Research ...

There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something. You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after.

J R R Tolkien

 

 

To parody Tolkien, when you start looking for something the outcome isn't always what you expected. Sometimes, what you find comes as a bit of a disappointment; sometimes the surprise is a pleasant one.

Maria's journey into old company records was tantamount to opening Pandora's Box. The search became complicated enough to make you feel that 'Hampton Court'

Find the path from the entrance at the bottom of the Maze (red triangle) to its centre (red dot).

The Maze - the most famous hedge-maze in the world - is situated at Hampton Court near London. It covers an area of a third of an acre (about 1350 sq meters), and its paths are half a mile (0.8 km) long. You might think, looking at the illustration above, that this maze is a very simple one. But don't be misled with its seemingly "simple" pattern; it is incredibly easy to lose yourself!

The Maze was planted in the Hampton Court Palace Gardens in 1702. It still attracts people from all over the world, and every year thousands of them are happy "to be lost" in it.

 

was in danger of being relegated to the second division.

In retrospect we regret that we didn't make copies of the older, hand-drawn documents that Maria stumbled across. We were in a hurry by now, wondering how many more obstacles were going to be thrown up by the bureaucrats; there were many! But for now we were concentrating on finding irrefutable evidence of the existence and layout of the properties as they were today. One of the earliest documents that showed the current layout is reproduced below. At least this was a start.

 

The earliest document that shows the current layout of the property.
The extra 'roof' space (for building) came as a pleasant surprise!

 

An encouraging start! Further research brought to light more recent 'mapping' of the area undertaken by 'The Conservatory', the department responsible for keeping and issuing records of properties. If they issue you with a document to support your claim, it lasts for 30 days and it will cost you a few pennies, but it is the 'proof' you require when you have to deal with other local busy-bodies (don't you just lurve bureaucrats?) to have more permanent documentation produced.

 

  

 

More digging by Maria, and things started to take a downward turn. By this time she was wearing two hats; one as the 'seller' (the Company's representative) and the other as the 'buyer' (representating OUR interests). Nice work, if you can get it. The small problem this time was that 'The Conservatory' clearly indicated that, although the property was shown as a group of five houses, all with their own enclosed 'garden' space, the houses were classed as 'Urban' and the gardens were classed as 'Rural'. It meant that even though the plans showed roofed areas on the land, they couldn't be built on if the land continued to be classed as 'Rural'. Worse, the split between 'rural' and 'urban' also meant that the houses and land had to be bought as separate parcels. In other words, none of the houses actually had gardens attached to them! How could this have happened? Who knows! All we knew is that past and present owners and administrators of the company had never really given the situation any thought. Why should they? They owned the lot!

There were several solutions to this predicament, but only one that made sense.

• We could have elected to buy the property as it was, a split of 'urban' and 'rural'. Since there was more 'rural', and the price of 'rural' was about the tenth of 'urban' the combined property and land would be that much cheaper. But we would not be able to erect any structures on the rural bit.
• We could have elected to only buy the houses and allow the 'rural' bit to come with the houses by default. Attractive thought, but one fraught with danger. If at some future date one of the successors to the current owners decided that he or she wanted that little bit of land and simply took it, we would not be able to do a thing about the situation.
• We could arrange to have the two bits combined as a single parcel which would obviously increase the cost, but it would simplify the deeds.

We plumped for the last option.

Maria, with both hats firmly clamped to her head, arranged for the property and land to be amalgamated officially. We paid for the 'search' (not as magnanimous as it may seem), the company paid for the rest. It was in our interest to hurry this along; it was in the company's long term interest to establish a precedent for the sale of all the other properties when that time came. And there was "simple-ole-me", thinking that the only obstacle to buying a house was actually getting hold of the money to pay for it!

Little did I know that even bigger, unforseen headaches, were just over the horizon ...

 

Appraisal ...

Evaluate what you want, because what gets measured, gets produced.

James A. Belasco

 

 

Time for a bit of introspective assessment. Time for inventory, to itemise, to take stock! We needed to calmly assess the 'Pros' and 'Cons' before rushing a decision.

 

Pro's

  The look (will be retained, 'as-is')
  Location (self-contained and by the river)
  Buying whole street
  Five houses (one or two will be combined)
  Half an acre of 'Garden' (this is not a plus!)
  Water & electric already hooked up
  Price (preliminary talks indicate 'affordability')

---

Con's

  Condition of property (pretty run-down)
  Cost of restoration (roofs and toilets essential)
  Sewage & drainage need to be connected
  Cesspits need to be filled in
  Occupied by sitting-tenants (for how long?)
  Isolated (the flip side to being 'self-contained')

 

This was a quick assessment. Not a long list. We knew more would be added as time marched on, but would they be 'tics', 'tacs' or 'toes'?

