Here we are, Louise and Shay, proudly holding our new Alojamento Local sign. You’ll be able to see our failed DIY attempts at putting that up outside our guest house in the UK TV programme A New Life In The Sun on series 10 in January.
We’ve been in Portugal since the 31st of October 2023 (almost a year!) During that time, we bought a beautiful property in Palhais, Sertã that just needed a bit of TLC. It’s been a journey and we can’t wait to see what happens next.
Louise is a massage therapist who worked to build her business up in Scarborough and had a fantastic customer base, many became friends, and dedicated her time to provide the best service possible to those who came to visit her.
Shay is a personal trainer who has worked as a freelance PT in Leeds and Scarborough as well as online coaching and lifestyle blogging. His fun and energetic workouts meant that exercise became something that his clients wanted to do rather than endure. Both Louise and Shay are qualified meditation guides and find this a useful tool in the wellbeing for themselves, their children and their clients.
Our aim is to welcome our guests and to experience our version of tranquility. We offer the services mentioned above and also have a small snack (petiscos) menu for our visitors, but we are equally happy for our guests to just enjoy their surroundings without any other service.
Louise asked me to go to a meditation guide with her. I politely said no.
This was 9 years ago when we lived in Pudsey, Leeds and Lou had just given birth to our second child. She needed a moment each week to be able to find some head space away from a toddler, a baby and a husband spending hours at the gym trying to pick up new clients as a fledgling personal trainer. Lou was a full time mum. The hardest job in the world.
I said no because I felt that I had my therapy in the form of working out at the gym. I was obsessed with not just what it gave me aesthetically, but the endorphins it released. It was my natural drug. My focus. I explained this to Lou but meditation with a qualified guide was something that she wanted us to try together.
In an effort to support her and to show an interest in something that had positively touched her life, I eventually went to the meditation guide with Lou. It was in a wellbeing centre in Pudsey. I can’t remember the cost exactly. Maybe £30 or £40 for the hour. I was sceptical about it. I mean, how could it affect me in the same way it had Lou? My therapy was in a gym!
Yet strangely, as I reflected on my first experience of the meditation session, I found many similarities to that of the gym. The gym is where I can shut out the noise of the world. In fact, I disliked gyms that had a radio playing with hourly news broadcasts. For that moment in my life I didn’t want to hear about financial crashes, wars or politics. The only problem I wanted swimming around my head is how I engaged with the particular exercise that I was performing, be it a deadlift, bench press, squat, whatever. That is all I wanted in my mind.
Similarly, as I gained more experience in meditation, I found that very same focus in this practice. I only wanted to focus on my breathing and feeling my chest rise and fall as I did so. Clutter would leave my head, instead I visualised health, success, future goals and happiness.
I began to realise that, although the gym was my happy place where I could feel safe, adding meditation into my life was like a superpower! A gym routine and regular meditation was a superpower. My breathing during exercise became better, not just during exercise, but in stressful situations. I could remain calmer under pressure. I focussed even closer on my life goals. I dwelled less on missed past opportunities and began mapping out a future for me and my family. Together, my training and meditation routines did that.
I’m so glad that Lou went to a meditation session all those years ago and I’m relieved that I eventually went with her. I have just finished filming with A New Life In The Sun for this season in my home in Portugal. I’m looking out at the forest, the swimming pool, my gym space and the massage room and I practically visualised this exact picture for years in my mind during training and meditation. My aim was to help others achieve their goals and that is what I’m now doing through the wellbeing centre (Centro de bem estar).
However you choose to gain focus on what matters to you in life, practice it consistently and believe in it. Become obsessed by it. Tell the universe that you will do it, no matter what. And then live it.
Here’s a little tour of our alojamento local! We’ve been getting it all ready for our guests tomorrow and we will have the added pressure of welcoming our guests in front of the A New Life In The Sun TV cameras.
We have been busy trying to get our massage therapy room ready this week but have found that the electrics need a bit more attention, so stay tuned for updates on that!
