Juggling Spinning Plates

“So when do you open?” is a common question as everything on our hillside starts to look a little more finished.“Last Saturday” is my current response – because that was the original plan.Great friends of ours from our Bangkok days...and their friends...had booked last year to come and stay when the finish date on the building contract was optimistically set for the end of February.“Yes, this February,” was my common response (often to the builders) while we prepared for a group of 28 people – half of them children, but we felt that even if it slipped a month or two we’d be all set by May.It was a very generous offer to help us with a soft opening – to give us the practical experience of running a retreat for a large group with varying demands – safe in the knowledge they are friends and would understand...and give great feedback.As the year began, and the combination of heavy rain delaying the construction and the growing realisation that we are not super-human led us to suggest they book the larger and more established Pé no Monte hotel nearby.We are so pleased they did.Their slimmed down early-arrival group of 20 came over to see us for a tour, a wine tasting and a sardine supper.The ratio was the same: ten adults to ten children.Obviously diggers make great climbing frames, rock dust is perfect for sandcastles and “don’t go close to the precipice by the pool” translates into child as “we must go over there.”The electricity is now connected to all the buildings and the spaghetti water system is working – including to the toilets and showers – but the sinks aren’t quite there to help the water to its final destination.All but one of the outside doors and windows are now in, the interior doors are ready to hang and the metal safety railings for the mezzanines will go in this week (they could have plunged off those precipices too).The wine tasting went well, the sardines feast was saved by our friend Adam Cooper’s quick intervention and we ended the day having learned a lot of lessons about hospitality...and health & safety.Our wonderful daughter Oda has been staying with us – en route to managing the emerging American indie rock artist Taylor Sackson for her first UK tour.Check out the dates and if you’re local, drop in and show some support for Oda and Taylor (she’s got an amazing voice).Oda knew it was going to be a busy time in the Valley of the Stars, but none of us anticipated just how manic the last couple of weeks were going to be – it was a proper case of spinning plates while juggling (or a combination of the two).She arrived in the middle of our filling-the-pool water crisis which I wrote about last time, a task made much more difficult by a broken borehole.After trying everything he could first, the ever impressive Cristiano and his brother Eduardo set about hauling the pump 120m out of the ground to discover it needed to be replaced...along with its cable, pipe and rope.Thanks for reading Off-grid and Ignorant in Portugal! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.It was another unexpected cost which merely contributes to my active avoidance of checking the accounts to see if we actually have enough money left to finish our project.My former BBC colleague and audio-genius friend Peter Emmerson helped us through the first two weeks of the podcast launch.Episode 2 went live yesterday – please head over to the wine blog and sign up if you haven’t already...or just search for Ana & Al's Big Portuguese Wine Adventure where you get your podcasts or have a listen here:You’ll remember our friend John Rourke from my last despatch: the Scottish strimmer and cork floor fitting fiend who dragged his pal Tony over to cork click-floor our mezzanines.John said he’d be back to finish the job after a short trip home, but decided to have a heart attack in Scotland instead...I mean, as far as excuses go that’s a pretty good one.Thankfully he was just 10mins away from Glasgow hospital and out a few days later struggling more with the regime of enforced rest than anything else.Wishing you a speedy recovery John – all that strimming made him as fit as a butcher’s dog which should help – and in terms of places to keel over I’d certainly choose Glasgow over the hills of Alentejo for speedier emergency care, rather than the scenery.Most items on our post-it wall of ambition are proving stubborn to shift, but my old university pal Hugh Jennings was also on hand this week to help us make some impact.“Finish the cork floors” was high up on the running order, and Tony insisted on coming back and giving us a masterclass in click floor installation as we fussed around him trying to help.Hugh and I moved a lot of heavy things around, unpacked the entire restaurant kitchen, assembled some furniture and conquered a lingering gutter which has been staring at me for weeks, begging to be installed (just in time for the next drought).And we certainly couldn’t have prepped our sardines and wine tasting day without him...thanks so much again for coming Hugh!I dropped Hugh off at Faro airport and picked up another old friend Ciaran for the return trip.Our Algarve adventures always involve big shops and pickups, and after negotiating Cassie the Hilux and a trailer through the narrow streets of Faro, Ciaran was treated to Leroy Merlin DIY store (twice), Makro, a large metal factory, and although spared Ikea, was dragged to the irrigation pipe place.The sudden arrival of summer means all the trees we have planted need regular watering – all 300 of them.The irrigation pump failed last year and so we’ve upgraded to a submersible pump for the lake to feed the citrus and the olive trees down in the valley and up on the hill.Thank you for reading Off-grid and Ignorant in Portugal. This post is public so feel free to share it.This requires 500m of pipe, scores of fiddly drippers to install and the construction of a small island out of wood and plastic barrels to support and power the pump in the lake.Then there’s Ana and Oda’s dresser re-decoration job to finish, sealing material for the concrete floors to buy and spread, skirting boards to install, more interiors to order, bills to pay, accounting to put off...and that’s just today.It really has been one of those times when a week feels like a month...when there’s not enough time in the day or space in my brain.There’s not even enough space to cram it all into one despatch (but I’ll keep trying).Oda, Ana, Ciaran and I did all enjoy a night away at the stunning Tróia Design Hotel on the sliver of Alentejo that points at the Setúbal Peninsula just south of Lisbon.It was work rather than play, as I’d been asked to do a couple of turns at a conference known as the Sleeper Sessions – a high-end networking event for top hotels and international designers.Matt Turner, editor in chief of Sleeper Media which publishes the influential Sleeper Magazine (among others) invited me to run a couple of their “Sustenance Sessions” after hearing the radio pieces I did for the BBC on off grid living (which you can listen to here and here).It involved hosting a tasting and talk about Portuguese and Alentejo wines, some background on the kind of madness required to build an off-grid eco-luxe lodge with no prior experience, and stories from my previous war-reporting life.It was great fun – thanks to Matt and to moderator Guy Dittrich for the invite and for giving me the chance to meet so many real hotel and design people. Hopefully a few of them might even come and stay.It also inspires me that perhaps the wine tasting/live storytelling part of our business plan might just work… This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit alastairleithead.substack.com