Sometimes, you have to do things you don’t want to do… for the greater good.

There’s news.

Some people already know, most don’t: we are moving back to England.

We don’t want to. None of us want to, but we have to salvage the boys’ education before it is too late. If we had more time or more money, we could probably sort it here, but, at this stage of Jake’s schooling, it’s too late. The only way we can pick up the pieces now, is to get back into the English school system as quickly as possible with the hope that the boys then manage to get through with some qualifications – ANY qualifications – because, at the stage they are both at right now, it’s more than they will manage here.

So, that’s what we are doing: returning to England. Soon. Like, next week.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a rash or sudden decision.
It will seem like it to everybody else, but it’s been something we’ve been quietly handling for a while, and with the addition of some health problems that one of us has been suffering with lately, it’s time.

So there you are.

The lorry is (all being well) picking up our stuff late next week and we are flying over soon after.

We have a ton of stuff to sort. The apartment this end, our house at the other end (it currently has tenants who now have notice), moving temporarily into the home of a family member who has very kindly offered us the use of her home until ours is vacant again, not to mention getting the boys into school.

So much to do.

So I’d better get back to packing boxes.

See you on the other side.
Maybe I’ll be able to get my thoughts on “paper” (virtually speaking) better then.

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These things are sent to test us, right?

Something I’ve learned this week: NEVER get too comfortable!

I swear that, no sooner do you say out loud that things seem settled, something will come along and kick you in the shins.

And surprise, surprise, if that “something” isn’t school!

As regular readers will know (well, if you’ve been reading since “the beginning” anyway),  when we moved in 2010, getting the kids sorted at school was one of our biggest nightmares.
I mean, it would be, wouldn’t it? It’s one of the most important!

We thought we’d done as we were asked. We got all English school reports (including an extra letter from the school says “Child A passed/failed” which they INSISTED on) officially translated (at significant cost!), got vaccinations up-to-date and obtained what seemed like every piece of documentation under the sun and, eventually, they seemed happy.

You know how they say never count your chickens until they’ve hatched?
Well, turns out these eggs have a FOUR YEAR incubation period!

This one made me giggle!

Yesterday, I got a call from the secretary at the head school of the Agrupamento. She informed us that we should have had our original UK school reports officially “stamped” as well as translated. As far as I can understand, it’s so that it legitimises the report (ie. verifies that it’s from a genuine bone fide UK school and not something we knocked up on the internet.)
I get that, I do. What irks me is being asked for it NOW, not four years ago.

Why?

Well, because NOW, it’s urgent. Urgent because both boys have exams and could potentially move schools this year.

So it’s urgent now.
Of course it is.

So now I’m to-ing and fro-ing from British Embassy departments to Ministry of Education and other Consular departments.

School wasn’t 100% sure which (of their many hundreds of them) stamp I needed, just that it needed  to come from the Consulate. The British Embassy are fairly certain it’s the Legalisation department that I need, to get the UK school reports stamped as official, but asked me to check with the Ministry of Education. The Ministry of Education couldn’t give me someone to whom I could speak English, so I gave up and emailed instead. Not holding my breath there!

I’m now waiting for the Legalisation Office, whose phone line is only operative between midday and 4pm – what?, to open so I can find out what I need to do next.

Seems as though we’ll need to send all the documents (originals, of course) to their Milton Keynes office for processing. At a cost, of course.

Meantime, we’re all stressed now.

Boys aren’t stressed enough though.
They need to study and won’t. In a nutshell, if they don’t study, they’re going to fail. Maybe then they will realise. Perhaps it’s what they need: to fail. For purely selfish reasons, I’d prefer Eliot to pass so he can move to the school around the corner from us and cut out a twice-daily school run. If Jake passes (big IF. Very big if) he will move to one of the Secundaria schools in town, depending on what he wants to study. That’s a whole OTHER can of worms which, while I’d love to discuss and share, right now I just can’t be bothered.

So anyway, yeah.

I guess the moral of the story is “Don’t get too comfy”.

 

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The Expat Blogger’s Journey Through Expatriation

I am actually making headway with my “Z is for…” post, but this just dropped into my inbox, and I thought I would share.