Some sensitive sleuthing established that only two of the three 'occupied' residences actually were. One old fella had been forcibly removed by his family to live with his son in the local village, and it didn't appear that he would be returning. He had reached the stage where he was incapable of looking after himself. That left the two houses in the middle. The one that adjoined the larger end house (the one I initially thought was the one we would be buying) was occupied by a 90-year-old lady in obscenely good health. The other, the one that was a roofed-over converted passageway between two houses, was occupied by another old couple.

It transpired that the couple had a son who also lived in the local village. He immediately became a PITA when the whispers reached him that we were interested in the property. He took an aggresive stance, proclaiming that he would be enquiring with the local council as to whether his parents would be evicted from their HOME; that it would be grossly unfair; that if anybody had a right to the house it should be he! Of course I took all this as a lot of 'hot air', but it was nevertheless unwelcome as we had absolutely no intention of evicting anyone. Much to our surprise the geezer slang:
The English Dialect Dictionary defines geezer as, "a queer character, a strangely-acting person"

It probably equates loosely to today's 'dude'

followed through on his 'threat' and approached the local council to ask about the best way he should go about acquiring the property "... for his parents."

Much to his (and OUR) surprise the council informed him that they didn't actually have a record of the property he was enquiring about, which meant they couldn't proceed with his request! On further reflection we concluded that the council was probably right, even though all the other service providers recognised the 'address'. It was, after all, a passageway that had had a roof stuck over it and a doorway built into the front facade to turn it into a 'house'.

Fortunately, that was the end of his limited attempt at tilting at windmills (and he isn't even Spanish!), but the ball had now bounced firmly back into Maria's court. She would have to do some detailed digging in company records to establish exactly what was real, and what was an apparition.

Discarded Shakespeare and took up Agatha Christie and the Belgian waxed moustache. This mystery was more up his street, "N'est-ce pas?"

Curiouser and curiouser ...

 

Reality ...

Fear is a habit; so is self-pity, defeat, anxiety, despair, hopelessness and resignation. You can eliminate all of these negative habits with two simple resolves: 'I can' and 'I will'.

Anonymous

 

 

It was a nice feeling to think that this picture-postcard setting could be ours. Then the enormity of the task sank in. Sure, it looked pretty. Sure, the location was ideal. But what was the reality of converting these 'houses' into something that we could occupy and in which we could feel comfortably 'at home'? I mean, did we have the time for all the crap that would certainly come our way? Did we have the time to undertake the 'undertaking', and still be able to enjoy it? I suppose I went through the whole gamut of 'negatives' that appear in the quotation above!

You can assume, correctly, that I was on a downer. Maria on the other hand was up-beat enough for the both of us.

Let me introduce you to a couple of 'Maria-isms'.

Mild spring Sunday afternoon. Late, lazy breakfast. I, with (ex)military precision and correctness, offer to do the washing up. She has other plans.

ME: "I'll wash up. Won't take a minute."
SHE: "Nah!"
ME. "Honest, I'll have it done in a jiffy!"
SHE: "The sun is shining. The dog could do with a run on the beach. The dishes will always be there. The sun might not. Let's catch it while we can."
ME: "Oh, OK!" (able to see the rationale of the argument, and always able to recognise an order when I hear one)

AND

On the occasion I was tinkering with a shelf over the computer monitor and allowed the screwdriver to slip, gouging a huge scratch into the front face of the monitor bezel:

ME: "Bugger!"
SHE: "What?"
ME: "Stupid, stupid, stupid me! Ruined the monitor!" (I've always been prone to exaggeration)
SHE: "Don't worry about it. It will last forever." (and how right she was; the scratch still haunts me to this day!)

So whereas I, the pessimist, could see only dungeons in the air she, the optimist, was able to see the castle - (thank you Reader's Digest).

I still had many questions, not least of all was how many of the 'houses' were occupied. Turns out the three in the middle still had tenants. So, we could only be sure of actually occupying the two end houses! There would be a whole bunch of itinerants 'parked' between our lounge and kitchen on one side of the house and the bedroom and bathroom (the latter would still need to be built) at the other. Remember, these are sitting-tenants who have the right to continue to live there. For as long as they lived, that is!

I took up reading again. Macbeth and Hamlet became firm favourites.

Especially the more grisly scenes ...

 

Dreaming ...

You gotta have a dream. If you don't have a dream, how you gonna make a dream come true?

Oscar Hammerstein II

 

 

We eventually managed to arrange a trip up north about ten days later, not because we didn't want to go earlier, but because other matters colluded to keep us from taking the "Magical Mystery Tour" of the site that Maria had discovered.

