There is a house in Vilar

Summer is here. An invasion of heatwaves, irritating swarms of flies, ants, sand from the Sahara and a lot of very nice visitors. The house is now subject to all kinds of user experience tests. A heatwave with 44 degrees Celsius? Inside the air reaches a maximum of 27 degrees, without air conditioning, but thanks to the super solid insulation, sun resistant glass and the veranda’s. In the cooling evening we open the whole house up, windows and doors are positioned opposite each other. The concept of the architect unfolds and proofs itself. Our guests move around and find a spot. There are possibilities everywhere. You can withdraw into your privacy, or join in the kitchen. Close a door or find a chair on the other veranda. In the kitchen we can move freely. The big island in the middle is a center point of mess, fruit, fruit flies, sun screen bottles, breakfast gear and laptops. It doesn’t matter. We’ll clean up later. Right now we are enjoying ourselves….

Almost but not yet entirely

In the meantime the list of jobs and chores is never decreasing fast enough. The boss does not get his peace of mind, unfortunately. And now summer has arrived, people start to go on holiday, and it becomes even more difficult to get the workers back to our project. Or they have no staff or help, and way too many orders. Or they tell you ‘tomorrow’. As there is always a tomorrow, right? Many things also have to be redone or returned to shops and suppliers. It is not done according to measurements, expectations or the quality our good money requires. But the endless to-do lists can be checked of now and then. The dining chairs and the table legs arrive from Denmark. The carpenter brings the beautiful beautiful oak table top. We can now finally take a shower! But we still await the glass doors. The counter tops and back splashes have been mounted. But measurements were wrong, twice, and now there is still a different pattern in the back splash. And the deck around the pool has been replaced with bambu, it is super straight and will last forever.

Weed

Then there is weed, endless weeds to pull. When the plants were put into the garden, we were way too busy wit other things. Nature went her own way and took over. Now we literally need to liberate the plants we wish to keep. Some weeds however, are just beautiful flowers, but the boss is unrelenting: all must go out! He is more smitten with his grass robot and other machinery (boys…). I prefer to mindfully extract the weed including root, in a relentless powerful gesture, especially after a full day of Teams meetings and other work adventures. We eagerly await the return of the gardener himself. He still must finalize the watering system around the fruit trees. Deliver river stones for the rock garden between pool and house. Spread loads of little basalt blocks to cover the dusty touvenant. So we can finally clean up all the dust and start oiling the veranda decks.

Village life

Normal life goes on. It is nearly four years since we set foot in Vilar. We have found our spot in the small neighborhood, in the village community. Babies are born and we celebrate. People die and we mourn. We give and take, we have a chat and keep an eye on each other. We learn and advise.
When I go for a little evening walk, I meet Graça for some chit chat and some softly whispered gossip. Her husband Luís turns the new potatoes in their colorful crates. I walk past by Cristina and receive one of her warm and powerful hugs. We exchange our complaints about our busy days. She in her village shop, me behind the computer. About our never ending house keeping, children (even when they have grown up) And our dear husbands who… well, never mind. It is like any village life. It is a village. And I feel very much at home.