So, little bit to wait before my “Personal A to Z of Portugal” journey is done.

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Personal A to Z of Portugal. X is for Xenophobia

Not my original choice.
Not even my second original choice.
But something I decided might be a little bit different.

X is for Xenophobia

Something everybody probably considers (or certainly should!), before moving to a completely different country, is how they will be accepted by the locals; the people who become neighbours; colleagues; friends and possibly even family.

It would be naive, I think, to expect everybody to welcome you with open arms, particularly if you are coming over looking for work. In a time when local unemployment is high, nobody is going to appreciate “the foreigners” who come in “taking locals’ jobs”.

Sound familiar?

Regardless of whether it affects you or not, it’s a sentiment that is difficult to get away from in the media in ANY country.

Obviously, we are in the fortunate position of not needing local jobs so this isn’t something we have experienced here, but I would imagine that it happens here just as it does anywhere else.

We are also fortunate that we have never really experienced any form of xenophobia or prejudice based on the fact that we are English living in Portugal.

People have been, on the whole, very friendly and accommodating. The Portuguese are a sociable lot anyway, and even as we struggle along with the language, we find ourselves welcomed in by people who will often go out of their way to speak to us in our native language rather than theirs.

Sure, there have been (many) times when “Fala Inglês?” has been met with a po-faced “Não!” (often followed by fast-paced Portuguese on their part and mindless nodding on mine!) but even when there have been clear language barriers, we have never been made to feel unwelcome or alienated.

Jake’s first head of year, when we moved here, spoke little English (school teachers who don’t speak English cause me the most fear because it’s such an important thing to be discussing: schooling, and I’d hate to misinterpret something!) but he was very enthusiastic about having Jake in his class at a time when it was absolutely CRUCIAL that Jake be welcomed in. He (the teacher) went out of his way to speak to us in English, helping both us (as new arrivals in the country) and himself (wanting to improve his language skills) and spent considerable time ensuring that Jake understood what he needed to in their classes together (he was the science teacher). It was lovely, and it really made a difference.

Some teachers are more old school, of course. Eliot’s first teacher (she’s been mentioned before!) was a formidable force of nature. I kid you not! She spoke (or claimed as such, anyway) no English whatsoever so meetings between us were terrifying (I can only imagine how Eliot felt!)

Having said that, at no point did I ever feel that she held our lack of language skills against me or, more importantly, Eliot. We still see Professora Ana on a fairly regular basis (she teaches a class at Eliot’s current school) and she still scares the bejesus out of me, but she’s lovely really. Friendly and approachable, even in the face of my pigeon Portuguese!

Now, I suppose all of the above is helped by the fact that we live in a tourist area. The locals, in general, are used to being amongst English (and Germans and Dutch and Aussies and many more!) and I am sure that the fact that we actually live here goes unnoticed by many in our day to day life.
It is entirely possible that it would be very different if we had moved to a small village in the hills. I can’t speak for those people. I’m sure there are communities where “outsiders” or “immigrants” (which is what we are!) are ostracised, particularly as not everybody who moves to a different country is quite so mindful of their new locale.

I am certain that there will be pockets of English who live like they are still in England (I’m choosing the English just as an example. Not because other nations are not guilty of this also)They make little or no effort to learn or speak the local language, they don’t socialise beyond their little group of English friends, and they wouldn’t be seen dead eating the local cuisine.

It happens in England, right? I have no doubts that it probably happens here too, and in these cases you could argue that the locals would have every right to feel somewhat resentful. It puts out an erroneous impression though, both of the English and of the Portuguese, and it’s a shame. But, I suppose, it happens world over.

At the end of the day, if you move to a new place with the intention to RESPECT that country, its traditions and its locals, I am fairly certain that you will usually be welcomed openly.

Certainly in the Algarve, we have encountered very little prejudice against us for being English. We have made an effort to get out and make friends, to learn the language and to generally get along.

That’s what life’s about, right?

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“Did we do the right thing?” (not a cheery post really!)

Goodness knows, I’ve asked myself that a lot since we moved here in July 2010.

