Stepping back in time

Hi everyone,
I hope you've all recovered from reading my last post - it was a bit of a novel! Don't worry this one promises to be shorter.
Well between writing posts and actually getting the chance to send them things are getting a bit confusing but let's see what I can remember.
After I had finished writing my last post I was relocated to my new home. After spending the previous night in their daughter's room I significantly upgraded into Anita and Agnostiho's little holiday cottage in the village. While they live a few miles out of the village I'm staying next door to Agnostiho's mother and her donkey. Unfortunately the donkey isn't in great condition - it's awful to see it with its hooves overgrown, its back sagging and the animal just looking generally sorry for itself, I'm definitely going to be feeding it up a little if I can too.
Anyway, I arrived at my new digs late in the evening and with no other entertainment and an empty house I settled down for a night reading some Sherlock Holmes (so if my writing suddenly seems to turn more old fashioned that would be why).
I woke up a little early on Sunday since I still wasn't used to the time difference but after a bit of pottering around the house getting rid of old cobwebs I wandered down to the mother's bar in search of coffee and food. With that mission accomplished I waited for the others to arrive.....3 hours later. I'm sure they had said to meet at an earlier time but I've quickly learnt that time has little influence around here.
By this point it was meal time again so we sat down to soup then salad and a local speciality - salted white fish. I forget the name now but it comes from Norway and is dried with salt before being boiled up to eat.
With lunch over it was finally time to get to work. With me and Anita standing in the back of the trailer and the other two in the tractor we headed up onto the mountain (personally I'd categorise it as a big hill but apparently it's a mountain). The family have a piece of land there with a derelict house and plenty of bracken and trees to be harvested for goat food - which is what we spent the afternoon doing. We cut and hauled branches into the trailer for a good few hours before the trailer was full but even when we'd finished around 5.30pm it was still blazing hot. We had dinner at the bar again - more soup, salad and fritters made with the leftover fish - before I finally had the chance to get online (when I uploaded the previous post). It seems the only place with internet access is about 1.5km from the cottage at a cafe on the other side of the village, and it's only open for a few hours a day. Luckily though the local mayor was passing and offered to walk me there. She was pretty surprised to hear about my travelling but wished me luck for my next adventures and told me to speak to her if I need anything around here - didn't quite expect that that afternoon!
After getting my internet fix it was home time and a chance to catch up with Mr Holmes once more.
Monday started off much the same as the previous day although Anita and Kiara came to retrieve me a little earlier, so we could collect the fallen apples from the mother's garden - the goats love them like so many people like chocolate. I've never seen them move as quickly as when they saw what treat we had for them. We ate lunch at the house (provided by the mother of course) before doing getting back to business. The afternoon was spent watering the goats - or collecting water for the goats, personally I prefer the image conjured by the first version, unloading what remained of the food collected the day before and trying to get all the goats on a sugar-high by mixing molasses with some of the water. This was all followed by milking - something I am gradually getting better at - it doesn't take me quite so long to milk an individual animal now, although I couldn't match Anita or Agnostiho for speed. Once we'd finished it was back to the bar for dinner before parting ways and once again I spend my evening with Mr Holmes - I can see us becoming great friends soon...
This morning I was working to my own schedule. The others were busy so I took the opportunity to wander up from Figeuro (or however they spell the name of this little village) to Linhares Da Beira a little further up the mountain. I guess it was only about 2-3km away but in this heat it felt a good deal further away than that, and it didn't help how I had left my freshly filled water bottle on the table in the house! However I made it to the village with just enough time before dehydration set in and good a nice long drink at the local watering hole - and by that I mean an actual hole in the wall where the water comes out (originating from a spring up in the mountain), not the pub. I had a look around he village and found about 6 people, only one who looked to be anywhere under 70. A few chickens were wandering around but otherwise the place was fairly deserted.
I made my way to the castle and wandered around others for a short while but it was pretty small and you can only spend so much time wandering around it - I'm actually certain I've been in cathedrals bigger than that castle. However it was a nice little trip out and the view was pretty decent.
Finding no other signs of life I decided I might as well head back. The family figured they would be free around lunchtime so we were going to meet up for food. Anita called when I was about ten minutes from the house saying they could come get me so I had just enough time or a quick shower before lunch. We drove a little way down the road to a petrol station with a cheap restaurant and ate, while Agnostiho continued talking with the engineer they were meeting in the morning. After lunch I got dropped off back in the village with the idea that Anita would contact me when they wanted/needed to meet me again...and that was about three hours ago...oh well.
On a final note - this place really does make it feel like I've just stepped out of a time machine and landed at least 100 years in the past. Donkey carts are still used everywhere, today I saw a woman of at least 65 walking along with a sythe in one hand walking stick in the other and a basket on her head. The men spend their mornings sitting in the street watching the world pass them by and evenings are spent the same way with a few added games of hoop-la. The rural life here really hasn't changed at all.
Except for one place -the local cafe and giver of internet, which should be just opening now so you should actually  get to read this today.
I'll let you know more soon! Until next time,
Ciao