Winter sunrise, waking up to this beats February in the UK!  It is cool and misty, often foggy in the mornings.  Winter sunsets are the best too.  I was off to take pictures this morning, but the camera battery was flat from lack of use – now charged and ready to use.  A day at home, so Kung Po prawns and dumplings for supper – frozen prawns are just as good as fresh and dumplings from Supermercado Chen in Lisbon – brilliant!

This is the beginning of documenting the journey I made from a lifetime in Surrey to the Alentejo countryside nearly 8 years ago – a massive change of lifestyle which brought with it many surprises.  I have had to learn to live with not being able to communicate with the local people, the different produce in all shops and the difficulty in sourcing the fresh products I like to cook with, the restaurants in Alentejo and their idea of the ‘best food in the world’.  As you can tell, I am into cooking – and being able to cook my own food has helped me feel settled in an ‘alien’ environment.

So, I will now start to learn the art of blogging – let’s see how it goes!