The filming for A New Life In The Sun has ended for this week. It’s a relief. The intensity of managing the final stages of phase one of the project (the AL house) and the forest cleaning in 35° heat while being filmed becomes a little too much.
And there’s only so many ways I can say ‘Wow! This looks great!’ when the camera person asks me what I think of the taps as I turn them on and off or what I think of the lid for the septic tank.
Sometimes, I go for the ‘just walked into the room to see the work of the DIY SOS team’ look. This means waving at my eyes to dry the tears as I tell the camera how thrilled I am with the splashback tiles.
The occasional Nicolas Cage from Face/Off look comes out when I have to describe how pleased I am with the skylight while paying the 500euros to the man who delivered it.
And then there are days where I forget to ‘be myself’ in front of the camera as I go around the property like Del Boy, trying to raise a laugh or be the clown. “What do you think of the grouting, Shay?” The camera person asks. “Luvvly Jubbly!” I reply. “Mange Tout, mange tout!”
As I reflect on my day, sometimes I just think to myself ”What a bleedin’ plonker I am”.
The bread in Portugal is unbelievably good. Since arriving it has been something that, despite trying to stick within calorie goals, I have eaten almost every day.
Chorizo bread, salted bread, sweet bread, cheesy bread, crusty bread, soft bread, it is all delicious.
And I thought that I had mastered how to order it in cafés too! Pão com queijo (cheesy bread) is a particular favourite of mine. But here’s the problem.
The other day as I was in conversation with our Brazilian builders I happened to mention ‘pão’. The builders looked at each other and laughed. Puzzled, I asked them what they were all laughing at. Their answer made me consider all of those times I’d ordered ‘pão’ in the cafes, many of which have Brazilian servers, and made me blush.
Pão, when said without the squiggly accent which makes it a nasal sound, becomes pau (like pow). Pau is Brazilian slang for a penis, or more accurately, a c*ck.
This, I thought, made my orders of cheesy, long and crusty, sweet or spicy much more amusing to the staff serving me!
The last couple of days has meant that Lou is constantly hearing me working on my nasally Portuguese sounds so that I can safely order my bread in the cafés.
But at the moment my confidence in the language has been lost, so today I ordered ice cream instead. There are no squiggly lines to pronounce with gelado.
When you want to begin a personal fitness journey it is a totally natural thought process to consider what the person next to you is doing.
For the past few months, you might have heard Janice in the office talk about how much weight she’s lost at Slimming World and, naturally, you become intrigued about what recipes she is using and you peek over her shoulder at lunch break to see what’s in her lunch box.
In the gym you notice that the guy who usually trains when you’re there has bulked up a bit and he is filling in his T with some decent looking pecs these days. You’re only on nodding terms so you don’t ask outright how he has managed it, but you keep glancing over to see what he is pushing on the bench press or see what protein shake he’s drinking.
It becomes a slight obsession. I’ve driven myself insane before by observing the Hulk Hogan of the gym bicep curl a couple of 8k dumbbells while I’m trying to squeeze out the 20k’s to look like him and I’ve seen a guy much slender than me deadlift 200k without breaking sweat.
That’s when it doesn’t become my race anymore. And, whilst running this race, in watching how everyone else is running I’m tripping up.
I begin to change my pace and my breathing technique. I’m not looking at my own path, instead I’m trying to keep up with somebody on their path. I am not running my own race.
It was a quote from a football manager that inspired me to write this article. Without boring those who do not follow the English Premier League, I will keep this background story short.
Ange Postecoglou is the manager of Spurs. He was employed by them to at least qualify for the Champions League this season. However, in the penultimate game of the season, a number of Spurs fans wanted to lose a game and celebrated once they had lost. This is because it meant that the winning team, Manchester City, could overtake Spurs’ bitter rival Arsenal to have a greater chance of winning the league, resulting in Arsenal missing out! City ended up as Champions, Arsenal came runners up and Spurs missed out on a Champions League place, meaning that they only qualify for the less attractive Europa League competition.
Postecoglou was pissed off as he saw pockets of supporters in the stadium celebrate their own team conceding goals. And he even eluded to Spurs staff members being desperate enough to see Spurs lose and Arsenal miss out on the title. How far down the chain did it go?! Did the players on the pitch really want to lose also?!
