The Art of Building

Aljezur/Portugal, July 2022

Since august last year, Marcio, the builder and construction manager, has been working on the house Joseph and I bought during pandemic two years ago in the old town of Aljezur.

Only due to his capacity and skills of restoring old buildings with an ancient technique to save damaged walls, we got over the shock of having bought a broken old house. Water is the builder‘s enemy. It goes everywhere and destroys it little by little with humidity. Apart from that, he has a very good taste and knows how to integrate the modern into the old. Joseph and I are very happy to be able to work with him.

The trip from the Mediterranean (Formentera) to the Atlantic took a whole day as there is, of course, no good connection in between those two remote places I chose to live in. As I crossed the portuguese country side by bus from Lisbon to Aljezur, I could see the lack of water everywhere, burned leftovers and dry landscape. Big part of Southern Europe is eaten up by flames and punished with drought….

But it was worth to come, thus the chaotic traveling circumstances this summer, not knowing if flights will be cancelled or delayed. I was so happy to see the progress in the house, to talk to Marcio and make decisions about things on site instead upon videos and chats. Him and our architect José, the surfer, work closely together and make a very good team to keep us out of all these troubles and problems caused by outer circumstances such as annoying neighbours, stolen electricity boxes, closed access roads by the local authorities, licensing issues and so on. José has actually become a really good friend and will stay in the house whenever he wants, if empty, to go surfing in Arrifana with his teenager daughter who has become a professional surfer.

As I carried a lot of work to be finished on my laptop, I did not do much but hang around the little village, stuck with my nose on the screen, go and have dinner at this really nice vegan place and watch the cats passing by the narrow cobble stone streets at dawn. I slept at a hostel in a shared bunk bed room and woke up all the rest on my inmates cause they were on vacation without the urge to get up at 7 am like me, having to do bank or notary visits. No rental car to drive to the beach nor anywhere. No surfing what so ever. Instead, leading a local village life like my neighbours.