There’s no denying that moving to a different country with children is a very difficult thing to do. However much you tell yourself you’re doing it for “the greater good”, there are worries and doubts at every step of the way.

Obviously, these doubts and worries are not helped by plunging those children into a foreign language school environment. In fact, I think that language is, and probably always will be, our number one hurdle.

There is only so much preparation you can do before moving to a foreign country. You can visit and research local areas, amenities, schools etc. What you can’t do, unless you happen to be fluent in a second language already (that’s you AND your family, of course) is remove the language barrier completely. Some basic language skills in advance are a good thing, of course, but they really won’t prepare you for what it’s like to be surrounded by it 24/7!

I’d be lying if I said that our boys’ education hasn’t suffered in some way. Jake used to be a Maths whizz in his UK school. Now he struggles, even in this subject. His first 2 years here, he actually did really well. He passed both years and seemed to be doing ok. He’s been having one-on-one Portuguese lessons at home, for an hour a week, for around 18 months now and these have definitely helped. Jake has gone from “I am NEVER speaking Portuguese” to being (or claiming to be) fairly confident. He says he doesn’t feel that way any more. That’s definitely a step in the right direction.

In his first term of year 8, however, it seemed like we’d taken huge steps backwards. He went from only failing the “least likely to scrape through” subjects, to failing, well, nearly all of them! 6 negatives on his end of term report were a real shock. They’ve prompted change though and I’m hopeful that the changes we’ve made will help. His end of second term report will tell us, I suppose.

Eliot is also struggling. He was held back last year and remains in year 3. This was a good thing really because he needs the extra time in the lower classes and his teacher tells us he has improved a fair bit. There’s no denying his verbal Portuguese skills are confident but reading and writing lags behind. His reading in English, however, is very good (something which bemuses us because nobody has actually taught him this!) and that’s reassuring. His Portuguese reading will catch up. Now he just needs to learn to spell. Either language would be good!

Jake’s last report plunged me into doubt and regret, of course, and renewed all the “are we doing the right thing?” feelings. I actually ran through my mind how returning to the UK could be better. For Jake, perhaps the move back wouldn’t be a problem in his education (in fact, the stuff he’s learning/studying here is far beyond the UK equivalent school curriculum) but it would be a huge problem for Eliot. When we moved here, Eliot was held back a year. He was also held back again last year. This means he is currently in year 3 (which, in Portugal, isn’t a problem as there are many 9 year olds in year 3) but his UK “peers” and old school friends are in year 5. Even if we returned to the UK next school year, he’d be at least 2 years behind everyone he knew and that can’t be a good thing.

Does that make me feel any better? Does it hell?!

It’s not just the kids that throw up doubts and worries, of course. Work is a constant fear. Running our own business remotely puts a lot of pressure on. There’s no steady income. If we don’t get sales, we don’t make money and, if we don’t make money, we can’t transfer it here to live on! We don’t make a huge amount of money (we pretty much live off our 2 minimum director’s salaries here) but  we still have to cover that transfer each month. Most months, it’s OK. Some months, the quiet ones (and don’t all businesses have those?!) are quite unnerving. As anybody who relies on this sort of self-employed income will know, it’s hard and a constant worry.

Oh hell, that really sounds like it’s all doom and gloom! It’s not of course. Aside from money worries and kids, everything is fine!

*insert maniacal panicked laughter here*

There’s a fine line between worrying unnecessarily and sticking your head in the sand.

Here, have a sunny photo to brighten things up!

My beautiful boy. January 2013

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Personal A to Z of Portugal. P is for Priorities

It’s taken me a while to get chance to sit down and continue this A to Z. I’m starting to think that the entire alphabet is going to last more than a year. That’s something I never could have imagined at the start! Still, it’s a nice project to be getting on with and a bit of motivation to do more than just post photos on Facebook each time we do something fun!

Anyway, I’ve had my P topic for a while. Actually, I had several ideas for my P topic but lately which one to choose has become clearer.

P is for Priorities

In order to make our move to Portugal, we had to take a good look at our priorities.