After the game an angry Postecoglou said,”…we have got to worry about ourselves. Don’t worry about anyone else. If you run your own race then when you get to the finish line, have a look around and see where you finish…. don’t be obsessed with what anyone else is doing…you want to stop another club winning the trophy? Then win it yourselves!”
As human beings we can often get distracted by ‘keeping up with the Jones’. With their neatly mowed lawn, new 4×4 that they take their exceptionally behaved children to school in and their exotic holidays that they go on a few times a year.
But maybe we’re not seeing the debts that they’re in, how Mr and Mrs Jones hardly speak to each other and how their son is about to get expelled from school for selling weed to his mates.
But people will rarely let you see that side to them. Do you think that Janice in the office will share her most vulnerable side on Facebook such as moments before a ‘weigh in’ or when she can’t enjoy a meal out with friends because it doesn’t fit in with her ‘points’ for the day?
And the Hulk Hogan of the gym wants to show Instagram his changing room flex after a workout, but he’ll never film himself injecting steroids or standing in front of the mirror feeling ‘bloated’.
My eldest boy, Jonas, is facing exams this year. He is understandably nervous about this but his teachers and my wife and I are telling him not to worry. It’s his first exams in Portugal and it will be in Portuguese. This in itself is a massive thing to overcome but also he didn’t face exams in England. Apart from a spelling test perhaps, this is his first experience of being graded on what he has learnt. His classmates are more advanced. Not only are most of them older, but their first language is Portuguese. He cannot allow himself to be compared to what they might achieve in their exam results. Jonas, simply, has to run his own race.
So ‘running your own race’ isn’t just something to remember when embarking on a fitness journey. It can be a good reminder of how to be in other aspects of our lives too. After all, it’s the difference between a glitzy Tuesday night at the Bernabeu or a drizzly Thursday night in Aberdeen.
Just before I left the UK for Portugal I spoke to many younger people who were intrigued about my move. And come to think about it, these younger people were the ones who asked me why I moved to Scarborough from Leeds.
“Why would you want to leave Leeds for Scarborough?!” They scoffed.
My answer was ‘to live’. By that I mean that ‘to live’ to me means to experience as much as possible out of this relatively short existence. I wanted to wake up by the sea. I wanted my children to go to a smaller school. I wanted to test myself as a PT in a new gym. I wanted to feel the nostalgia of saving up my 2p coins and putting them in the slot machines at the arcades like I did as a kid. I wanted new challenges.
That, to me, is living.
Now, I never expected to live my entire life in the UK, it’s just that the 2016 referendum gave me the kick up the arse to do something about it. I didn’t want to live in a country where people wanted to stand still and, in doing so, not allow others to move where they wanted to either. The Freedom Of Movement is one of the greatest privileges the EU citizens could have.
I didn’t travel when I was younger. But when the younger people at the gym asked me about my move to Portugal I urged them to do the same while they were young. Not necessarily to make a permanent move, but to travel. Discover new cultures, try different foods, learn new languages and skills.
Heck! This isn’t just about younger people either. It’s just in my experience, deciding to live in a different country is a lot more difficult when you have two little kids.
I don’t know how many of my readers are aware of the chef and travel documentary maker Anthony Bourdain. His travel series, Parts Unknown, are available on YouTube. Unfortunately he passed away in 2018 but he has made a lasting impression on me.
I’ll leave you with one of his quotes that has stuck with me.
“If you’re young, physically fit, hungry to learn and be better, I urge you to travel – as far and as wide as possible. Sleep on floors if you have to. Find out how other people live, eat and cook. Learn from them – wherever you go.”
And I have a feeling that, wherever he is, Tony is still travelling somewhere.
I get time to think when I’m ‘cleaning’ the forest. The cleaning has to be done. Take away the building plots and we have around 19,000 square metres of pine forest. In Portugal this is a tinderbox. A thoroughly cleaned forest will limit the chance of any wildfire and this week with the weather a little cooler is the time to do it. We moved into the property in January so we have missed out on a full winter to clean and, as first timers to these shenanigans, we have felt the pressure.
My sleepless nights had me wondering if I should brush cut the whole land and then rake the loose wood, heather etc at the end, or should I brush cut a bit and then collect little piles from time to time. Should I rake the cut pieces into piles or collect lots of the forest onto a tarpaulin to drag roadside for the tractor to collect? Maybe I could use the cart to bundle as much forest into it and then wheel it to the roadside?
