Tuesday, March 30, 2010 Villages everywhere reveal stories from long gone eras. The little village of Sevilha, in Portugal, was like a picture postcard. Stone walled orchards with olives and grapevines. Meadows, allotments and at the very centre the Ponti de Agua. A watercourse tumbling through the centre of the village cascading over wiers and through three old mill wheels that sit in disrepair. The village is quiet and the mill wheels long silenced.

We visited here a few times and one day late in the afternoon we witnessed a group of older men and women with sacks of vegetables on their heads trudging home from the gardens. It is easy to imagine the once thriving community life and the busyness of rural survival.

We went here on the Carnation Revolution Day which wikipedia states, 'was a left-leaning military coup started on 25 April 1974, in Lisbon Portugal, that effectively changed the Portuguese regime from an authoritarian dictatorship to a democracy after two years of a transitional period known as PREC (Processo Revolucionário Em Curso, or On-Going Revolutionary Process), characterized by social turmoil and power disputes between left- and right-wing political forces.' Men and women were carrying carnations symbolic of the revolutionaries in 1975 who did not use direct violence to achieve their goals and people joined the soldiers in the street with red carnations.

Flowers throughout the world have come to symbolise many things... the daffodils are out here now and remind me of the Cancer Council activities back home.

Thursday, March 11, 2010 To all of my Australian coast living friends...we are joined by the same body of water...

I stand on the shore of  the Atlantic Ocean and think of my sister, Julie. For years we always think of each other by the ocean when the moon is full rising over the horizon. We both live with views over the ocean, she in south NSW and me in Northern NSW. As soon as the moon would pop its head over the horizon and catch our attention one of us would call the other and say hi... knowing we were both being bathed by the light of the same moon.

It is a beautiful ritual that has been around for many years..

I had a bride and groom share the story of their meeting across the oceans... and they embellished it a bit with fancy... that as she was standing on the shores of the Canadian coast and he was at Bondi beach dipping his toes... they felt each other through the oceans and the ripples of the waves spoke to her to come to Australia... they fleshed the story out with tales of travelling across the waters and the journeys they had made and finished it the classic line..."and the rest is history".

Now there is the distance between my sister and I, I think of that story and our connection through the waves, the ripples, the ocean and the full moon. Create a full moon connection with someone you love!

Portugal Coast - Zambajeiro

Monday, March 08, 2010 We are based, for a few days, an hour out of the main town of Faro in southern Portugal. The area is sparsely populated out of the little towns. There are plenty of ruins and run down earth buildings alongside the renovated and barred whitewashed villa's... there are men riding small motorbikes along dirt lanes dodging the huge puddles and dogs, chickens and sheep roaming on the hillsides. One of the joyous sights is of the shepherds herding their flocks around the valleys and on the hills. This young man and his dog managed over fifty sheep and their lambs...and a major road crossing.

Thursday, March 04, 2010 Here we are in Portugal with the rain coming down sideways. We had a day off from the downpour so we took advantage of it and went to the local markets. Lots of market stalls with salted cod, salami's, fresh veggies, dried figs, apricots and nuts... and of course, olives and cheeses.