A Creative Spirit
If we were having coffee, I'd tell you last week was a strange week. As I write this on Sunday, we should be in the UK, but our youngest grandchild contracting chickenpox put paid to that, and we had to cancel our plans....pooh! Ho hum, so rather than sit around feeling glum, we made other... Continue Reading →
Over the last few weeks, we've experienced southerly gale-force winds and storms that have wreaked havoc in the garden ... but compared to some, we consider ourselves lucky to have escaped with minimal damage. My Six on Saturday morphed into ... The winds stripped the Bougainvillea of the wonderful display of autumn flowers (bracts) most... Continue Reading →
Let's talk about food! Chestnuts roasting by an open fire ... not quite, but you get my drift. When we were in the UK, we never ate chestnuts... it wasn't a thing. However, in Portugal, we quickly discovered there is even a day dedicated to them: Dia de São Martinho, celebrated on November 11th, which... Continue Reading →
Last Sunday was Remembrance Sunday and as I watched people laying poppy wreaths at the cenotaph, we are reminded: On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month....we shall remember them. https://www.youtube.com/live/jqckTaACroA?si=xDDcVUKZNpsCQ-1U&t=2164 and the haunting sound of a lone bugle brought to mind a poem I wrote many years ago, and with... Continue Reading →
Let's talk about eating out ... I am not referring to basic eating establishments such as 'McDonald's', 'Pizza Hut', and other fast-food chains; I mean restaurants that create their own menus and food. Okay, so “Ambience” is just a fancy word for the feel or atmosphere of a place. If I walk into a restaurant... Continue Reading →
I spotted this monthly blogging challenge over at Deb's Blog, and as a creative spirit, it piqued my curiosity. What is the Global Tell Us About Challenge? Tell Us About…is a monthly opportunity for bloggers to showcase their creativity. Each month one of the co-hosts will choose a theme to focus on, and everyone is... Continue Reading →
If we were having coffee, I'd tell you my physio sessions are going well ... well, sort of. The painful tendinitis in my right hip had almost disappeared until I started driving our manual transmission car. A couple of journeys in, pressing the clutch aggravated the tendinitis, so it felt like two steps forward and... Continue Reading →
Seriously, I think I have a better chance of flying to the moon than having any meaningful conversation in Portuguese. If I manage to find the right words to ask a question, I rarely understand the reply. When people talk to me, my brain empties and my mind goes blank, leaving me staring at them... Continue Reading →
Okay, I did not intend to make pumpkin soup, but when I sent Mr P on a mission to buy a pumpkin for my Halloween light, I was not expecting him to return with the runt of the litter. Needless to say, it was spared from being turned into a Halloween pumpkin light, and I... Continue Reading →
It doesn't seem possible that a week ago today we were visiting our family who live in France. Although it rained EVERY day for most of the day, it was great to spend time with the family, especially since I knew it would probably be about six months before we saw them again. At the... Continue Reading →
While we were vacationing in France, the weather Gods graced us with rain after months of drought. Lots of rain. Apparently, it rained every morning, and the sun broke cover in the afternoon. Needless to say, we returned home not only to a greener garden but also to a proliferation of mosquitoes! The usual suspects,... Continue Reading →
We've just returned from visiting family in France, and I have no idea how I managed to avoid gaining weight! OMG, the pastries, chocolates, cakes, speciality breads, etc, were amazing! Just look and tell me how you could resist them ... Every time we went to buy a baguette for lunch, we were forced to... Continue Reading →
If we were having coffee, I'd tell you it has been a busy week or so. The highlight: we celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary on the 18th October followed by a trip to see our family in France more on that next week. Mr. Piglet secretly planned a boat trip from Olhao to the Ria... Continue Reading →
While on a boat trip to one of the islands on the Ria Formosa the boat's skipper proudly introduced us to these slimey critters. Sea cucumbers or “Sea rats” as they are aptly nicknamed by some fishers and divers because of how they move and feed—slowly crawling over the seabed, cleaning up waste and debris... Continue Reading →
For this week's Food on Friday topic, I want to experiment using alternatives to refined sugar so I can bake diabetic friendly cakes and cookies. I have a vague idea in theory, but am clueless in practice. I needed to find a sugar replacement. In one cookbook of diabetic recipes, Agave syrup was recommended, but... Continue Reading →
If we were having coffee, I'd tell you I had my hair cut and coloured this week, and the hairdresser made a right pig's ear of the cut. I usually have my hair styled in a long bob, so what did she do? Cut my hair almost level with the bottom of my ear lobes!... Continue Reading →
There is never a dull moment on Piglet's Plot. Despite temperatures still in the 20C, a stroll around the garden signals summer is over, and I really do need to get my butt into gear. Birds and the Bees This morning I was surprised by the number of bees on the nespera tree. It seemed... Continue Reading →
I am not superstitious, but... Quote from Wiki "In folklore, the witching hour or devil's hour is a time of night that is associated with supernatural events, whereby witches, demons and ghosts are thought to appear and be at their most powerful. Definitions vary, and include the hour immediately after midnight and the time between... Continue Reading →
If we were having coffee, I'd mention it has been another busy week, which included a chance meeting with a dear friend whom we'd lost touch with. Our misinterpretation of the potentially complicated reason for their silence meant we had not reached out again. However, their apparent silence was not due to a lack of... Continue Reading →
As September drifts into October in a blaze of sunshine, albeit accompanied by a chilly breeze, I now curse my tardiness for not going to the local monthly market last Sunday to buy broccoli, lettuce and maybe some cucumber plugs. Why didn't I go? It rained. A poor excuse, especially since I'll miss the next... Continue Reading →
Piglet in Portugal 