My first day with the brush cutter. All the gear, no idea.
Today my method was the tarp. And it got me thinking, is this the best method? I dunno, I didn’t have an answer. It just felt like today it was.
Today’s best method? The tarpaulin.
I’m not unfamiliar with that question. “What is the best method?”
It is one of the most frequently asked questions given to me as a Personal Trainer. The best method for weight loss, the best method for muscle build, the best method for a certain injury.
I have answers, but there isn’t a defining one answer to give for each question. It’s a little bit more complicated than that and that’s why a good PT needs to charge what they do. Anybody can shout at someone and tell them to give them 50 pushups or run 5 miles. But a good PT will not only find the right method for you, but will adapt each day to fit your own personal needs.
Forest clearing, as I’ve discovered, is quite the same.
The forest has a goal. It doesn’t want to set on fire. My aforementioned methods of forest cleaning are all relevant, but I must not allow myself to become bogged down by which one is the best way just yet. After all, I’ve just met the forest. It has some wide, open spaces but some areas are dense with pine trees and woodland. Some areas are flat, some tiered and some sloped. Other characteristics of the forest are rocky, wet, dry, microclimatic, tall trees, short trees, fallen trees, sensitive areas due to wildlife and coloured with beautiful wild flowers.
Every square metre must be dealt with differently depending on these above characteristics but also on the weather, my mood, time and how strong my back feels at the time (it’s very physically demanding and if I put my back out then the forest won’t get cleaned at all).
But to know of any kind of method at all it is important to point out that I asked questions. I asked locals who had experience in dealing with this sort of land. The forest has an important goal. If I pretended to be Billy Big Bollocks who thinks he knows it all, the forest wouldn’t reach its goals and that has serious consequences.
People that I have worked with in the gym all had goals that they wanted to reach. And, just like the forest, us humans have complexities that cannot be dealt with by a ‘one size fits all’ method. We must approach our goals with an open mind and experience a variety of emotions, movements and outcomes to know what is best for us and our individual goals.
So I am convinced that structuring our lives around a healthy lifestyle with gym/fitness goals actually enables us to make better decisions in other aspects of life such as decision making and planning.
And the forest has just given me an example of that within my own life.
A part of the forest from the AL rental accommodation
Seeing as I am writing a post all about a lemon, you could be forgiven for thinking that I would take this opportunity to bring up the ‘when life gives you lemons, make lemonade’ quote.
But you would be wrong.
You might think, seeing as I entitled this blog Lemon, that I will draw similarities with how squeezing a lemon is like squeezing the most out of each day, giving you that zest for life.
And again you would be wrong.
You could, however, be entitled to believe that I am going to give you a string of health benefits from eating this versatile fruit such as helping your body absorb more iron, it is rich in vitamin C and the citric acid can help to prevent the formation of kidney stones.
But, no, your incline would be wrong.
So it is totally feasible for you to think, then, that this article must be about how lemons are also very useful as a natural cleaner, as the citric acid can kill bacteria.
But, guess what? You’d be wrong again.
No. This post is simply dedicated to the biggest, kick ass beast of a lemon that I have ever seen! Thanks to the lemon tree in our garden, we are growing some mahoosive lemons to try to cram into our gin and tonic glasses.
It’s funny. I can look through old photos or the memories pop up on my Facebook feed of my ‘progress pics’.
These usually showed me flexing after a gym sesh. At the time I was a commercial gym personal trainer and it felt important to put myself out there on social media and show everyone my ‘results’.
I can tell you now that I don’t regret any of that. I enjoyed the ‘toilet poses’, something that me, other trainers and clients would do. This is where you have a kick ass workout and then go to the changing rooms, flex, take a pic and put it on social media. After all, golfers want to record their hole in one, an angler wants to show friends their big catch and a boxer is proud of their knockout punch. And so a gym goer should be proud to flex.
But right now I don’t have that need to do it. Sure, my training has been erratic. I keep myself very active and consider myself in good condition at 45. I am currently brush cutting 20,000 square metres of land with a 20k machine attached to my hip. But I haven’t been weight training, so the only time I flex these days is when I’m replicating the Bruce Willis scene in Friends. Basically, just after a shower in my bedroom I start acting like Hulk Hogan in front of the mirror. My friends on social media don’t need to see that!
I read a quote recently that resonated. It read,”Noise creates illusions, silence brings truth.”
