Posts

Showing posts from December, 2009

Christmas!

This has been an unusual Christmas with rain and winds. Normally our family goes on a jingle bell ride on Christmas Eve on the horse-drawn carriages in the morning. This is the first year in at least 10 years that we had to cancel due to weather conditions. The rain is so unpredictable, and the weather reports keep changing a few times a day, making it nearly impossible to plan anything ahead. I print a weather report and post it on the bulletin board of the little internet hut every so many days - now I do it daily and it still is not so certain. There are a couple of sites I use to check the weather, one that I have previously mentioned is Accuweather http://www.accuweather.com/world-forecast-15day.asp?partner=accuweather&trave - and the other that is more detailed the WindGuru, a weather site for the surfers http://www.windguru.com/pt/index.php?sc=14481 . This site is great to check the amount of rain fall and the hour of day the rain falls. In any case, for the next

Winter Weather

Image
Traditionally winter in our area is the rainy season. Say what they may about climate change, the traditional rain is here. It comes and goes. When it is not raining, it is absolutely wonderful - the colors are clear and sharp and the winter flowers come on strongly. After the rain, there is a light mist risin g from the forest for awhile though , resembling smoke. The trees are loosing their last leaves and and there is a lot of gray in our view. It is one of those times that can get one really excited about the scenery and photography. The other day when I was taking these pictures, some clients were surprised that after livng in Sintra for over 20 years I still find it fascinating enough to take pictures! But when it is a day without rain, it is a nice season - still lots to do. We just had an English family visiting that spent some wonderful days here: visiting museums and monuments on the rainy days, taking surfing lessons on the clear days, followed by a massage in the lat

Concertos de Natal

Since Nov 14th, there are free Christmas Concerts all over the municipality. Mostly they are in churches, On Saturday and Sunday afternoons; different amateur choirs singing traditional Portuguese and international Christmas musics. This weekend I attended the one closest to home: a children's choir singing at the church of S. Martinho in the Historical Center. They started a few minutes late. I was impressed by the diversity of the children's ages - the youngest must have been 4 years old, and the oldest about 14! They were accompanied by a man playing the guitar, one of the older children the piano - and the rest of the children different percussion instruments. There was not a lot of harmonizing going on, and some of the voices of the children were not well heard in the beautiful, old church. But there were other things. There was enthusiasm by the choir director and the parents in the audience; there were tourists peeking in at the door in the middle of the program,