Our life in England was comfortable. We had modest income (topped up with tax credits) to allow us to be self-employed and spend some time with our boys but we constantly felt restricted. There was little around us locally that inspired us, as a family and it’s no secret that we’d had itchy feet for a long time.

A move abroad, however, would come with huge sacrifices and definitely required us to look long and hard at our priorities.

In the UK, we could live comfortably in our own home and not have any real worries about money. We had our own 3 bed home with large garden in a pretty outlying village. We had a nice, smart, modern car. We could be in full control of our own business. We could visit family and friends whenever we felt like it. We would be in as much control of our lives as is possible to guarantee in this day and age.  Despite this, we weren’t settled.

In Portugal, there is always a concern that we won’t make ends meet. We work hard to ensure that our business makes enough money to cover our basic living expenses plus a little extra but, in order to do that, we have had to significantly change the way we work. We’ve had to sub-contract out various parts of our business and rely on others working with us. This is a scary position to be in, I can tell you.

We also now live in rental accommodation, something we’ve never done before. Our housing situation is also a little out of our hands as we are constantly aware that our landlady could decide to sell, if she so wanted (fortunately, she has other, empty properties she could sell first and that’d be difficult enough in a stagnant property market!) We had also had to take in tenants in our UK house and this puts another financial strain on our household. All well and good while the tenants are in but a huge burden should they decide to move on.

We own an old banger of a car. But not a cheap car. Oh no. There is no such thing as a cheap car here in Portugal. We now own the oldest car we’ve ever owned (it’s 15 years old) which cost us the most we’ve ever paid for a vehicle!

We’re now half a day or more from family and UK friends. The boys have lost contact with many of their school friends they grew up with and we’ve all had to find new friends in a foreign land.

Life here isn’t easy, by a long shot. It’s financially unstable and, at time, emotionally draining.

However, at the same time, it is beautiful and full of new opportunities.

Ponta de Piedade

Despite having less money, we are surrounded by things to do.

With the beach just a few minutes walk away, we can visit all year and enjoy the ever-changing scenery it presents us.

A trip to the beach in July

Meia Praia Beach in February!

The boys have both made new friends in school and Eliot, in particular, is happy to find friends where-ever he goes. He can be bossy in TWO languages now!

Boys playing with new friends at the Skate Park, Lagos

We have made some great friends ourselves and now get to spend quality time with them too, often enjoying outdoor visits, picnics, meals and new places together.

Our newly made good pals Dave and Aly (wave, guys!)

As well as making new friends, UK family and friends visit us here which is something that never happens in England!

My little sis on one of her (many!) visits

We get to learn about and share in a new Portuguese way of life, with it traditions and festivals.

Loulé Carnival 2012

And, as the Algarve typically has few weeks of bad weather per year, for 90+% of the year, all this happens in the sun, of course!

Sunrise on Meia Praia Beach

So, yes. We’ve made sacrifices with our move to Portugal.

We’ve sacrificed income, control, our own home, a nice car, ease of communication and having family on our doorstep.

In return, we have beautiful days, fabulous places, great friends and regular visitors.

A fair trade-off? I’d say so.

It’s all about priorities, innit?

It’s a hard life but someone’s gotta do it!

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The Hand Annual School Update

It seems like ages since I posted a school update although, I suppose, it probably is!

Well, the school year is over and we’re 2 weeks in to the long, long, long summer holidays*

I have to admit, the holidays are easier for us this year, now that I’m not working for anyone except us any more. While this does mean we have a sizeable drop in income, it also means I have more time (well, more flexible time) to spend with my boys and, as long as we are still managing financially**, that’s worth more to us. I still do design work, if a client requests it though. That extra money is definitely always welcome!

So, end of another school year and definitely a different vibe to last year.