I don’t feel like I need to showcase my body anymore. I don’t need to show you my personal best bench press.
I’m happy for the noise to be coming from the new PT’s who feel they have something to prove and who want to create something on social media. This ‘illusion’, I believe, is still important in commercial gyms. People buy into it. The buff, popular trainer who flexes on social media will always have clients in that moment.
But now I prefer to work in silence. And the truth is that I feel more of a complete person now than I ever have done. I have nothing to prove to anyone.
Maybe it’s an age thing, or perhaps I’ve reached a certain time in my life where I just don’t give a fuck. But I just don’t feel like anybody needs to see me flex my lats during a pull down. I’d much rather post the beautiful carpet of purple foxgloves in the garden.
Training remains my life. In fact, as I’ve said many times in my articles, training saved my life. Before I started at a gym, I was depressed and without a cause. The gym gave me a focus and I loved it. Still do. But now it’s different. In a way you need to earn your badges in a commercial gym before you find your true path as a trainer. Well now I’ve found mine. The journey was noisy, but now I’m enjoying the silence.
‘There is a hidden message in every waterfall. It says if you are flexible, falling will not hurt you.’ Mehmet Murat Ildan.
As a child and then into my adult life I often felt a sadness that I could not explain. It was deep rooted, as if nothing could ever make me feel settled or comfortable within myself. I longed for something to truly make me happy.
The Portuguese have a term for this which is ‘saudade’. There is no direct translation into English for this word.
But I must explain more clearly. I have had some wonderful experiences in my life. Some things that have given me great memories that I will treasure. My childhood home was a stable, happy home. My early adult life had its turbulence, I suppose, like for most young people but I kept jobs, got promotions, had healthy relationships, studied and learnt new things. As I got older I met my future wife, became a father, bought and sold houses and began new career ventures. And now we live in Portugal with the hope of a bright, exciting future. All of these things have helped me to be happy. But, especially in my earlier life, that sadness in the pit of my core would not vanish completely. It was like a whoosh of anxiety that really felt like a black cloud hanging over me.
In recent years I have discovered ways to help me feel differently. To take away those anxieties.
Exercise and weight training became my release. Damaging muscle fibres in order for them to regenerate was a whole lot better way of self harm than that which had run through my youthful self. And that’s what it felt like. I wanted to punish myself and my body. There were times that I was disgusted at looking at myself in the mirror. Lifting something heavy several times and feeling pain gave me some sort of release.
Then, in later life, as well as keeping an exercise training routine (but a much more positive one these days), I began to meditate. This has enabled me to control my breathing from the core and, knowing that this is where the whooshy anxiety comes from, really helps me to address it from deep within.
Staring At The Waterfall
There’s this image that I had, and seemingly many other people have, that meditation is about sitting cross legged, eyes closed and hands in a certain pose. It is often associated with Buddhism or other religious practices. And there is also this perception of meditation being done in a dark quiet room, perhaps accompanied with chimes or flute music.
Whilst all of these can be done during meditating, it is certainly not my usual go-to style. Today, I stood by a waterfall. I was with my family, so the kids were their usual rowdy selves. It didn’t deter me. For a few moments, I was mesmerized by the sight, sounds and the smells of this waterfall. Every drop of water danced differently to the next. Each sound I captured went from a trickle to a splash. The smell felt fresh, sometimes the scent of a sandy beach caught my attention.
I said that I was mesmorized for a few moments. The truth is it could’ve been just ten seconds or it could have been minutes. I’m not sure. But I soon became aware of the kids strangling each other so I sorted that little issue out before taking a few pictures!
Over the past few years as I have pursued this journey of self enlightenment I have learnt one big lesson. I need to be flexible in nurturing my emotions. Sometimes I trickle. Sometimes I splash. There’s no right or wrong way.
I now know that this deep rooted sadness cannot harm me. I can live for the moment, whether I’m trickling or splashing, and be grateful and happy with my life.
Today I felt like I was the waterfall. And we could argue on whether or not looking at a waterfall is actually meditation, but my conclusion would be that if you have to think about this then you are losing the magic of the moment. Call it what you like. As long as we can take a moment to realise the beauty in something that we might otherwise take for granted. A singing bird. The rustling of a tree. Or a waterfall.