Our arrival, although designed to be as low-key as possible, was still an event for the residents. A whole contingent of gabbling old women (and a few toothless old men) took every opportunity to welcome 'Donna Maria' into the fold. The word had got out that we were showing an interest in one of the houses, and they were going to make damn sure that Maria was not given the slightest impression that she was anything but welcome! As far as they were concerned they were going to get their very own 'representative', at the high court of the company, living amongst them. It appeared that I too was accepted, as her 'consort', and the fact that I hadn't even seen the property, that we hadn't made a decision, that it was probably unlikely that we would be as charmed with the reality as we were with the picture-postcard view hadn't crossed their minds. And why should it? Simple folk; delightful people!

My first impression of the house was to wonder if Maria had 'blown a gasket'! It was pretty obviously run-down; I'd seen that from the pics. But I wasn't prepared for how small the house was. It was tiny, and I mean TINY! Four little rooms and no bathroom and toilet. WTF. Depression set in fast. So fast that I didn't even think of bringing up the subject of price. Why should I? This was a no-brainer. NO SALE!

Maria still had a surprise up her sleeve. She informed me that even though the house we were looking over was pretty darn small, there was scope to increase our living space when we knocked down a few internal walls and combined the space gained from the other FOUR houses. Come again? Yes, we were not just going after the house on the right, we were going for all five. The WHOLE STREET!

One just has to take a step back and reassess the situation when faced with news like that. And the panorama above is more or less what I saw. Suddenly things did not look so bleak. Yes, there was plenty of potential there. And the little ones on the left, probably the original cowshed and pigsty, could also be adapted into something liveable.

As the song says, "You gotta have a dream."

Our 'Dream' was rekindled ...

 

Seeking ...

Seeking means to have a goal; you are perhaps indeed a seeker. And in striving towards your goal, you perhaps do not see many things that are under your nose.

Hermann Hesse (1877-1962)

 

 

The hunt continued apace, but the results were disappointing. We were now visiting friends and family in the Algarve so frequently that they were getting worried about us. And perhaps even a little tired of hosting our regular visits. Hey, that's the price you pay if you class us as close friends or family!

Nothing. Nada! Not even close to what we wanted, or could afford. Seemed as if we had a better chance of winning the lottery. Now, there was a thought!

Maria was also regularly hurling herself up the motorway in a northerly direction to take care of business at Quinta da Cardiga (roughly translated, The Cardiga Estate), an old estate that has been allowed to deteriorate for reasons that I shall not go into here. Suffice it to say that the estate has stopped producing anything for which it was once famous. It now consists of vast tracts of agricultural land, a run-down Palace, a whole host of run-down estate buildings and the tidy little village called São Caetano that houses the ex-estate workers. The residents live in rent-free accommodation, a sort of feudal tied-cottage scheme that continues to be honoured by the company. When the current occupants pass on, the house they occupy will revert back to the company as it cannot be passed on to the children. The occupants, all pensioners and without any income except for a fixed state pension, are secure in the knowledge that they will always have a roof over their heads. Even if the company sells the property out from under them, it is their entitlement to remain as sitting-tenants.

Map of Portugal showing the
various Districts.

A good rule of thumb, if you
don't know and want a palatable
red wine, is to buy one that
comes from the Alentejo region.

Beja and Evora Districts make
up the Alentejo.

The estate is located in the Santarem District (the pale yellow one in the middle of the map) and is about 120 kilometres from where we live. Not too far for Maria to hurtle up there late morning and return early afternoon, having completed whatever it is she needs to do. On one particular trip she had a late afternoon appointment with a couple of legal-beagles closeted in the nearest town, so she took the opportunity to walk the village and chat with the residents. They love these visits as they can get all their complaints off their chests, something they would never dream of doing face to face with the owners. For her part, Maria loves the visits because she has a close rapport with most of the residents, some of whom she has known for more than 25 years. She uses these sessions to catch up on all the latest gossip which is essential for her to be able to 'administer' things without causing too much upset to the old dears. Since this meeting was scheduled for late afternoon her return trip was delayed a tad. She phoned ahead and I produced dinner. Please note, I did not say I cooked dinner. I trotted across to the local Cafeteria and snagged a couple of portions of one of their specialities and two helpings of their 'out-of-this-world' soup. The wine I already had! Maria arrived home, all wound up like over-stretched knicker elastic. I assumed her meeting had been a success and I waited for her to recount the events of the day. We had a late, but pleasant meal and the conversation and wine flowed in equal measure. Then came the "I have something to tell you." moment.