Last year, it was all something of an unknown. We hadn’t realised that Jake, being in year 6, would have big end-of-year exams in Maths and Portuguese in order to move from 2nd cycle to 3rd. Quite how he managed to pass those I have no idea. I guess we’re fortunate that he is intelligent enough in Maths to get a good grade and lift him out of the “automatic fail” group (which a failure in both Maths and Portuguese could be)

Year 7 has been a challenge for him though. Academically, it has been far more intense than Year 6 as there have been more subjects (Year 6 General science became 2 Science subjects in year 7. History and Geography split from one subject into 2)

There was a complete change of teachers, in all subjects, and an almost complete change of classmates as the classes are “scrambled” between each year and only a handful of his year 6 classmates were in the same year 7 class as Jake.

That said, Jake has coped admirably. Apart from some early wobbles with his Maths teacher (what is it about Maths teachers?!), he’s had a good year.

Results came out last Saturday and Jake, much to his relief, passed year 7 with flying colours! (in fact, coming 5th in his class of 21, with 4 students not passing at all!)

Well done, Jake!

So we’re all looking forwards to year 8, when they eventually go back in September.

Yesterday, we had Eliot’s school teacher meeting although we’d already been told his result. Actually, should I say, Eliot was told first, he told us and I had to confirm with his teacher at the end-of-term party.

Escola EB1 Meia Praia End of term mini show and party

Eliot hasn’t done so well this year. In fact, despite having a support teacher for 3 sessions a week this year, he seems to have progressed less this year than he did last year (come back, Professora Ana, all is forgiven!)

He’s had little or no homework and, apart from a huge improvement in both his oral and aural Portuguese, has gained little. He still struggles to comprehend written Portuguese and write Portuguese. All perfectly normal, under the circumstances, of course (Jake has had private lessons all year to help his. Eliot hasn’t) but it has meant that, unfortunately, Eliot didn’t pass year 3 this year.

In fact, this is actually a good thing. He has so much more to learn before he can enter year 4. Year 4 heralds the end of 1st cycle school and comes with big exams at the end of it. He’s a long way off getting there. Repeating year 3 will be a huge benefit to him. He probably should have repeated year 2 but hey, that’s in the past.

Obviously, he was pretty upset about “failing”. We’ve tried to explain to him that it’ll help him a lot to repeat year 3 and he’s starting to understand that. His classmates from year 3 will still be in his “class”, because they are a mixed year 3 and 4 class anyway, so that definitely softens the effect slightly.

In fact, yesterday, at the parents’ meeting, we also learned that, next year, due to class numbers, his class will consist of years 1, 3 and 4! (I can only assume that year 2 is a large group!)

That class mix might sound slightly strange (although remember that last year his class was years 1, 2, 3 and 4!) it will actually work to Eliot’s advantage. His teacher (whoever that might be. It may not be Professor Nuno again) will be able to involve Eliot in some of the year 1 work which could benefit him greatly and enable him to pick up some of those missing “basics” alongside his modified year 3 work.

I’m sure it must be difficult for a teacher to manage but, hopefully, it will be helpful for Eliot. Even if his homework is year 1 and his school work his adapted year 3 (they do adapt his standard curriculum work, to a certain degree, also), it should be much better for his progress. Meantime, he’s been sent home with four Year 2 books to do “holiday homework” from. Lucky boy!

So, as we head into the 3 month summer holidays, there are mixed emotions Chez Hand. Fortunately, we have lots to look forwards to. Visitors and visiting, days out and, no doubt, the occasional day when we batten down the hatches and hide from the sun!

Eliot and I are heading to London for a few days next week as a birthday treat for him. It’s something I did with Jake a couple of times, while we were in England and he was littler, but I’ve never done with Eliot. Needless to say, he’s very excited about playing tourist and staying with Aunty Wendy.

Nik and Jake will be left home. This doesn’t bode well for getting anything done. Xbox 24/7 is likely to be order of the day(s)! I won’t bother with a “while I’m gone” chores list.

Eliot will be starting at Click Kids Club in mid July. He’s looking forwards to that too. The interaction (in Portuguese as well as English) will do him good and, hopefully, Sofia, being the magical magician that she is, will be able to coerce Eliot into working through his homework (they have allocated study time, twice a week, which is BRILLIANT!)

Of course, a summer post wouldn’t be complete without a weather report, would it?

Weather has been warming up gradually over the past month or so. We’ve had some days in the high 30s and the past couple have been hazy but hot! I don’t suppose we’ll see much, if any, rain before about September/October now. It’s a tough life, eh?