Some movie directors don’t just make great movies. They know that what they produce will be a master class, but it is the ease in which they can add their subtle in jokes, social commentary, artistic influences or homages to other bodies of work without distracting the audience away from the story.
Think Hitchcock with his cameo appearances or the use of Starbucks cups in almost every scene of Fight Club. These are known as Easter eggs that the viewer can hunt during the movie. Other hunts to look out for is the use of Tarantino’s very own imagined brand of cigarettes throughout his movies, Red Apple. Or the use of oranges in The Godfather trilogy. If you spot an orange in one of those movies, it is likely to lead to the death of a key character.
Fincher added the Starbucks cups as a metaphor for the corporate influence in everyday life.
These aren’t meant as a distraction maybe in the way that a Macguffin is (I’ve written about that too!), but more of a signature from the artist. It is something that can be detected throughout their work. It is uniquely theirs.
Well, although I’m not in Hollywood and I’m not a famous movie director, I want to be a great in the art of movie making. It’s just that this movie will be of my own life.
We’re all making our own movies. We can create the ups and downs of a drama, the twists and turns of a thriller. We can create the laugh out loud comedy moments and, like it or not, direct our own horror.
And a great director can tell the story and even add in the Easter egg too! But it isn’t about being accepted by others. A good director will create something that they want to create, not what is expected of them. Kubrick, Hitchcock and Tarantino are three of my favourite directors, but have never won a best director Oscar. Sergio Leone was never even nominated.
But what do that all have in common? They are blaze trailers at what they do and not just followers of a common theme that satisfies the masses. Sure, they became popular from making great movies. But them ripping up the genre rule book is what made them great, not because they were trying to be popular. This, it seems, irritated mainstream Hollywood to the point that it overlooked some of the greatest directors of our time.
We can still be great directors of our own lives without satisfying everyone. I’d even go as far as to say that, if you don’t piss a few people off you’re not doing it right.
We need to hire the best actors and extras onto our set. We should experiment with different scenery. We can write our own script. And we can do it all without having to please everyone. But remember to spice things up a little and add your own Easter egg hunt. It keeps things interesting!
I didn’t think I’d find a TV series about ‘Detectorists’ all that interesting. Billed as a comedy, I wasn’t sure where the laughs would come from watching two blokes in a field with metal detectors. But then these two blokes were Mackenzie Crook and Toby Jones. Also written and directed by Crook, the series was always going to be not just funny but poignant too. Lou and I enjoyed it very much.
Perhaps we had other motivation to watch the series. Just this summer we had bought Finlay a metal detector for his birthday. We thought it was a fun activity for us all to do together and with so much land to detect on it seemed a good idea. Although, during the height of summer, the land was so hard we could not dig it up! Now it has softened, we can begin to hunt for treasure.
Another motivation is that Lou and I miss one particular thing about the UK and that is a charity shop. They aren’t very common in Portugal. As we walked along Scarborough high street we could never resist popping into a charity shop. “Shall we see if we can find some treasure today?!” I would ask.
That treasure would be an old book that smells like, well, an old book. Or a board game that would bring back memories of family holidays. Or a lamp that would remind us of it sitting in our grandparents house in the 80’s. Or a tea set from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, a particular favourite of Lou’s. A couple of big boxes came over on pallets full of tea sets. They all survived the trip.
Of course, we never expected to find a book or indeed a tea set intact on our land. Maybe an old farming tool. But Finlay had grand ideas of finding a pot of gold. What we found was three rusty nails all located in different areas. The buzz of the machine detecting metal is quite exhilarating, even if it was just a rusty old nail. What have they been used for and when? I like to imagine their journey to when we found them. But for Finlay, as happy as he was to have found something, it wasn’t the pot of gold that he was hoping for. It got me thinking.
