Hi,
Right, it has been a very long time since the last post. Since then I have had surgery to remove another cancerous tumor and after that, radiation to make sure the cancer will not return. Both of those went well, so I am leaning towards optimism regarding this all being over with. Of course, there will be follow-up appointments to make sure my optimism is warranted. So, we shall see.
Annie and Hilary arrived in July, settling in to Portugal as if they were born to be here. It is good to have them around, and we have spent some time trying to find a new place to live with adequate room for all of us, including room for you all to stay with us when you can get here for a visit. This time around, our search for a new house to rent went very quickly. We looked at two places (one in Chaves and one in Braga) and yesterday we signed a contract to rent the Braga house. Our lease here is over on September 30th, so we will move to Braga starting October 1st of this year. I am not looking forward to all the hullabaloo of moving house again, but I am looking forward to moving back north. Central Portugal is lovely and has so much history and culture, but I miss the north.
In our search for a new rental, we looked at a house in Chaves. It was a lovely house with a great yard for Opal. However, it was not near a hospital with an emergency room, and the air was very dry there. After an impromptu meal at a Chaves restaurant, we decided to look further.
Braga. Braga is not as remote as Chaves, so all our medical needs will be local. Look at us. We are getting old. Who thought that would happen? Regardless, having 24-hour medical access is very important, and the Braga house does not lack any of the other important aspects we find important (including a yard for Opal).
In addition, we went to Bragança to see the recent solar eclipse. The eclipse was visible in Fornos, but we had planned to drive up to the Spanish border near Bragança to see the total eclipse. As things worked out, we didn’t, but we were able to see a mostly-total eclipse from a park in Bragança.
Pictures. There are not a lot of pictures in this blog so far. Here’s where that changes. We stopped by a Quinta in Vila Flor on our way to Bragança. The Quinta has olive trees, bee hives, grape vines and cabins for rent. The grounds were very amazing. We could see olive trees that were over 100 years old (35 acres of them) and recently planted olive trees (almost 500 acres) that covered hills all around us. It was absolutely stunning.
Sorry about the rambling. I will try to get back in the swing of things soon.
Nola