I never get bored with our balcony view (apologies if you do!)

Click for our current 5 day forecast (you know you want to!)

*Did I mention how long the summer holidays were?

**Jury is still out on that one but so far, so good!

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Personal A to Z of Portugal. I is for Inglês

I’m not sure if it’s an obvious one or not but I did struggle to come up with anything more important to us, here in Portugal, than the whole language element, whether that be Portuguese (português) or English (inglês)

So, here it is

I is for Inglês

Language is, of course, one of the biggest hurdles when you move to a non-native-English-speaking country. It’s the one thing you can’t really get away from, not entirely. Sure, if you live somewhere touristy or expat-filled enough, you might get away with just a few pleasantries during day-to-day life but, one day, time will come when you need a doctor, a policeman or a pharmacist and you encounter a language barrier. If you’re child-free, you could probably get away with it up to this point. If you have children in the Portuguese school system, however, you need to be prepared to make some effort to learn the language. Once you get into school “red tape” territory, you will encounter plenty of people who don’t (or won’t) speak English and you have to learn at least to keep pace with your children’s pace of learning. Trust me, you do!

How useful are you going to be with homework if you have no understanding of the language? And who wants their children to be able to talk fluently in a language they know nothing about?

If your children are being educated in Portuguese, you’ll need to learn too, regardless of whether you need it at other times or not.

Just a selection of our Portuguese learning books

But this post is about Inglês right? That’s English, not Portuguese!

This is where the Algarve is very different from probably most of the rest of Portugal (and definitely different from rural Portugal!)

In the Algarve, particularly its coastline towns and areas, even if you attempt to ask for something in your best, most practised Portuguese, there will be times (many, many times) when you find that you are responded to in English.

It’s pretty obvious to state that a large percentage of Portuguese speak almost-perfect English. After all, tourism is the mainstay of the Algarve’s income and most of the population here work in the tourist industry to some degree. English is a pretty universal language and you can sometimes hear it spoken more, when out and about, than you hear Portuguese. In tourist season, you’ll wonder if you even live in Portugal at all sometimes! It’s a shame but it’s a fact of life of the Algarve. You can rehearse your restaurant order in Portuguese but don’t be surprised if your waiter answers you in English. Chances are, the German couple next to you will order and be responded to in English too. It’s everywhere!

At first, it feels disheartening when your best efforts are, seemingly, wasted but look at it this way. These people are in a service industry (whether restaurant, supermarket or post office) and, when it’s busy, they need to keep things moving. If their English is better than your Portuguese, just go with it. It’s quicker and more efficient all round. Why spend 15 minutes battling in pidgin Portuguese when you could transact in 5 minutes in English, right?

Some of our portuguese phrase books.

The “BBC” Portuguese Phrase Book and Dictionary is excellent and I highly recommend it!

If you live here, people will get to know you and respect your efforts. The butcher doesn’t reply to me in English any more, our entire conversation is now portuguese. Likewise in the Post Office (depending on how busy they are) I can often get a Portuguese response to my efforts. It’s encouraging.

There are times where it has been a downside that so much English is spoken here, of course. In Jake’s school, when he started, in year 6, many of his new classmates spoke very good English. This means that English has become their primary language of communication which has definitely been a drawback. He is getting there though, with the help of a very good Portuguese language teacher  who comes to teach him, on a one-to-one basis, once a week.

Eliot didn’t have such problems. No one spoke English in his little primary school (well, one TA did if required but his teacher didn’t, or wouldn’t!) so he was thrown in at the deep end. To hear him in the playground now, however, you can see how much that benefited him!

There are many people who have lived here for many, many years and still don’t speak a word of portuguese. I guess living somewhere like this, it’s too easy to get by. It riles me a lot! I have no intention to be so “ignorant” of where we’ve chosen to live. I’m working very hard to learn and I’d love to be at least competent, if not fluent (I think this dog’s maybe too old to get fluent!) by the time the boys are. I have numerous books that I regularly refer to.