We could try to seek our treasure for the rest of our lives and keep finding little more than a few rusty nails. But what did finding those nails do for us? Well, it brought us together to work as a team. A detectorist and a digger. We all took it in turns. We were in nature. During our adventure we found wild boar footprints, beautiful butterflies and dragonflies and new wild flowers appearing. We were tired. A few hours walking and digging is great exercise. And it got the boys off of computer games. Something the modern parent often has to battle against.
Finlay didn’t find gold, but he and the rest of us found a golden opportunity with much more wealth than any coins could ever give us. It gave us a moment together to witness all of this. And if a rusty nail is all that we ever find in the soil, I know that we’ll be discovering so much more about life together whilst we do it.
The link below is our new listing on Airbnb. Promotions are available on this platform but you can also contact me directly if you are planning a visit to this beautiful part of the world!
I’m also in the process of starting my new Time Trial season which will hopefully run from October to April. This will involve boot camp style training in and around the forest! Stay tuned for more on that in future posts!
The community spirit in this very hidden part of central Portugal is remarkable. Although very rural, there are houses around us with some very lovely neighbours. Down the road is Jenny (it sounds like Jenny so we just call her Jenny) who often drops in early morning to give us bread before she goes to the market to sell what she has baked through the night.
Around the corner of our property is Ricardo, Isabella and their two children of similar age to our lads. They live in Lisbon but return to their Sertá home during the holidays. In the past week they have given our boys two bikes and invited them to watch Portugal V Croatia while having dinner.
And across the road is Antonio. An elderly gentleman who invited us to celebrate his 78th birthday with his family a couple of weeks ago. He seems to have taken to us. A few weeks ago he said that he smelt the paella we were making wafting towards his house so he invited himself for dinner! He often visits for a chat throughout the day, although he only speaks Portuguese and we attempt our very sketchy version of the language. He doesn’t seem to mind.
Lately, he has been coming daily to get his blood pressure monitored. It’s a request from his doctor to get a daily reading and he chose us to help him with this. We are honoured to assist in any way we can. That’s the community way here.
In return he brings us a bag of something that he is growing in his garden. It’s usually tomatoes but yesterday it was figs. Hmm, what to do with figs!
Something we have tried to keep a constant in the mayhem of our lives during the past 12 months is to prepare a smoothie each morning to give us that healthy kick. It feels like, even if the rest of the day doesn’t go to plan regarding a healthy diet (and let’s face it, it doesn’t always) at least we have had a nutritious boost in the morning. Figs, so we found out, made a great addition!
Here’s what we put into the Nutribullet for our smoothie…
Two bananas, five figs (skin on), Greek yoghurt, two scoops of peanut butter and a bit of water.
The results were amazing! Even the kids loved it as it was just like a creamy banana milkshake.
Each day we keep learning about different nutritious elements that we can add to our lives, but the biggest addition to our lives is that of community. A togetherness that, no matter what colour, language or creed, we can all add something special to each other’s lives.
If only the rest of the world could add those ingredients. What a wonderful place we could have.
I make most of my sauces, especially those that demand a spicy bite, in the paella pan these days. I first made an arrabbiata sauce in the paella pan. I found that I could spread the ingredients much easier in the large area of the pan and mix the spices more evenly. I also like to cook and eat with my eyes. The different colours inspire me and I can see them better in a paella pan. It also means that I can batch cook and I am a big fan of batch cooking. It’s one of the changes that I recommended when a client came to me with dietary concerns.
Life can be super stressful at the best of times and after a busy day with work and other errands it is difficult to find time to prepare healthy meals. So I know from past experience that an oven pizza or a takeaway is a convenient way to eat. But if you’ve already got a selection of healthy sauces that you prepared in the freezer then it can be a box ticked off of the stress list. Just cook a bit of rice or pasta and wait for the microwave to ping!
Today I woke up wanting to make an Indian style curry. We don’t have an Indian or Chinese restaurant in Sertá so that itch needs to be scratched occasionally by cooking these meals at home. To be fully authentic and to give a nod to our previous life in England, I would like to put my curry sauce in a tub with a foil lid, place it in a brown paper bag, knock on our front door after an hour and a half and charge £30 for it. But thus far I have refrained from doing so.
