Vacation? Yeah, Right.

In one of my earlier blog posts, I mentioned that once we were back in Galicia, we would take some time for ourselves and explore the area a bit. Sounds ideal, right? Well… reality had other plans.

As soon as we arrived at the house, driving up from Porto in our rental car, we were shocked by how much everything had grown. The garden looked like a jungle. So, the very first thing we did? Mow the lawn. Not exactly what you’d call relaxing.

The house itself wasn’t in much better shape. It needed a serious clean-up. The windows were so filthy you could barely see outside. We suspect it’s due to the large forest fires that have been raging in the area recently—ashes and smoke don’t mix well with white walls and clear windows.

In the village, a special container had been placed for bulky or unusual waste. That was the perfect excuse to finally tackle the garage. I spent an entire day sorting through all the junk—and believe me, there was a lot. Fourteen trash bags later, we had finally cleared out old curtains, broken radios, lamps, batteries, and just about everything else you can imagine.

To bring some order to the chaos, we made a trip to Leroy Merlin in Ourense to buy some heavy-duty shelves and tools that I normally wouldn’t need back in the Netherlands. Think electric brush cutters and a reciprocating saw—stuff I didn’t even know I needed until now.

Yesterday was a full-on DIY day: assembling the shelves, organizing tools, giving everything a proper place. I hate having to search for things when I need them, so this was a big win. In the evening we saw a big fire about 35 Km from our house on the other site of the river. Let's hope the firemen wil get things under control.

Today, we drove to Lugo to buy a new TV, a coffee machine, and an iron—more essentials to make the place feel a bit more like home.

Tomorrow? We’ve promised ourselves we’ll do absolutely nothing. Let’s see if we actually manage to stick to that plan…