The Winding Down Continues……..

It doesn’t matter if we are leaving our home in Ottawa to head to the Algarve or the reverse, packing up here at the quinta to head back home to Ottawa, reality is it takes a fair bit of organization , administration, and time. Throw into the mix Marc’s third exposition, which is being setup tomorrow at the Quinta da Tôr, ( http://quintadator.com/en/), and lasts for five days, and you can appreciate that things are starting to merge for us, both literally and figuratively! That said, we have been doing this for several years now and in many ways have it down to a fine art. (No pun intended)!

Yesterday we enjoyed a lovely au revoir /bon voyage lunch at the Faro Beach with our friend Andrée-Anne, who headed back to Canada this morning. We hope to see her again this summer in Quebec.

When we returned home yesterday Marc’s order of easels arrived at the house and I spent the late afternoon assembling them…..my contribution to his artistic life!!! Outside of that we’ve been focusing on preparing our boxes for several months of storage. What stays, what goes to Ottawa, what goes in the thrift bins here. We have stacks everywhere!!

I still manage to get out for walks through the day and have a couple of hikes set aside for the weekend while Marc is away. I continue to see new perspectives and am constantly surprised with something.

This morning we were up to our usual morning shenanigans when Marc asked, out of the blue, if I might like to go to Tavira for lunch. I swear, five minutes later we were on the road to Zeca Bica and what a delightful diversion it was.

Carne de porco à alentejana for Marc.

Bochechas de porco for me. It was relaxing, relatively quiet, lots of fun with the waiter, and the owner gave us our usual friendly greeting with a Tudo está bem. We’re going to miss all this!

After lunch a lovely walk along the river and into the old quarter where Marc purchased a bottle of Macieira, which is a Portuguese brandy, as a gift for me to take back to Canada!!!!! How lucky am I??

I loved this old door knocker, the restaurant scene for me oozed relaxation and pleasure, and the three D aspect of that lovely old decorative insert, not to mention that rich antique yellow, it all called out to me.

A stop at the grocery on the way home, a late afternoon siesta out by the pool, and that pretty well encapsulates our very enjoyable day. Still a few to go, most of our organization out of the way and another exciting few days for Marc doing what he loves to do………