It’s a little after eight on Sunday morning. Bernice has just gone downstairs with Tao, who has taken to joining us in bed every morning for a book or two and sometimes a matching game. They have now left me to try to dash off this week’s post before we all have breakfast and drive down to the land for the morning. All, that is, except for Tslil, who is off to a meeting of her women’s group.

Somehow, a week has flashed by since we left Ma’ale Adumim – a week in which not a great deal has happened. We haven’t ventured out of Penamacor, and have visited the local supermarket only three times (which may be a personal record: we have been known to go every day, as we suddenly realise new items we are missing). On our first visit, the day after we arrived, we were armed with half a yard of shopping list. Unfortunately, it being Monday, there was no fresh fish at all and not a huge variety of fruit and veg. However, we were still able to spend over 100 euros.

The next day we returned and Bernice chased down some more items, while I spent my usual ten minutes at the fish counter with google translate, coming away with beautiful, fresh salmon, Nile perch and sea bream. No trout, unfortunately, which will probably have to wait until we get as far as Castelo Branco.

All of this saw us through until Friday, when I popped out to top up the fruit and veg. This time I was able to find delicious strawberries and broccoli, but, astonishingly, no cucumbers, which are clearly not as popular here as they are in Israel, or indeed Britain. Tslil believes that they are a largely regarded as a seasonal veg here, and that locals use a large, dark-green variety of courgette as a winter substitute.

Apart from that, we have paid one visit to the China shop, where the owner greeted us as warmly as ever. We only needed a couple of small items, and, with a mixture of searching and sign language, we were able to track down a plate stand for the havdala dish we brought out this time and clips for kippot. (We had to compromise, and settle for clips decorated with a strawberry pattern, but nevertheless we were, as always, impressed that the shop hadn’t let us down.)

In addition, on Shabbat afternoon, we took a walk down (almost everywhere is down from our house) and then up, to a spur at the northern corner of the village. Up a long flight of stone steps is what looks like a church, which however has only one small window at the side. The large metal doors are always locked, Tslil tells us. I suspect it may be a chapel of rest for a coffin before burial.

The walk was very worthwhile, because the top of the spur commands a view past the edge of the village and over the valley to the east, and, thirty yards away, a view to the west over the valley in which the kids’ land lies. We arrived there just 45 minutes before the end of shabbat, and the pinkish-purple misty evening light over the distant foothills of the Serra da Estrela was a very welcome reminder of the beauty of creation. Nothing like a dose of nature to restore one’s sense of perspective.

Our only other major outing this week was a drive down to the land, with Micha’el, Tao and Lua, the now-hulking still-puppy. We didn’t stay long, but were able to admire the cob floor of the tipee, which constituted our first surprise. When we were last here, the floor was level after the application of the last full layer of cob. There were, however, several cracks, because in the unusually dry and warm weather the cob had dried quicker than the kids had hoped.

In the last two months, they have filled the cracks and fed the cob with several coats of linseed oil. As we walked into the tipee last week…. Correction, as we bent double to duck under the entrance flap, which is more or less ideal for Tao, easily negotiable for his yoga-practising parents, and manageable for his pilates-practising nana, but a humiliating crawl on all fours for his decrepit grandfather (who nevertheless expects, after a few weeks of boot camp, to be able to limbo dance his way through)….As we went into the tipee last week, our eyes, and our feet, were met by a smooth, rock-hard floor, that nevertheless gave the sensation of having a very slight give in it. It seems to be almost as durable as concrete, but considerably warmer, and it makes the tipee feel cosy and much closer to completion.

The next stage in making the tipee completely habitable is the cob stove, which Micha’el is making good progress on. In typically symbiotic fashion, the clay soil for the cob comes from the digging out of the swales, the channels that will carry the rainwater away from around the tipee and down to the area that will need to be irrigated.

The main reason for our trip to the land today is because Tao didn’t get to spend much time there last week, and really wants to go, not least to take us on his special walk through the jungle (which the kids assure us is less terrifying than it sounds). Lua never needs to be asked twice. Spending much of the day lazing around the house (although she gets taken up to the forest for a good walk twice a day), she adores running free on the land, chasing shadows, hunting and dismembering twigs, following rabbit trails.

Micha’el may manage to get some more work done on the land today, and I may even be able to help. In addition to digging the swales, sifting the soil to produce the cob, and building the stove, the kids have been gifted what Tslil feels may be something of a white elephant – a young, but nevertheless fairly substantial, olive tree. It is, at the moment, lying on its side just off the path to the tipee, and the kids plan to plant it fairly close to where it is lying. This, of course, entails clearing a circle of land and digging a dauntingly large hole to sink the tree in. In a moment of weakness last night, I heard myself volunteering to help Micha’el in this effort.

On a walk with Tao on Thursday, we spent some time playing football on the five-a-side open-air pitch and watching the excavator and dumper-truck at the site at the top of our street where a major renovation of the police headquarters is taking place. Tao was also able to go rock-climbing on the piles of excavated gravel, as his grandpa filmed and his nana had her heart in her mouth.

Fortunately, and, again, unexpectedly, the weather this entire past week has been beautiful: sunny every day, with almost entirely clear skies and no rain. It has been cold, particularly the last couple of nights, when the temperature fell to -3^oC. Before my Canadian and Eastern seaboard US readers start sneering, let me emphasise that the significant factor in our house here is not outside temperature, or wind chill, but insulation. The difference between the outside and inside temperature is not always as great as we would like.

Having said that, the new stove we bought when we were last here does a great job of keeping downstairs cosy. (It also has eliminated the unpleasant smoky atmosphere in the salon.) Over shabbat, when we could not feed the stove, the meicham (electric urn) and platta (hotplate) warmed the kitchen, while a three-bar fire warmed the salon. It is only in the five minutes between coming upstairs last thing at night to get undressed, and slipping under the very efficient duvet, that we feel cold.

I usually daven on the glazed-in balcony off our bedroom (the solarium, as the estate agent might term it). It faces NNE, so that the early morning sun streams in through the side window. In winter, it is challengingly cold, but, inspired by our shabbat davening outdoors during the first year and a half of COVID, I donned my coat, cap and gloves, and grew cosy enough to be able to doff the cap, remove the gloves, and even unzip my coat after a while.

For the most part, this first week has slipped by in a whirl of stories, cuddles, games, cooking and baking, playgrounds, catching up, and generally having a good time. Nothing wrong with any of that. And now it’s 9:40, so I really must stop here and get ready for another week full of everyday pleasures.