Butterbean's travels at home (Spain) and abroad: Part 2

(I started the previous blog and this one at about the same time and accidentally doubled up a bit, so you're getting a rather convoluted and mashed up depiction of her travels over my pregnancy...)

My Mum and Dad visited us in Madrid in April and then met up with us in Corsica. This was Butterbean’s first taste of travel, and one that she would revisit many times over. As explained before, within a month we had a quick flit to the Big Apple where we behaved like the quintessential tourists - albeit sans cocktails or buying in-season clothes on Rodeo Drive for me!



Enjoying a tapas bar in Madrid



We had a very memorable lunch at this eccentric man's property in Corsica. His name is Pierre and he is one of a dying breed of men who are real-life characters. He lives in the middle of nowhere, yet has a defibrillator next to the door... maybe for guests??

We went for a very blustery, windy, snowy walk after our meal at Chez Pierre...

Horse riding in the rugged countryside of Corsica was stunning!



Before and throughout my pregnancy I had the good fortune to work as an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teacher with both Berlitz and The Bradford School of English, plus a couple of private students. The teaching year ended for me at the end of June, 2013, however Thomas had a couple of weeks of work to go before his resignation from CEPSA took effect. So, we asked ourselves, what shall we do with Jenn for 10 days? Since neither of us had been to Lisbon before we decided that would be a sterling time to visit – time to scope out the place, consider somewhere we might live, learn some Portuguese, be a tourist, and generally take a relaxing break.

And so it was that, at 5 months pregnant, Butterbean and I headed off to explore some of the highlights of Lisbon. (Unfortunately all bar one of my photos were inadvertently erased when a mobile phone store employee ‘restored’ my phone, so you’ll just have to imagine the sights.) We duly did all of the touristy things: rode on tram 28, visited the Pena Palace and the Moorish Castle ruins in Sintra, (although fatigue prevented me from the scaling of some of the stairs!), got thoroughly lost many times in the beautiful old part of Lisbon, and took the train (comboio) to Cascais – where we now live. Butterbean and I enjoyed the beach, explored the beautiful old part of Cascais, and sampled some of the most delicious ice-cream ever at Santini’s.

                      Moorish Castle ruins, Sintra

Pena Palacio, Sintra

One of the turrets at Pena Palacio

July saw Thomas and I spend 10 days in Avila at a silent meditation retreat, which was really rather full-on. Over 10 hours of meditation per day, a strict vegan diet, complete segregation of men and women, and an evening dissertation by the man who brought Vipassana Meditation back into contemporary society – all in complete silence – was a very intense experience. Butterbean was silent throughout the whole thing, although I do fancy I felt some ‘fluttering’ (the first attempts at kicks) while we were there. I didn’t pay it much heed as my mind was completely focussed on being blank - with varying levels of success. In truth, it was really rewarding for both Thomas and me… he, being an old student thanks to having completed two of these in the past, was able to work in the kitchen, which meant that we came away having had very different experiences indeed.

By September, we had enrolled in a course on Permaculture design, to be conducted near Gloucester, England. It’s a fascinating topic…here's some more info if your curiosity has been whetted: Permaculture Principles (English) and Les Principes de la Permaculture (Français). We spent two wonderful weeks there, soaking up all sorts of knowledge from a master Permaculturalist, Patrick Whitefield, and some of his contemporaries, that we intend to apply to our life post-corporate rat-race… you’ll hear more about that in future posts! I celebrated my 33^rd birthday there, which was a very special affair that involved the hugest chocolate cake I’ve ever seen.

By this stage I was 6-and-a-half months pregnant, and definitely starting to feel kicks. We were walking up hill and down dale as we explored the agriculture in the area, with Butterbean and me always bringing up the rear!

Picking organically grown apples (me in grey jeans)

Our final voyage before the Big Move (to Portugal) was to Montignac in order to see a potential piece of land on which to build (again, look for future blogs on that!), which we did from Sat 21^st September until Tuesday 24^th. The search ended up being fruitless, but it was a lovely area to see and a nice break before our lives were turned upside down again. As you can see, I was looking fully 7 months pregnant:

By this stage we had packed up our belongings in Madrid, tidied up loose ends, and were ready for the packers to come on the 27^th…