It was a little more than eight years ago when we visited Portugal for the very first time that we decided, sort of, that it would be nice to live here one day…a long, long in the future one day…as retirees. Seed planted and life carried on. We continued to travel the world, also spending a few weeks in Portugal, our annual break from those very long winters further up north. Bye-bye brrrr…

Just over three years ago we seriously started scouting for a property to buy. An agent chauffeured us around and explained more about the areas we were looking at. After a few viewings, we found one we liked. As we had at least many, many more years to go before retirement, we considered offering it as a holiday rental during those times when we were not using it ourselves. Another couple were apparently more desperate to buy it than we were, so they offered way too much for what it was worth. We stopped bidding. You can have it darlings. 

Then the world got crazy. Pandemic. Lockdown. Isolation. It was also a very emotional year for us, as we both lost our mothers within three months of each other. The next year wasn’t rosy either. Twenty-twenty sucked real plenty! Twenty-twenty-one, that’s it, we were done! It was time for drastic changes. Some super-duper fertilizer on our planted seed and yay, decision made. One put in a request for early retirement and the other flew to Portugal to buy a property. 

There were still some strict pandemic regulations to adhere to, but after seeing at least fifteen properties, a beautiful house made the heart go boom-boom. We made an offer and let our lawyer check the legalities. Arghhh! We had to let this one go too. Madam beautiful was mostly built illegally. Bye-bye to the house and thank you to our very sharp lawyer. 

To cut a long story short, we both spent weeks looking for another house. The one we ended up buying was not on our must-see viewing list, but when we’d finished looking at it, we decided that this is the one. Boom-chucka-boom-boom! Deal sealed. Six months later we travelled to Portugal, by car, in the middle of a very hot summer, to properly introduce ourselves to our new house. Hello baby, what’s with the flies? Three months after that, we moved in. Now here we are. Yippee-yay-yay! We will be telling you a bit more about our life in Portugal, including, as usual, our travels wherever we may be.   

Ao vivo. O amor. Seja feliz.