tv – Never Give Up PT

Getting Ready For A Photo Day And A Lifestyle Shoot

We’re having to get extra stuff done today. We have declared next Wednesday ‘photo day’, where we will take photographs of our Alojamento Local rental property and put it onto booking sites.

But there’s still a bit to do such as varnish and put up the furniture, sort out the decorative side of it and touch up any scuffs and scratches. There’s a stack of paperwork that needs doing too.

But tomorrow we aren’t able to do any of this due to A New Life In The Sun arriving for the ‘lifestyle’ shoot. This is the day Lou and I get to hold hands and skip along the beach while the kids splash in the river surrounded by a picturesque mountainous backdrop while being filmed for TV.

So far they’ve just filmed us clearing the forest, doing building work and generally getting stressed about timelines and budgets. So tomorrow will be nice to see a different side to us and the meaning of our move to Portugal. We want to work hard and be successful, but our family and quality of life is important to us and getting a reminder of that with occasions by a river beach or at a lively festa is integral to that.

But we’re obsessed with making this whole move work. Which means working harder than we’ve ever had to work, mostly done in heat I’ve never encountered before. If we want to enjoy more days at the river beach, then making the business a success is vital. The master plan unravels without it. And Ralph Waldo Emerson was spot on when he said,”Always do what you are afraid to do.”

Being afraid keeps me hungry. Less complacent.

So anyway, I’ll leave you with a few pics from today. It’s not the finished photos for the booking sites, of course, but it is starting to take shape!

Let me know what you think so far!

Plonker

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”.

An Evening With Alan Sugar Or A Wild Boar?

If you say ‘wild boars’ often enough you begin to hear it in Simon Le Bon’s voice and finish the sentence with ‘never lose it’.

And that is what I do now everyday. I have Duran Duran’s The Wild Boys song permanently playing in my head thanks to the wild boar population in central Portugal.

Tonight is a fine example, but first I need to explain our house. Typically in rural Portugal, you have to go outdoors to go down the steps to the other indoor living areas. So our bedrooms, kitchen, dining area and bathroom are upstairs whilst the sitting room/lounge is downstairs.

As Lou and I were leaving the indoor area to go downstairs to watch TV, we heard what sounded like a snuffling sound and scarpering hooves. The creature (what we think was a wild boar) will have been startled, but Lou and I were panicked too! We quickly put on the outside light and used our phone as a torch. We couldn’t see anything.

We decided that we wouldn’t take our chances with a 200 kg wild boar in the vicinity so we went back inside. The Apprentice wasn’t going to be a big enough draw for us to chance making It to the sitting room!

And so that means it leaves me writing this little blog and Lou shouting the occasional wild boar fact at me as she researches wild boar on the Google thingy, hence the weight that I gave earlier.

Interestingly, wild boars never chose this way. Wild boars never close your eyes and wild boars always shine. Who knew?!

The Week That Was

As Zak, the camera man, mic’d me up and briefed Lou and I on the sort of questions he would ask once the camera started rolling, a million answers whizzed through my head.

I had prepared for this moment, after all I was a dedicated viewer of A New Life In The Sun after watching each series multiple times. I knew the sort of footage they were wanting.

And then the red light appeared on the camera as he asked, “So, why did you move to Portugal?”

“……………” The moments after that were a blur. Seconds felt like hours as I tried to find a word or two. I looked at Lou as she eventually began to answer.

My big TV moment flashed before my eyes as I nodded and agreed with Lou’s reply to the question.

I had answers to his question. Quality of life. New adventure. It’s a beautiful country. Good food. Sun. Brexit. Business opportunity. The answers were there! But not in that moment.

I did, however, pull myself together to film what was 9 hours of potential footage for the programme. By the end of the day It felt more natural. He will be filming until September by which time I fully expect that I’ll be such a professional in front of the screen I’ll be demanding 138 green seedless grapes and my fan letters to be left in my room each day.

But there’s important stuff to do. As much as the filming seems like it will be an enjoyable experience and the exposure for our business will be great once the show is aired, there’s 20,000 square metres of land to sort out. This includes three forests, two houses, multiple out buildings including a pig pen, chicken coup and other storage units.