501 Portuguese Verbs (Barron’s 501 Portuguese Verbs) is another that is regularly thumbed through by both Jake and me.

Portuguese Verbs Explained: An Essential Guide is a great book you can work through to teach yourself. It’s simple, with quick exercises at the end of each chapter. I used to use this book to teach myself while I waited outside school, in the car, before we left the UK!

Collins Portuguese Dictionary is our main “household” dictionary. Another well-used book!

Collins Gem – Portuguese Dictionary is the smaller version that Jake uses at school. We’re actually on our second one of these. They don’t “wear” too well, kicked about in a school bag every day!

Not forgetting, of course, a few fun vocabulary books, for the boys! First Thousand Words in Portuguese is a fun book with colourful pictures and useful vocab and Eliot has loved learning from his Everyday Words Flashcards: Portuguese which are very well-used now!

As you can see from my first bookshelf photo, there are numerous other books that we use. I have a couple of “Portuguese as a second language”  books which I’ve used from time to time (not often enough, if I’m honest!) and Jake has some that he uses for his lessons.

There’s no substitute for getting out there and using your newly learned language skills though, despite the English you may get back! Be persistent and reply to their English in Portuguese, they’ll soon get the message 🙂

Note: All book links are Amazon affiliate links. I’ve only posted the ones we have used a lot and found hugely beneficial to have around (goodness knows we actually own many, many more!) so please do consider repaying the recommendation by using our links. Thanks!

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Sunshine, visitors, exams and more…

Firstly, thank goodness Nik is back from England!
He left on Saturday and, while the weekend was fine, Monday and Tuesday were a continual juggling act as I managed my work along with all of his orders and ordering. Perfectly do-able but, as I don’t handle his business stuff very often nowadays, I was rather rusty when it came to processing orders, ordering with suppliers and sorting out shipping etc.
Still, I managed ok and I came out the other side in one piece!
Nik retrieved our UK car from the garage (who were supposed to be prepping it for sale but appear to have just done 300 miles in it and made it filthy!) and got it valeted, while he was there. As soon as we get the broken glove box replaced (which is, quite ridiculously, going to cost us upwards of £100!) we’ll get someone else to sell it for us. It’s looking beautiful now it’s valeted. The engine bay looks almost like new!

Anyone want to buy an 2003 Audi A4 Tdi Estate with detachable towbar? Very reluctant sale (but for a good reason!)

A couple more photos in our Photobucket album

The weather here has turned suddenly very hot. We’ve had some unsettled weather lately, while the UK has been basking in sunshine, but it looks as though we’re through that now. Unsettled spring really isn’t a deal-breaker for us. We know that, come the summer, we’ll be actually getting one while the UK dusts off its brollies!
The past 2 days have been mid to high 20s in the morning shade, on the balcony and the living room (which doesn’t really get the sun until late evening) has been getting very warm. I’ve dug out the fans and we’ve started leaving all the balcony doors open during the day to allow air through. It definitely makes a difference but I know it’s just the start of what’s to come.
The beach will definitely be calling us this week!

Along with Nik returning home late last night, my Mum and Rod arrived also. We’d arranged for Nik to be coming back on the same flight with them so he could ‘carpool’ with them to get back to the apartment. As his flights had only cost us €18 return, we were reluctant to pay £26 each way to get to and from Faro airport too! This way, we only had to pay/do it once.

Mum and Rod are staying in a 1 bedroom apartment near us. It’s a lovely little apartment, very new and modern, with a pool on site, which we are all hoping to be able to use this week! There doesn’t appear to be many people staying in the complex (which is still under construction on 2 out of the 4 blocks) at the minute so it’ll be nice to hang out there a bit and have a splash about in the pool (the cooling effect of water but without the sand is VERY appealing!)

Encosta da Marina Pools

Hopefully, the weather will be a lot better than it was when Mum came over in February!