I listened intently. What else do you do when somebody has "... something to tell you."? As far as I recall I don't think I uttered a word, and moved only to top up the glasses with a fine red Borba.This particular wine from the Alentejo Region is a blend of mainly Trincadeira, Aragónez (Tempranillo) and Castelão, with some Cabernet Sauvignon and Alicante Bouschet.

The grapes are treaded by foot in lagares (the stone troughs that are traditional in the Douro for Port production) for 30 to 45 minutes twice daily until the end of the alcoholic fermentation.

The wine producer likes this method because it provides a large surface ratio of solids to juice, because the open top prevents heat from collecting in the juice and because the gentle treading pressure assures no destruction of the seeds, and therefore no leaching of bitter tannins into the juice.

The wine subsequently ages for a year in new French oak barrels.

We still reminisce about that evening 3 years ago, and it still brings a smile to our faces. Her "I have something to tell you." shifted gear into a series of rapid questions. Did I have my heart set on moving to The Algarve? Had I considered alternatives? What did I think about a possible move to São Caetano? And then it deteriorated into an even more garbled rush. She'd seen a lovely old house in the village. Did I remember seeing those houses on the edge of the village on the bit of road that ran down to the river (of course I didn't remember - I'd only visited the village once before)? Well it was one of those. And just think, only two hundred metres away from dangling a worm in the river. And oh, could we go and take a look, together, in a couple of days? Please. Pretty, please?

She then produced her 3G-phone and proceeded to flick through the various images she had taken. They were in no particular order, but I've reproduced a few of them below to give you an idea of the disjointed take a viewer has when faced by a series of camera-phone (or is that 'phone-camera'?) snapshots. Click on any one and it will give you an enlarged image and a slideshow feature.

 

  
  
  

 

Attractive enough, despite the low-res snapshots. I guessed I'd have to go see for myself. But I had a few questions of my own. Was that house going to be large enough? How much did it cost? What were the neighbours like - apart from almost certainly being 'old'? How much garden space could we expect? How much did it cost? Did the adjacent farm throw off nasty country smells (as compared to nasty city smells)? How soon would it become available? How much did it cost - errmm, had I asked that before?

Most, if not all the questions were deflected with noncommital answers and a cheshire cat Lewis Carroll's famous cat that appears in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

At one point in the story, the cat disappears gradually until nothing is left but its grin, prompting Alice to remark that she has often seen a cat without a grin but never a grin without a cat!

smile. It was becoming apparent that I would have to get off my butt and go take a look for myself.

I think that the quotation by Herr Hesse that I've used at the start of this post was aimed specifically at the two of us!

'Till next time ...

 

Beginning ...

Remember today, for it is the beginning of always. Today marks the start of a brave new future filled with all your dreams can hold. Think truly to the future and make those dreams come true.

Anon

 

 

About three and a half years ago Maria and I started hunting for an alternative to the flat in which we live, here in Lisbon, Portugal. Nothing much wrong with the current flat, except that it is in a big city, and we have reached the age where quiet and solitude are a more attractive proposition.

Map of The Algarve

The hunt concentrated on the Algarve region because, as most people who are familiar with that area will tell you, it is a most attractive part of Portugal, probably the world. Since 'The Algarve' stretches from Sagres on the west coast to Monte Gordo on the Spanish border in the east, we had a vast area to cover. But several factors were used to whittle down the choices, which helped to reduce the area that we needed to concentrate on.

Our choice eventually concentrated on the Tavira area. For many reasons; affordability being the primary one. Properties in the west had already been snapped up by various Northern European outsiders, and price-wise, had gone through the roof (pun intended). We also preferred the quieter lifestyle in this 'more agricultural' part of the Algarve. Not for us the disco's, wine bars and nightclubs. Let the tourists have those!

The constant 600-kilometre round trips took their toll, and we began to get a bit dispirited with the lack of success. There were several properties available, but none of them met our criteria. You only needed to drive past boxer Frank Bruno's massive 'castle' only so many times before you began to realise that absentee landlords were inflating the local property values here, too!

We knew enough about the building and planning laws to appreciate that although things looked bleak, we might be lucky enough to spot that vacant bit of farmland with a run-down building on it, that could turn out to be just the haven we were searching for. Putting up a NEW building is tantamount to a bureaucratic nightmare, but if the land you buy already has a 'roof' on it, you are free to 'repair' the existing structure. And the same rule applies to any structure on the land that previously had a 'roof' - cow shed, pig pen, horsey thingy, whatever. Intending to exceed the square-footage of the existing roofed areas would require one to re-apply for planning permission, of course, but since the local planning departments hold only 2-dimensional paper maps, nobody is in a position to work out how HIGH the original structure was. And if those structures have already 'fallen down', all the better. Ah, ha!

So we continued looking ...