As some of you are by now hyperventilating and full of adrenaline and pent-up stress, due to my awesome cliffhanger in Part 1, followed by me only allowing you to see a close up from a small part of my living room/ kitchen in Part 2, I decided to be easy on you ( I am a kind person, after all ) and let you breathe a little more by giving you your sugar fix a couple of pics of the inside of my house.
What you see in the first picture was what I saw with my own two eyes ( although it does look different, captured by my phone camera on an overcast day, last Tuesday).
I was actually pleasantly surprised to open the much marvelled at (red) door and to see this inviting, picturesque living room/ kitchen area, even more after it had been super full, with 4 people and a dog, their stuff and a couple of beds, the previous and only time I had seen it before.
Back then was a little over a month ago, a couple of days before I traveled to The Netherlands for Christmas and New Year. The previous tenants are friends of mine, with two daughters of about 8 and 10 years old, who have unfortunately moved on to another country. When they were renting this place, before me, they had moved the beds to the living room, as the bedroom upstairs was too cold for them and the bathroom is downstairs. So it makes sense that they preferred sleeping close to the fireplace, the warmest part of the house and, conveniently, next to the bathroom.
For your information, the stairs are outside.
In other words, to go from the upstairs bedroom ( where I sleep ) to the living room and or bathroom, you have to leave the bedroom, go outside, descend some stairs ( to the patio/ veranda ) and then go inside, through another door and vice versa for going from living room to bedroom.
I am a grown man and single, at the moment
the single part, that is, although I will always stay a boy on the inside,
so I decided to suck it up and at least try to sleep in the bedroom upstairs, with a bucket next to the bed for when nature (would) call(s).
Aside from liking to keep my not very large living room/ kitchen as feng shui as possible, I also found the (bed)room upstairs as follows so this made it easy for me to decide to actually sleep there.
When I checked out the place, as mentioned before, what now is the bedroom was no bedroom ( the bed wasn't there ) but it was more like a play/ living area. If the sun shines, it's an awesome, light room with a high ceiling.
As my friends had turned it into a bedroom again ( for me ), I kind of had to go for it + the pee bucket as a nightly survival item.
As I am getting kind of tired of stretching this series out too much, by now, let me end by telling you that my first night was far from paradisical ( is that even a word? )
It took me an hour and a half to get the fire in the woodburner going and, in the process, I inhaled a ( not so ) nice amount of smoke.
When I finally went to bed, early, as I didn't warm up, I lay awake for an hour or two coughing and with a headache, unable to relax enough to fall asleep. When I finally managed to actually get some rest, rain started pouring down. Somewhat worried about the roof ( Portuguese roofs often leak, especially in the countryside ) and it being my first night here, combined with the noise of the rain on the roof and the wind going crazy outside, I basically struggled to sleep at all. Combine this with several pee breaks due to not sleeping and too much tea and you get the idea.
Once it was time to wake up, I had hardly slept. The bird sounds and the natural view from my window, plus knowing that this would be my new place, from now on, pretty much made up for all of the aforementioned though.
It's now 6 days later and I have found a way to at least get the fire started quite a lot quicker. I also got some ( slightly ) drier firewood from my twin sister yesterday and am trying to drink less tea and inhale fewer of the smoke.
All in all, I am managing to sleep a bit better, day after day.
It's always interesting to get to know a new place and I am a quick learner so onwards and upward.
Let me end this with a last picture of my now slightly messy living room ( with some washing, hanging out to dry and a sleeping bag, draped over the couch, next to the comfy chair.
It sure starts to feel like someone is living here and I'm happy that that someone is me ;<)