It’s the forests that kept me awake last night though. Unkept, these can be dangerous when the really hot weather comes. Wild fires are frequent in the Portuguese countryside and can have devastating effects. I’ve already downloaded an app that tells me when a fire is reported and by how many of the bombeiros (fire department) are dealing with it.

By the end of April, landowners are legally required to have their land prepared for the summer. The government threatens fines of up to 10,000 euros for those who do not comply with the ‘land cleaning’ rules. Luckily, the local community is very helpful and knowledgeable at dealing with this issue and are wanting to offer their time and equipment to sort out the land for their new ‘estranheiro’ neighbours. After all, it benefits them too. They don’t need a city slicker from England like me causing any wildfires in the village!

The past week has seen lots of development on the cottage house. This will be rented out and with finances dwindling the finished article can’t come soon enough. If we can open for the summer season then that will be a welcome boost for our funds to be then able to continue the work on my gym studio, Lou’s therapy room and bar/patio area.

Zak, the camera man, will be back on Monday and Tuesday to follow us working on it all again. Hopefully I can hold it together and answer simple questions this time.

But for now I’ll leave you with a few more updated pics from the week that was.

Massage room and bar/patio area with the gym studio in the distance.

Builders taking down a water tank from the roof of where our bathroom currently is.

Without the unsightly water tank and with a lick of paint.

A new concrete floor laid in the rental cottage.

The first floor window is getting prepared for a door with a Juliette balcony.

Remote Control

We’ve stayed in a few different hotels/apartments/caravans over the past ten days and I have found that one of the biggest things I take for granted is the ability to pause and rewind the TV. And because we’re not recording our usual programmes, we can’t fast forward the adverts. First world problems eh?

Last night we missed a bit of dialogue between George Shuttleworth and Todd Grimshaw in Coranation Street. It almost ruined my day.

Ah, the day. VISA appointment day. The missed dialogue on Coranation Street, as disappointed as I was, cannot compare to the trauma of VISA appointment day. It is fair to say that it didn’t go entirely to plan. We realized that, if they eventually accept our application to live and work in Portugal, they won’t be making it easy for us.

By the evening all I wanted to do was watch a bit of TV and hear what the characters had said so that we could follow the story line.

I like soap operas. No matter what sort of day you’ve had you can bet that some poor sod in soap land is going through something worse.

Or are they? I don’t know. I didn’t hear what George and Todd had said. And I couldn’t rewind to find out!

Imagine being able to pause, rewind or fast forward real life. Sometimes I want to pause time so that the kids stop growing up so fast. But then I’m wishing time along at the moment to fast forward past our house sale completion date. And if I could rewind I’d probably go back to our VISA appointment with the correct documents.

But, alas, I can’t.

All I can do is press the play button and try to write the script as I go along. There are some great scenes that I’m creating but I must acknowledge the poor ones too. Even the very best of movies have scenes that aren’t as good, although I struggle to find one in Pulp Fiction. But we can’t all live in a masterpiece. Sometimes, things don’t go to plan.

And when I don’t have the remote control to rewind a vital piece of dialogue in Coranation Street, plans have definitely taken a turn for the worst.

The Casting Call

So, I’d best get my hair cut to look my very best! We’ve just found out that we will be having an interview with C4’s A New Life In The Sun on Friday. It’s basically a telly box show about people from the UK moving to work and live abroad.

When we applied, we didn’t really expect to hear anything after that. But today we got the message that they want to set up a casting call with Lou and I!

What fun!

And I don’t think I’ve ever been on telly before. Maybe I worked my way into a shot during Challenge Anika in the early 90’s when Anika Rice was doing up a school near where I lived, but I’ve never played the main role!

We have, of course, developed a YouTube channel called The Road To Tranquility which we are yet to film a first episode. After all, although the road has been long for us so far, we haven’t even made it out of the country! So not much to film as yet.

Lou and I have watched and often become inspired by other participants of A New Life In The Sun for years. And although this is a journey that neither of us have ever done before, perhaps if we pass the casting call, we can inspire others too.