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Jake

We were just settling into life with a family pet when he did it again…….. Jake slipped out of the house, went straight back to the poison, and once again nearly died. This was the third time within a month and the vet was amazed that he survived.

So against all our instincts Jake is now kept under very close supervision day and night. We keep him on a lead and ‘zip wire’ (if you know what I mean) but he seems to be very happy as he has access to the kitchen and all his usual spots outside, it’s just too risky to let him run free.

Our vet’s bill is now standing at around €300 ……….

Anyway, as he is now officially our household pet, we have started to take him everywhere with us. Today was his first trip to the beach and he loved it, we plucked up the courage to let him off the lead and he was as good as gold. It was lovely to see him running free and hilarious when he was by surprised by a wave. We plan to make it a regular outing.

To make life easier CG has made some gates for the courtyard so that Jake can wander about without a lead. It has taken a while but the gates are now in situ and looking fine (if a little rustic, but our limited budget rather put paid to buying new wood). I had to query the size of the gaps though as they looked a little wide, but CG assured me that he had measured the dog and there is no way he would be able to slip through.

Hmmm, I think a little wire netting might do the trick…….

I am still up to my eyes in tomatoes and having prepared tons of the things in various ways for the freezer I am now considering other methods of preservation. It always makes me think of that Doris Day film about a long suffering mother (played by Doris, of course) who made her own ketchup in the basement.

It could be me! Can anyone remember what it was called?

I am ashamed to say that we have the wreck of our old car parked on our land. It has been there since I had a very elegant but disastrous slide into a JCB one morning on my way to buy pig food. It looks terrible but is a great place to keep the animal food! We plan to sell it for scrap when the price is a little better.

The problem is that the road tax was due at the end of August, something we were aware of but did nothing about until the last possible moment, (nothing new there…) So off I went to the agência de documentação in Alfeizerao to de-register the car only to find that Portuguese legislation once again came into it’s own and it wasn’t that straight forward.

The helpful lady, who did not speak a word of English, explained that it is not possible to do this without a recognised vehicle recovery company taking the car away and providing us with a form which we then give to her in order to complete the process.

This was all too much to try and sort out before the end of the day, so I had no choice but to pay another year’s road tax and give ourselves plenty of time to find a recognised company and arrange the removal of the wreck.

That will teach us not leave things until the last minute!

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