A quick thought for Jake who has his “Prova de Aferição” today in Maths (year 6 exams). I think he’ll be ok as long as he’s confident and careful about working out what the questions are asking. Certainly, his maths itself is well above the level it needs to be. Just fingers crossed he can understand the questions! (no dictionary allowed!)
I bought a test guide book at the weekend which contains the past 3 years’ exams. We worked through the 2010 and 2009 tests and Jake had few problems really. I, on the other hand, well, I won’t say how well (or badly!) I did with a few of the questions! LOL My excuse is that it’s about 20 years since I did A level maths never mind the stuff he’s doing. He’s learnt it this term and it’s fresh in his mind. My excuse and I’m sticking to it 😉

We met, yesterday, with a lady who is going to be tutoring Jake in Portuguese as a foreign language.  We chatted (at our local cafe, of course) for a while and she asked Jake to set aside 30 minutes a day to do exercises of some sort plus learn 10 new words a day. The exercises part is actually ok for us because I have a couple of Portuguese books, that I have used in the past, which are perfect for him to spend a little time with and do the work in. He’s still very reluctant but, to his credit, he did (eventually!) do it yesterday. I certainly think he will learn much better with someone other than me teaching him. Hopefully, it will also instill some confidence, which also breeds more ability, as he realises he can learn quickly.

He starts with his lessons tomorrow afternoon. One 1-hour lesson a week should be ok. Anything more would seem like school! And that’s no fun, is it? 🙂

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Good days, bad days. Happy days, sad days.

This week is a significant time in Jake’s schooling.

Portuguese basic schooling is split into 3 stages. Years 1-4, years 5 & 6 and years 7-9.
At the end of years 4 and 6, students have exams to assess their progress and these, obviously, count towards the decision to move up to the next stage of school or not.

Now, in an ideal world, Jake would have started in year 5 but, because he had passed year 5 in the UK, he started here in year 6. This, of course, means that he has these crucial exams this week and next even though he is completely not ready for them.
While academically he has been doing very well, all things considered, his language skills are very lacking and he’s been slower than we (and certainly he) expected I think due to lack of effort on his part and one-to-one learning/help at school. His “Portuguese as a foreign language” lessons are in larger groups and this isn’t really benefitting him enough.

So, there’s a good chance that, despite being in the top handful overall in his class, he won’t be moving up to year 7 with most of his friends. In fact, all of his main friends (including those who speak best English) are in the top half of his class and are likely to move on. Jake, on the other hand, disadvantaged solely by language, may not.

How do you prepare a child, who is used to being top of the class, for failure? We never expected him to pass this year but I don’t think that his 11yo brain had ever considered he wouldn’t.

In the past 12 months I have tried and tried to help him and encourage him to learn Portuguese with me. He just isn’t interested. His ‘out of school’ hours are, in his eyes, just that. He’s not interested in learning anything else. He says it’s ‘boring’ and, quite honestly, he’s too lazy to give it a second thought. He is an 11-year-old boy after all!

It’s been frustrating for me because I know he is very bright and intelligent and he would thrive given the right help.
So, I’ve found someone who can give him one-to-one tuition. Just an hour a week but tailored to his level and abilities and able to move with him as he progresses.

I think, no, I know, this will benefit Jake immensely. He will learn so much so much quicker. Jake, of course (being an 11-year-old boy!) doesn’t agree. He doesn’t want to do any extra work, he doesn’t want to speak Portuguese and he just wants to move back to England.

Hearing Jake say this is upsetting. Since we moved here, he’s been the one who settled quick, made lots of friends and often said he didn’t want to move back to England. He has a level of independence and freedom he could never have in England and he loves it.
Well, mostly.
Today’s exam has clearly shaken him. He didn’t stand a chance really.

He has the big maths exams next week. I’m sure he can pass that (as long as he can interpret the actual questions correctly) but he’s feeling disheartened now.
It’s probably just a good job it is Friday and we have visitors to look forwards to next week.

Yesterday, we met some new friends. New ex-pats-to-be who are moving locally, with their 7yo and 6mo sons very soon.
Eliot was very excited to have some peer English company! It’s ALL Portuguese at school for him and, apart from that, he only sees Jake’s friends. He and Lewis seemed to get on well and Eliot is looking forwards to them moving over permanently so they can have “playdates”

A new era for them…. and him…. and all of us, I think.

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