Well I finally took legal ownership of six acres of land in Portugal a couple of days ago.
Six acres is SO MUCH land that I can't really give an idea of scale in pictures, especially when it's all so green at the moment: everything just kind of merges into everything else in any picture I've taken.
The only way to fully appreciate everything is to do a video wander round, but that'll have to wait - I just can't be dealing with editing and waiting for four hours for it to upload to 3Speak right now, next week sometime for sure though.
We exchanged cash/ contracts on Thursday (my wallet had quite a work out that day!) and I spent a couple of hours on the land walking around thinking through a few plans, and then made a point of NOT going to the land yesterday (Friday) - instead I stayed home, let the whole land purchase sink in, caught up with a few chores, and noted down a few ideas about what I need for the land as the ideas cropped up. Had a few beers too, of course!
I went back today and did another tour, which helped focus my mind on what I need to do and in what order. TBH with the dry fire season just a couple of months away, I don't really have much choice about what comes first - water storage and shrub clearance have to be done this month ideally (March) but I figure I can kickstart another couple of projects too.
I got this rather cool historic map of the land boundaries from the previous owner, apparently these are quite rare these days...
The three photos below cover the bottom left hand corner, about 25% of the overall plot is what you can see.
I'm guessing the black square is the falling down storage shed in the picture below, which is at the bottom left, what I call the 'pedestrian' entrance...the previous owners built an outdoor kitchen area, and there's a well and concrete water tank:
Right at the back in the middle you can see a small structure where the previous owners put their shower and compost loo - I'm going to keep this the same - have my water storage containers behind the shower construction, and then the major composting area to the left about 10 metres up from the storage shed, on the boundary.
If you pan right from that you can see some terraces, with fruit trees, most of which have died, but two survived:
The land carries on up into mixed pine and eucalyptus woodland for about as far again as far as what you can see in the photo. Also further up there is the partially complete agricultural storage unit/ house which will be the main dwelling.
Pan further right and you get to see the view across what's the designated veg patch - I'll keep that where it is, but I probably won't plant anything until autumn, aiming for a spring harvest next year.
It goes on for about twice the distance, into the distance where there's a stream. Then up to the back boundary. If you follow the line of olive trees to the left you can kind of see how far back it goes, and carries on beyond that.
Over there (you can't see it) is where a lot of the older olive trees and cork oaks are, it's a great little area, but more of that laters.
So that's about 20-25% of the plot all told.
I should have taken more photos, but I opted for a walk around video instead when I was there on Thursday, but on review I thought they were a bit naff, and I missed out one of the crucial areas, so I'll have to redo them!
I've got the following priorities in mind for the rest of the year - if I can get this lot done I'll be quite happy....
Ongoing - accumulate perennial plants for later planting.
I'm going to get a man in (I've got the number of local guy) to help with clearing out the woodland and shrub, and I'll probably need some help shifting my water containers when they arrive.
Similarly with pruning olives, that's a Facebook call out for sure. No idea what to do there!
Oh, and the storage shed - NO IDEA what to do there, that's a query for 
Anyway, for now it's happy days - I'm looking forward to getting physical and getting my head out the crypto wonderland a bit longer each day!