Keema, or Qeema in Urdu, is a north Indian and Pakistani dish that literally means ground mince. Today I chose turkey (peru in Portuguese). It’s just what I had in my freezer and it is cheaper meat here, so we often have it available to us at home. It means that with a big jar of passata, a few onions, a couple of garlic cloves, chopped ginger, and a frozen bag of veg, it’s a cost effective meal for the family with the bonus of the batch factor!
My favourite curry is vindaloo or even hotter. I ordered a Phaal in a restaurant once and had the waiters and chefs sniggering by the kitchen door as they watched my head turn bright red as I took my first bite. It was painful and remained so for the next 24 hours, but it was also extremely enjoyable (the first hour, not so much the next 23). I always order vindaloo/phaal, three chapatis and a portion of chips in an Indian restaurant. No shares. Whoever I’m with can’t do any of that sharing half and half shenanigans. It’s mine. I ordered it. Want a chip? Then order some! Every one of my chips has a job to do, especially at the end of the meal when I need to ‘mop up’ the remaining deadly sauce.
But at home I’m a little bit more relaxed with my choices and my sharing habits. I’m fine with making a curry less spicy for my wife and kids and I’m ok with cooking rice. I usually leave out the chips too for a healthier meal, but I do provide wraps or chapatis. It’s still important to mop at the end, right?
So here’s the final result! All plated and ready to eat! Let me know your favourite meals to cook and, importantly, tell me if you’re a sharer in a restaurant or not in the comments.
How do we gauge our success? What time limit are we supposed to give ourselves? Do we ever truly see our success? I mean, is it supposed to come in the form of money? Great relationships? A fit bod or thriving business?
I’ve found all four of those at various stages of my life, but I’m also good at losing things, so I take nothing for granted.
But success, what is it? At this very moment in my life I think I had the only bit of success that could’ve made me happy this weekend. Not even Liverpool beating Utd tomorrow could top this one.
At 6:30 this evening we had a phone call from another local business person asking if we had a vacancy for their friends. As I spoke to them, casually flicking through my empty diary, I replied that we could fit his friends in for the evening. In my head I was Jurgen Klopp fist pumping to 60,000 scousers at Anfield. But I stayed calm.
From landing in Sertá on the 31st of October to this day, it has been ten months. We have our first booking. Success.
Success can be going for a walk to clear your head. Success can be scoring goals for fun in the Premier League like Haarland. Success can be having a special moment with your partner. Success can be getting a PB in the gym. Success can be getting your dream job. Success can be buying the Oasis reunion tickets. Success can be winning the lottery. Success can be getting your first guests into your holiday home.
It’s different for everyone. But have a think about what has brought you a little bit of joy today. You might not think that its life-changing, but it could be just the seed that needs the chance to grow. Cherish that bit of success. The more you notice it, the more it happens.
This week the UK government said that it wants to ban cigarette smoking in pub gardens, outside nightclubs and around children’s play parks. Now, it would be hard to find a reasonable argument for being allowed to smoke in or around a kids play park, but I’m not sure about elsewhere. Here’s what I think…
I am living in central Portugal. Cigarettes are still sold in cafe vending machines. Supermarkets have Tobacaria shops inside them and even cafe bars attached to them. Doing your weekly shop, stopping for a smoke while downing a beer or wine before loading your car and driving away is common.
I don’t smoke cigarettes anymore but do occasionally vape electronically in private. I haven’t openly smoked anything since becoming a dad and a Personal Trainer. Smoking while doing either of those jobs is not cool. But I don’t begrudge anybody else smoking. In fact, seeing people sitting around a table outside a cafe in Sertá, chatting and laughing in different languages makes me feel happy and truth be known, before I moved here, it was one of the images that I went to sleep imagining. The cafe music, the different languages and the server bringing out olives and wine on a sunny day, all under a cloud of Marlboro is all very European. That appeals to me.