I’ve discovered that it is not what I look at that matters, it is what I see (or hear, touch and smell). I can look at a waterfall that I pass most days, but what I see when I actually take that moment is a work of beauty, history, a creation that tells me a story. It speaks to me.
So my flexibility of thought has enabled me to see, not just look. And maybe I will pass this waterfall a dozen times again and look at it, but I know that when I need to, I will actually see it.
Everyone gets a different feeling when they see and hear thunder and lightning. Some people, like my wife, have a warm fuzzy feeling that reminds her of childhood looking out of her bedroom window on a stormy night.
Some people are scared of the noise and the flashes of light like my eldest son.
Thunder and lightning can bring out all sorts of different kinds of emotions. The practical side of me gets disappointed that I can’t get the stuff done outdoors that I need to get done. The relaxed side of me just wants to find a box set and chill out until the storm passes.
I’ve even heard of people stripping off naked and dancing in it. I’ll stick to Netflix.
Today is a thunderstorm, bringing with it sheet lightning and hail stones. The rumbles of thunder are almost constant. It is majestic. I feel a bit like my wife as I gaze out of the window watching its wonder. But I can’t deny that there’s a little bit of my brain that agrees with my son. What if our house falls down?! The thunderstorm is beautiful, but so is my 100 year old Portuguese house that might not appreciate being shaken.
That’s how it feels as the thunder rumbles on. I can feel the vibration below me. But although the house is old, it comforts me to know that it has survived a 100 years of thunderstorms. It’s a solid structure and will survive another 100 years I’m sure.
‘Yesterday we were in the pool trying to cool down!’ I told our builder. ‘Welcome to Portugal!’ he laughed.
There’s rain, thunderstorms and sunshine in the UK, but here in Portugal the weather is on steroids.
A quote from The Minds Journal says…
Why do you like thunderstorms? Because it shows that even nature needs to scream sometimes.
The science behind a thunderstorm is a little more complex, but I quite like to think that nature is just having a moment, like we all do sometimes.
I once wanted to go on Dragons Den with an invention that allowed busy people (I imagined the city centre of Leeds at the time) to enter a pod so that they could scream, shout and swear without being heard or causing a scene. They could then calmly walk out and continue with their day a bit less stressed. ‘The Screaming Pod’, I announced to Lou one day. ‘I would call it The Screaming Pod!’
I think somewhere in Japan beat me to that invention though. And anyway, Wetherspoons has had a similar concept for decades already.
As I look again out of the window my thoughts turn to the newly sowed grass seed. ‘They need a bit of rain’, I think to myself. And then I realise what just ran through my head and remember that I’m getting old. Between the lawn being a priority these days, groaning every time I stand up and Lou having to point out the food that’s missed my mouth and instead dribbles down my chin, I know that I am getting old.
I jest, of course. 45 isn’t old. But I do think that I have reached an age where I can ‘feel old’ once in a while. I’m entitled to dribble now and again, right?
Ah, there I go again, wittering on about my time in Wetherspoons.
Lou has just reminded me that we still don’t have any doors and windows to the AL rental house, so my next job is to find some plaster board to protect the flooring from the rain. So I’d best sign off for now and get piss wet through in the rain while nature has a scream.
Not so long ago I would have run a mile from two carby items on my lunch plate. It can make me feel ‘heavy’ for the afternoon, sleepy even. But then I was introduced to rice and chips. Oh, and siestas.
Rice, chips, a slab of meat of either pork, turkey or beef with a fried egg on top and a side salad is called a Bitoque in Portugal. It is insanely nice!
Lou and I felt that we needed a few hours away from the house this afternoon. Since the builders left on Friday we have been trying to reshuffle our home and our lives back to how we want it. A lovely plant in place of the cement mixer. A thorough clean and mop up of the dust that has gathered. Stuff like that.
But today we were tired. The temperature has rarely gone below 25° until evening, when it hovers around 13°, for the past seven days. This has added to our bouts of lethargy.
With the kids at school we decided to take a stroll along the Ribeira Grande river and visit our favourite cafe, Ponte Romana. Not only do they serve the best Bitoque in town, but the location and the views are amazing. And just the tonic today.
Tomorrow we will feel refreshed and focused to go again. After all, there’s plenty to do. But we mentioned today that we can’t take moments like this for granted. Just a meal together, away from the work, kids and business talk, can make a big difference. And it is important to remember the simple things that keep our spirit up.
Never Give Up PT 