To be honest, not much has happened since we last spoke. This week’s post is going to consist of nothing more portentous than a few random observations about our life here.

We’ve been to the ‘big’ super a couple of times. On each occasion, we have been lucky enough to be checked out by the same cashier: a speedy and efficient young woman whose English is excellent. I have actually more or less mastered ‘check-out Portuguese’. I don’t speak it very well, but I can understand such hardy perennials as: ‘Do you require a tax invoice?’, “Will you be needing any bags?’ and ‘Do you want the receipt sent to your mobile number?’ Fortunately, all these questions require of me by way of response is ‘Nao’, ‘Sim. Dois, por favor.’ And ‘Nao’, respectively, all of which I can just about manage, provided I have had enough sleep the night before.

However, since there is always the risk that a cashier may think of a new question to ask, it is much less nerve-wracking to conduct any negotiations in English. This is especially true since we typically have two shopping trolleys that together contain about ten times more items than anyone else in the shop is buying. So the last thing we want to do is hold up the queue any longer than is absolutely necessary.

I’m not sure what it is about rural Portuguese. They seem to prefer a daily shop to a weekly shop. It takes Bernice back over 65 years, to going down Ridley Road market in Hackney every day with her grandmother, to buy fresh bread, fruit and veg, fish and meat.

Every time we arrive, it takes us a little while to adjust to shopping, cooking and baking for a family of six, rather than for two retirees, one of whom has virtually given up on sweet things, and the other of whom perplexingly finds himself, as he gets older, ever more able to exercise self-control where food is concerned.

At home, for example, I make a batch of granola, and it lasts me over three weeks. In Penamacor, I have to prepare it every six days or so. As for my spelt sourdough crackers, I barely have time to let them cool and pack them away in the Tupperware before it is time to bake another batch. With both the granola and the crackers, Olly is now a fully fledged member of the family, and he is definitely a boy who enjoys his food.

Since each batch of crackers take a cup-and-a-half of sourdough starter, I find myself feeding my starter twice a day, rather than once a week, as at home, and keeping it out all the time, rather than keeping it in the fridge and ‘waking it up’ a day before I need it.

This week has also marked a milestone in the slow decline of Bernice and myself. As I know I have mentioned before, probably more than once, the main street of Penamacor runs along a valley, with streets running up the steep incline each side. Our house is situated two-thirds of the way up a street that climbs straight up one of these inclines. Strolling down to the centre is a little vertiginous, but an easy walk. Climbing back up, on the other hand, is a challenge.

The other day, we were planning to take Olly in his buggy for a walk to the centre, to do a little shopping in the China shop for various household items. Olly’s buggy (which was, of course, originally Tao’s) was one of the first purchases we made after the kids bought land in Portugal. It is an all-terrain buggy, with independent suspension and two modes: urban and country. While it was not cheap, it has proven a very good buy, not only able to handle rough terrain, but also coping well with the cobbled streets of Penamacor.

However, it is a very heavy piece of equipment. Pushing it uphill is a real challenge, one which I surrendered to Bernice some time ago. This last week, when we were planning to go to the centre, Bernice suggested I drive down to the centre (about half a kilometre), park in the central car park and start shopping. Meanwhile, she would walk down with Ollie in the buggy and meet me. When we had finished our shopping, we would all drive home. She was prepared to admit that we were (how kind she is: actually, ‘she was’ rather than ‘we were’) getting too old to push the buggy up the hill.

It wasn’t until we had reached the last stage of executing this plan that I realised how neatly Bernice had stitched me up. It was true that she was now spared pushing the buggy up the hill. I, on the other hand, had to perform three challenging actions. First, I had to fold up the buggy. This is, of course, a simple two-step operation. At least in the instruction booklet and the online video it is simple. You pick up the buggy by the plastic handle and it neatly folds in half as you pick it up. If it is at all recalcitrant, a simple flick of the wrist is all that is needed. I find that, once I have picked up the buggy, I am concentrating so hard on avoiding toppling over under its weight that I cannot focus on flicking my wrist.

Once I had finally managed to close the buggy, I then had to manoeuvre it into the hatch of our car. Fortunately, the Opel Astra has quite a deep boot, so it was theoretically possible to fit the buggy in. However, this required what I believe weightlifters refer to as a deadlift, followed by extending my arms out in front. The sense of achievement when I finally closed the boot on the buggy almost compensated for the humiliation of it taking me two attempts.

When we left Israel, I was reflecting how fortuitous our timing was, in sporting terms. We were moving two hours closer to the match times of the T20 World Cup. (If you need to ask, there’s no point in telling you. However, Americans should be warned that they may need to start boning up on their cricket, which will be played in the 2028 Olympics on the West Coast; I suspect the USA may feature quite prominently.)

We were also moving into the time zone of Wimbledon, which actually started today (Monday). I’m hoping I will at least be able to catch some evening highlights.

I also fondly imagined I was being wise in escaping Israel’s obsession with the Euros. (If you need to ask, there’s no point in telling you.) However, on reflection, if you are planning to escape the Euros, Portugal is probably not the smartest destination. Ten days ago, on Shabbat, our neighbour was having the outside of his house painted. The painters had their truck radio on full blast as they worked, and I was therefore left in no doubt that Portugal had gone 2-0 up, although I did not, at the time, realise that it was as the result of an own goal from Turkey’s Samet Akaydin. You will, perhaps, be interested, if not surprised, to learn that the Portuguese radio commentator was as excessive in his repeated screaming of ‘Go-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-lo!’ for that fiasco as he would have been had Ronaldo scissor-kicked the ball into the goal from the halfway line.

In addition to the celebrations late into the night after every Portuguese victory, we have had two days of celebration marking St Peter’s Day. From the side of the house that our bedroom is on, we heard hardly anything of the popular concert in the town square, but Micha’el, Tslil and the boys sleep on the other side, and Tslil says it went on into the small hours on Saturday night.

And this is the everyday substance of our every day here. We find, as always to our shock, that we are already halfway through our four weeks here. If Ollie’s speech continues to develop at the rate it has since we arrived (nothing to do with us), he’ll be conversing normally by the time we leave. If Tao continues to grow at the rate he seems to have grown since we arrived (again, not our doing), then I won’t have to bend down to kiss him goodbye. And if life continues for the next two weeks in just as exciting a way as it has progressed for the first two weeks, then this will have been another great trip.