Amor à Primeira Vista

I was planning a post called Chasing Spring

It would have been a, retrospectively, funny story about us sleeping in the car in a snow storm and shivering our way through France and Spain to Portugal, where the shivers continued and were probably the worst we’ve every experienced. Because most Portuguese  don’t believe in central  heating. (Can’t afford heating?  Think any kind of heating is wimpy and not worth the trouble for, uuuh, just three short months? Or four- or five??). Whatever. Even a week feels too long, when you’re constantly wearing all your clothes, plus a blanket and your shoulders up at your ears, and the  mold spores are lurking in corners and behind furniture in clammy rooms…. And then we went and fell in love with it all! The cliches are true! Love turns a blind eye, wears rose-tinted glasses and thinks the beloved’s downbeat peculiarities are just charming…
It’s not that we weren’t hoping our attraction to Portugal would grow. And admittedly there was a plan, of sorts, in place

A region chosen, an apartment viewing scheduled. That’s when destiny stepped in. The night before the viewing, we slept in a town called Golegã. We arrived late, so only saw the cute little Camping Municipal, and just after sunset, hundreds of herons cascading across the orange sky behind the treetops- first time Wowed! When we went for coffee the next morning, the town showed off in its azul and white Sunday best

We carried those impressions with us, through all of Portugal, south to the elegant Algarve

and back up into Alentjo “deserto”

Always on the look-out for that sweet spot on the right side of what we were looking for

and what we could afford…. At some point the realisation, finally, dawned: Beautiful Golegã checks practically all of our where-to-live boxes!

I wasted no time streamlining my trusty real estate email alerts. Just a few days later “the” ad popped up

First viewing at Rua Almendoiera, we were pretty much goners: The location, the sturdy walls, the privacy, the light, the sweet little patio, the layout, the price- a match made in heaven! And found it impossible to believe that this was it, that it could be so easy and so clear. We went into a frenzy of househunting

Nothing. Not even close….
Second time at the house- saying Yes, we’ll take it, please! felt perfectly natural (and not at all scary…..)
So this is how people look when they’ve just BOUGHT A HOUSE!