Ocean-front Farm

Thursday is my boat day. But not this week.

I had to run an important errand: taking a bottle of red wine and a step ladder to my 7,500 m2 ocean-front farm. A bottle of wine and a stepladder, that's what the two tree pruners requested.

This is Portugal, people still have fun around here!

I hung around for 30 minutes or so mostly complaining about how much work I have (which is true) so they wouldn't get the impression that I couldn't even be bothered to hang around or help.

So I went to the boat today (Friday), lugging the laptop filled with stinking work. OK, so it pays the bills.

This time I took the heater, even though it wasn't that cold, about 14 ºC. That may sound cold or warm for a winter day depending on whether you live in Norway or Mexico.

Which brings to mind the youngish Dutch couple living on the big steel boat. They go for long walks, jogs, bicycle rides or just dally about wearing shorts and T-shirts. Brrrr! Maybe it's because they're built like Olympic athletes and want to show off their chiseled bodies, who knows.

Today Ryker told me that the Dutch woman goes jogging with special lead weights strapped to her feet and legs. No wonder she walks like she's got springs in her shoes.

Ryker's pet birds, double-click so see them better

Just to prove that they can fly too

I worked until lunch, had lunch, walked around and talked to a few people, admired the tall Dutch woman walking by (I swear she looks like she could easily jump over me if I didn't move aside). I'm too shy to take her picture and I'm not too keen on posting pictures of other people without their permission.

Went back to work, and this is my view when I look up.

Having skylights is one advantage of working in the boat, no barking dogs is another

Later I took another short break and started the engine. Shifted back into forward and reverse various  times trying to convince myself that the stupid transmission is working fine. Discovered a trick while doing this though, if I shift into forward and immediately rev the engine a bit it engages just fine. No problems in reverse. See, I'm almost convinced that it will last another decade.