Yesterday, @clareartista and I were looking forward to driving to the nearest smallish city ( and my favorite one in this zone of the Portuguese countryside ) but we were also aware that it had rained loads.
As a result, the dirt road connecting the house that I - or I should say 'we' - rent with the village leading up to that city was likely to be pretty difficult to navigate. That is, with Clare's cute but quite powerful 19 year old Suzuki Wagon R. A machine that is far from a four wheel drive ( even though it drives and has four wheels ).
Long story short, Clare sent me out on a 'manly' mission, to dig some holes, in order to drain the deepest puddles - that almost looked like miniature mud lakes - that her car would have to navigate, so the two of us could actually reach the main road leading to the village.
So on I went, with a huge shovel and a bucket, wearing my rain jacket and wellies, as it kept raining randomly.
Meanwhile, Clare was cleaning the house and organizing things, in an attempt to not feel like she only just moved in with me ( 3 days ago ).
more on the moving in/ getting to live together can be found in her ( and my ) latest post(s)
An hour later, I had done quite a lot of digging and shoveling and at least partially drained a couple of miniature mud lakes, but I still wasn't entirely convinced that the car would not get stuck in the deepest of the puddles. So I decided to walk back home, to Clare, and - showing the blisters on my hands - I asked her to come with me to assess the situation.
Was it good enough or not?
Instead of walking with me to the deepest of the puddles, she responded that it would be better for us to just (give it a) go and to just bring the shovel and bucket along with us.
Long story short, we drove up to the biggest mud lake and sensed that it would be wise to actually drain it a little bit more. This time around, Clare offered to do the shoveling/ digging and asked me to use the bucket to pick up some medium sized stones that we could use as a little trail in the middle of the puddle ( where the left wheels/tyres of the car would drive through.
Unfortunately, there's no pictures of me shoveling dirt and mud or emptying buckets of waters in the vegetation next to the mini mud lake, nor are there any pics of me collecting stones and throwing them in the mud. But, luckily, I couldn't help but stop myself from photographing my pretty woman ( although she prefers the word beautiful or stunning ), thoroughly enjoying getting her hands dirty.
Suffice to say that we made it to the other side, even though Clare started cursing a bit 😤 👿 and telling me that she didn't like it at all!, while the car tyres were spinning and the Suzuki was sliding through the mud, struggling to make it through the last meters of the mud lake.
Part of me wouldn't have minded to get out and use all my manly force, pushing the car out of the mud and getting super dirty.
We had a great time in the city afterwards and bought loads of nice groceries to stock up and fill the kitchen with plenty of goodies for the days and weeks ahead.
I would like to finish today's write up by saying that Clare and I really like these kinds of challenges. We don't take them for granted. This is what life is really about and comfort is overrated. It feels super satisfying to solve a tricky situation by being creative and the physical exercise and teamwork are an added bonus.
Just another day in Paradise...