Lost in translation?

In order to take my mind off the intense pain of my dental abscess while the antibiotics do their thing, I have spent a lot of time on the web over the past couple of days.

As a keen cook, exploring all of the the different food Portugal has to offer is one of the things I am most looking forward to – and the fact that I am currently only able to eat foods which require little or no chewing has found me looking lustfully at food-related websites. This web-surfing landed me at www.continente.pt – the website of a Portugese supermarket chain. I have spent a fair bit of time browsing this site to get an idea of how much things are going to cost when we arrive in Portugal.

I thought I might make more sense of the foodstuffs if I translated the whole site into English with Google Translate – it is not perfect but it generally gives you a good chance of working out what something means. That said, it has left me with a few unanswered questions this time:

1. If I fancy a stew, does “diced biological calf” taste as nice as stewing steak?

"Cool hunting" anyone?

2. Will eating “a piece of cool hunting” improve my street-cred?

3. Does “dogfish, whole, clean” imply that unless specified other fish is “dirty”?

4. Can I really buy a “small horse” for 40cents?

Discoveries like this are when I remember what enormous fun this journey is going to be, and with the stress of moving, we don’t often get a chance to remember that at the moment. I can’t believe it is less than three weeks until we go!

I’m off to find out what kind of fish a “cool hunting” is….

Finally…..a good Summer!

England's green and pleasant land

I have been a bit slack of late when it comes to keeping this blog up to date. Those reading from England will know that the weather here has been really rather special the last couple of weeks, and after three back-to-back bad summers before now it is about time!

So, blogging has taken a low priority, below barbeques, pimms, cider and getting in far too late every evening. England is a contrary so-and-so – spending years winding you up with shocking weather and grumpy people  - pushing you right to the point where you arrange to leave and go to Portugal, then at the eleventh hour becoming a lovely sunny place where strangers smile! Still, there’s no way it will be permanent and the fact the good weather has had such a positive impact on my state of mind affirms our decision to move to where the sunshine is.

Now, after a month of sunshine, we find ourselves with only FOUR months to go until move day which is pretty daunting, but having said that, we do seem to be making progress – our work situations are getting to the point of being finalised and there are finally spaces appearing on shelves where our Ebay and car-boot efforts are starting to make visible progress. The build up of savings is starting to slow down at times – it seems a lot easier to build funds up when there aren’t so many opportunities for al-fresco dining in London!

The next thing we have to do is book some flights over to Portugal to arrange our fiscal numbers and then the next milestone is being able to “go public” with our news to my clients. I have been itching to do for several months but business reasons have prevented me from doing so. I am a very direct and honest kind of person and dislike feeling duplicitous, so I am really looking forward to everyone knowing, even if it does mean telling the same story to dozens of people. Perhaps I should just print the blog URL on some cards and hand them out?

It’s really not long now…and some economics

Algarve orange trees

It is now less than five months to move day. Things are now moving at quite a pace, and it seems especially real now people are starting to book flights to come out and see us after we have moved. We’ve got past the stage where we realised all the things we were going to miss about London – a tube strike, a few too many hangovers and the brief early summer rapidly turning back to grey, wet gloom soon got us back on the right track (the one that ends in Tavira!)

Five months really isn’t long, and I started thinking about everything we have got to get done. Aside from having to sell the contents of a house, a car, a business and an inflatable chill-out room, we have to book flights, arrange shipping of our things, and deal with far too many call-centers when we come to changing addresses and suchlike. We also have to continue living a pretty hectic city life and do all the various social things we just have to do because “we won’t be here next year.”

I am trying to decide on which units I should use to count down the time until our move to portugal. Which should I use:

1. Number of incoming work emails – I get around 525 per week so 10,500 emails.

2. Bottles of Magners cider to consume – about 160 (that figure probably half way between the true amount and what I would admit to the doctor!)

Lisbon Cakes - better than Starbucks!

3. Remaining days to endure London’s transport network – 80- ish – now that IS exciting.

4.  Starbucks Frappuccinos -20 – (I’m down to one per week.)

5. Cigarettes – 1400 – REALLY have to give up before they are only 3euro per packet.

6. Sleeps - 140 – not including Sunday siestas

7. VAT Returns – 2 – Yay!

8. People who accidentally delete a file on their PC and blame the IT department – 27 approx.

9. Days of good weather – er, 3? The UK has been promised a good summer by the media but don’t they say that every year?

Can anyone suggest any more units of measurement?

Worries and Jitters

 

London Town

It was one of those rare, perfect weekends in Old London Town. With 25 deg C and solid sun in an idyllic park in Wimbledon, I think at one point I actually said the words, “if it was always like this I wouldn’t need to move.” Obviously it was only temporary, a couple of tube journeys since soon put paid to that nonsense (does it never occur to anyone that if you don’t stand aside to let people off the train you’re not going to have room to get on yourself?)

 

Back to the point. As moving time gets closer, my contrary mind does kick in at certain points, doing things like making me suddenly appeciate things about the UK that I have taken for granted for years. These thoughts are shortlived, but it made me think that perhaps I should document the “I wonder if…” questions that come up and then revisit them after 6 months or so in Portugal to see how it turns out. So this is what I am doing. I will come back to this after that time and give an honest assesment. I would also be very interested if anyone who has already made the move would like to tell me what they think the answers will be! 

 

1. I wonder if I’ll miss everyone too much? – with Facebook, Skype, MSN and email, coupled with the fact that our spare rooms appear to be booked by friends and family for most of the first 10 weeks, I think probably not!

2. I wonder is I will miss the changing weather in England? - an odd one this, but it hit me yesterday. One of the main reasons for moving to Portugal is for the weather but will I come to take the sunshine for granted?

3. I wonder if the locals will accept us? Almost everyone we have met around Portugal has been great and WE are nice people and very respectful of the culture……but what if we are the second English couple to move into our street and the first were your typical “expats from hell.” 

4. I wonder if I will I actually get bored of fresh fish and healthy living? Too tough to call I think!

5. I wonder how much I will miss London? Note that I said “how much” and not “if.” I know I will miss the place. Anyone who has ever lived here for a long time knows that they will always have a strange love/hate relationship with London. I am really curious HOW much I will miss it though. By way of a prediction for when I revisit these questions I think I will probably have odd pangs that will be it.  

6. I wonder if it will all be as wonderful as we hope? Well I have researched to a massive degree and think I am prepared for the things that aren’t going to be great, but who can really say. All I can say is it’s going to be a grand adventure and I can’t wait to report back and answer these questions.

In conclusion for now, jitters is probably too strong a word really – as we certainly don’t have any actual doubts, it’s just odd how these insecurities kick in as it gets nearer. I have no doubt that it is time to leave the UK and I am CERTAINLY ready to be away from London now. When I ranted to my wife the other day about the people not standing clear of the tube doors she said, “well it’s London isn’t it, they don’t care that you want to get off the train as it’s not their problem. THEIR problem is thet they want to get on.” If people in Portugal, us included, have just enough extra time in their lives to be more considerate and less jaded than the average Londoner, and the sun gets it’s hat on then I think we are going to be just fine.

 

Lisboa