Some of my best memories of holidays abroad haven’t necessarily been on a beach or doing karaoke at an all inclusive, but visiting an art gallery or castle in Europe. And it was always followed by sitting outside a cafe to talk about what I had discovered, either with my family or with complete strangers.
And although in the beer garden at Wetherspoons there was plenty of alcohol and smoking, I never did get onto the subject of how the Duomo bell tower was constructed with its customers.
Outside a cafe in Sertá
Ah yes. Wetherspoons. Where you can openly shout about hating foreigners while drinking Belgian beer. After that, you can go for a Turkish kebab, watch American TV or cheer on a few Africans in your favourite football team on your Japanese TV while sitting on a Swedish sofa. In the morning, you can drive your German car and if you have an accident you will be seen by a Spanish nurse. Once you are better again, you can go back to Wetherspoons and shout about those ‘bloody foreigners’ in a building most likely to be funded by the European Union. Just remember to wipe your feet on the way out.
And before you start criticising me for being down on Britishness, Wetherspoons is and continues to be a very big factor in what is the cause of a loss of Britishness on the high streets. The Wetherspoons franchise has slowly dismantled the great British pub. You can’t get your piss stained peanuts from a bowl at the bar while drinking a pint of Best at the local Fox and Hounds anymore because Tim Martin came along with his cheap drinks and all day breakfast.
Traditional pubs are ceasing to exist anymore and for all we can blame smoking bans and energy costs, the fact remains that Tim Martin will always be able to make his food and drink way cheaper than Sandra the landlady at The Fox And Hounds.
‘But what about this new smoking ban, Shay?!’ I hear you all ask. ‘Surely it is better for our health and will be less of a burden to the NHS?!’
Smoking is not the number one factor in what causes the two most deadly killers in the UK (heart disease and Alzheimer’s). In fact, everything else they sell in a pub or nightclub are by far the major reasons. That all day breakfast? The Belgian beer or the pint of Best?
In 2022 there were just over 10,000 alcohol related deaths. Obesity causes 30,000 deaths each year. Food and drink related deaths are on the rise and will soon be above smoking related deaths in the years to come. I’m not saying that smoking is better, but it does seem to be the scapegoat when the government talks about unburdening the NHS.
When I watch UK TV I am bombarded by adverts telling me to eat fast food and drink alcohol. Not only is fast food or alcohol not banned but perfectly celebrated as the stuff we should be doing, promoted on national TV!
So eating and drinking crap in a pub is fine, but dare to step into its garden and light up a cigarette and you’re a pariah. You see, it makes no sense.
When I became a PT I wanted to give a different message to what I was seeing and hearing from mainstream gyms and media. It is also how I’ve continued to work at our health and wellbeing centre in Portugal. The misunderstanding from gyms and the media is that health and wellbeing is all about physical health and wellbeing. But I think a little differently.
If society (or your PT) is constantly berating your lifestyle choices such as what you eat, drink or smoke, then this is not going to be a positive contribution to your mindset or your life. You don’t employ a PT for them to tell you that lettuce is better for you than a pizza, or water is better for you than a gin and tonic. Nor should you employ a PT to tell you that not smoking is better for you than smoking.
Balancing these better for you things and the not as good for you things, for me, is the much better position to be in regarding our mental health. This, in turn, can contribute to a more active lifestyle and produce better physical results.
Smoking ten cigarettes a day instead of 20 is a fantastic start. Having a fortnightly takeaway is better than a weekly takeaway and drinking a few beers three nights of the week instead of five is going to positively impact you further.
No bans. No stress. No guilt. Just small things that we call balance.
So, my conclusion and my two penn’orth in the smoking debate is this…
Keep cigarettes, takeaways and alcohol and get rid of Wetherspoons. Society in the UK will seem like a much brighter place.
Never Give Up PT 