, which collect on a massive tarp.

The olives are separated from the leaf refuse and bagged – the bags are a standard size which are bought beforehand from the lagar, the co-op olive press or factory. At the lagar, your consignment is counted and given a place in the queue. At some lagars you can immediately exchange your crop for the fixed rate of exchange for oil. You can reserve a time for your crop to be put through the press exclusively and not mixed with anyone’s else’s olives. Ideal if you’d like to keep your olives away from chemicals, different varieties or olives of lesser quality. At this lagar, exclusive pressing is the standard procedure. Everyone receives the oil from their own olives.

washing

The olives are first washed then mashed. The mashed mix is then heated to about 32-35 degrees, and the warm pulp is spread over circular mats which are stacked onto the press’ bobbin. The bobbin is put into the press, where it is raised, and pressed. The oil/water mix that is released from the olives is then siphoned through a gravity separator and filtered through a centrifuge which separates the oil from the water. The oil is poured out into jugs, then poured into drums that you’ve provided. Our crop of 524 kilos of olives was converted to 59 litres of pure, chemical free, extra virgin, cold pressed, liquid gold. (Yes, punters, it is organic – my neighbours don’t waste any more labour or cash spraying chemicals around.)

pressing mats

59 litres should last Tia Maria a year, feeding her crew of nine. Sounds ok, so long as you don’t put a cash value on the family’s labour: it took 3 people about 2 weeks to bring in this amount. At minimum wage that’s about €675 in labour: and even at the lager retail price of €5 per litre, it’s a poor peasant’s business.

the separation process

However, because this oil is the real deal, a true premium product, direct, micro-production and cloudy – this type of oil is currently at the forefront of a wave and is sold to quality produce-oriented London restaurants for £16/litre or more, and that’s where things start to make sense. If only Australia wasn’t so far away…

the read deal

marinated fresh black olives

There are a thousand variations for preparing olives. Here’s what I did last year, and they were delicious! The preparation recipe is from stephanie alexander’s the cook’s companion, and the marinade is my own.

Put the fresh olives in a covered bucket of water for 40 days, changing the water every two days. Drain the olives and then completely cover them in rock salt for two days. Rinse and then pack into sterilised jars. I made a variety of different flavours using balsamic vinegar, red wine vinegar, garlic, chilli, lemon, dried oregano, herbs de provence and olive oil, using half/half oil/vinegar mix. I left them in the marinade for a least a month before eating them.

This year, I put the olives in a 1/3 salt water (brine) solution for 5 weeks, changing the brine once a week. It helps to use a lot of solution so the olives are well covered and to weigh them down with a plate so they are always under the water. I stored them in the dark, covered. Then I rinsed them for two days, changing the water a few times each day. I made two batches, one with red wine vinegar and garlic and the other with balsamic and piri-piri, with half olive oil.

my final product