Almost 3 months on and still no pipes. I just haven't been able to work out where the main pipes are that would bring water into the house. I went and got copies of the planning application for the build from the town hall but these make no mention of plumbing of any sort being installed. So for now this is how the kitchen sink is operating and these are the showering facilities 🙂 . It's great at the moment as I manage to get scalding hot water between noon and five pm. Looks like I will have to go down the route of breaking walls to try and  find the  pipes.

 

 

 

Here I'm using the portable bbq as a kind of rocket stove. It works very well as  I have plenty of branches and twigs to feed the beast.  I found putting a pot inside the main pot works well and means you have only the one blackened cooking pot. You can see that I got green beans cooking around the smaller pot with the rice inside.

Caught some snails for some Portuguese people as a practice run. When life gives you lemons make lemonade 🙂 Looks like I have to eat them myself soon 🙂        

Speaking of lemons I planted my first lemon tree which I got at a monthly market that's help in Montecarapacho.

Got my first veggies! Green peas that I had planted from seed. Just two plants survived the snails.

I stuck carob tree cutting in the ground to see if they will root.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I got a dog now. Primeiro Maio.

He a good dog with a good set of fangs. He gave me a good bite when I got between him and another dog when they were mixing it up.  I'm fine. I am not foaming at the mouth any more than usual :).

 

 

 

 

 

 

My kind neighbour, Denise it looking after him at he moment while I'm away for a bit.

The off-grid solar setup is working fantastically well! The Victron 1200W inverter can drive both my fridge and 5 kg capacity WASHING MACHINE!
This with just two 160W solar panels. At around 11:30 am I had them generating over 8A at 35V.  (I'm on a 24V system)
This is more that sufficient power for the above mentioned load. The batteries remained fully charged throughout the  washing machine's program.

So Happy days! 🙂