It’s been a while since our last blog post, so I’m just going to give you a little rundown of some of the best bits from the last few months as we get organised with our blog writing plans!

As you know we are motorcyle lovers, and Elvis always has been too, this year he got a lot more confident riding on two wheels so we found a great little second hand Husqvarna 50cc 2 Stroke, which he has taken to really well.

He is still going to Escuderia Castelo Branco School, but we are also building and enduro track at our quinta, using second hand tyres from a local garage.

He is also using his electric bike, and quad with friends. It’s great to have the land to do this, without issues from neighbours etc.

In fact our neighbour has a 410 Svartpillen, and a 2 stroke Casal – so its win win.

I also picked up this Suzuki RM125 Classic, for a steal and completely restored it to sell. I have however, forgotten how fast 125cc 2 stroke MX bikes are, and scared myself silly.

Halloween came and went, some time ago. We decided to throw a party, and we had a really good turn-out. Some friends of ours who live locally organised the make-up and we had a marquee, food and drink with a “Purge” twist. We also had a great bonfire, perfect for the cold night.

Ive been getting out and exploring, making some videos for our Youtube channel.

After doing quite a bit of work on my 97 ZX7R, the bike is absolutely flying – so I decided to make some videos of the things you can visit within a 40km radius of our Quinta.

If you would like a look, our Youtube channel is HERE.

Please subscribe to our channel and check out our videos!

Christmas and New Year already feels like so long ago!

Happy festivities to everyone. Hope you all had a good time.

We had some friends over to our quinta, for a few drinks, Christmas lunch and a generally nice family day.

My (Mike) mum came over just before Xmas too, and it was good to show her around the local places.

One thing is for sure, this Covid “Lockdown” thing, has really affected people, with their ability to travel and just get out of the front door.

So it was really nice for us to get a visitor from the UK- This year we’re hoping you can too…more on that later!

The local community is great here in Penamacor.

I’ve met some truely lovely people, from Expats from all over the world, to locals who have been super friendly and very welcoming.

I’m also now starting to get involved with the car scene here in Portugal, which is actually a tough nut to crack.

With 99% of all modifications being illegal to cars, you may think it’s not a country of car lovers, but scratch the surface and you find some really amazing cars and owners doing their thing.

Generally they are not obsessed with modern cars, but the 70s, 80s and 90s cars that I also find more appealing.

Lancia’s, R5 Turbo’s, Datsun 510’s – they are all here, just used for the occasional meeting, and otherwise kept undercover.

Carla has also been making progress with her Bootcamp and business whihc is going to be her main focus for 2022.

She has 2 sessions a week at our Quinta and is also taking on online and in person one to clients. She is loving doing it as it’s been quite some time she’s been able to focus on a career since having Elvis.

She has also started with the local council delivering Nutrition and Healthy Lifestyle classes to the senior university and also teaching English that she somehow managed to get roped in to!

She has also resurrected her Barbering brand again (her original career) to help bring in some extra monies to keep us sailing, whilst we continue to build up our business at the Quinta.

Things we have found hard:

1. The sun (43 degrees on some days)
2. The very, verrry slow Portuguese ways of doing business out here in the country.
3. Cost of heating in the winter is super expensive (using butane). Its something we were not prepared for.
4. Red tape, paperwork – cant blame it all on Brexit, but…..

Things we have found really awesome:

1. Our neighbours and the local community – some of which we now call “best friends”.
2. Growing our own food. Ok so we are rubbish at it at the moment, but its a learning curve. Still, you cant beat your own homegrown lettuce and peas.
3. China shops – they are everywhere, and sell everything (random or not). Ok so most of it is really poor quality, but you are never stuck more than 2 miles from getting a mis-spelt t-shirt or some emergancy screws.

Signing off,

Thanks for reading, and sorry there is so much (next blog post won’t be so long into the future) in fact I’ve givenmyself the task of writing them!

Please follow us on Facebook and Insta.

Drop us an email if you have any questions on vistadepenamacor@outlook.com – it’s always good to hear from people, especially in this time of uncertainty around the globe.

Love to all,

Mike