A great night’s sleep. I wasn’t even bothered by the music from the youths in cars at the other end of the carpark. They only stayed half an hour, and all was peace and quiet afterwards. As you already know we can see the Serra da Estrela mountains from CasaBo, and today we are going to go on a two-day visit to have a bit of a wander in the mountain range.
We are only an hour or so away from our first stopping point, which is the village of Unhais da Serra, where we discover our new Portugese friends Nuno and Vanessa and their gorgeous son Benjamin have parked their van too. We first met them in Penha Garcia on our first night at the memorably noisy football pitch. We just connected and they typify what we have found generally. They speak fantastic English, they will do anything to help if they can and they are very relaxed about life.
We have a similar view of the Universe in that everything is good and will go the way in which you think. The first people we see as we drive into the river beach area are of course Nuno and Vanessa with Benjamin in tow. They had recommended this spot, and they were absolutely right. This is beautiful, right by the spring with a café, toilet, chemical waste, shower, barbecue area, and nice sized spaces. Unsurprisingly it is busy (for Portugal), but there are a couple of spaces so we park up, and go for a swim in the river. This is just so refreshing.
When we get out there is a WhatsApp message from Liliana, our lawyer. She is asking when we will send the money for the purchase of CasaBo into their client account. Well, this one came out of the blue. We didn’t realise that we were the hold-up. The money isn’t all in one place at this moment in time, so we need to get onto this straight away.
Computers and phones out and off we go. Firstly, speak to Ben at Spartan FX to organise the currency transfer and then do a test transfer. There is a problem. We try a different account. There is still a problem. Then we try HSBC, and it goes through no problem. By the time we have got to HSBC I am doing the magic trick first taught to me by Andy Dooley. Just visualise the moment after the payment goes through. Make it real and fill it with emotion. This technique has worked for me with lost keys, lost passports and now troublesome bank transfers. Visualisation done and the money goes through.
Now we just have to work out how to find the shortfall as it will be another week or so before we can transfer our savings into our current account. We go through our finances and lo and behold we do have just enough and start to divert it all into the HSBC account. We are only allowed to transfer so much at a time, so we will not have the full transfer ready for Tuesday.
Having sorted out the money we ask the all-important question. When are we likely to complete with signatures at the notary? We are blown away when the answer comes back to us that if everything goes to plan, it could be before we leave Portugal at the end of August. (Until we get a long-stay visa, we are only allowed to stay in Europe for 90 in every 180 days.) Wow, we could actually own our own piece of land by the time we get back to England! Remarkable. I love being an ‘IPPIE’ – the nickname for people who live by and train others in the Infinite Possibilities life approach as explained by Mike Dooley!