Portuguese SAGAS – My fireplace

17^th of November 2018

Good afternoon everyone.

I have been writing in Icelandic on this blog for some time and some of you might be confused and not understanding a lot.

Here is one in English.

Portuguese sagas – my fireplace and some other thoughts on a Saturday afternoon in mid-November with greetings from my little land

Before I came to Portugal I had never, NEVER, been lighting up a fire. Truly, never.

My apartment here in the little land is cold and this winter even colder since no one is living upstairs, they moved to their new house are now trying to sell their apartment, so no heat from there. My neighbour downstairs is like he is and no heat from there. Indeed, I am warming up 3 apartments or so to speak and no wonder its cold in mine, I am in the middle.

Well, I need my fire and to have fire I need to light the fire and keep it going.

There is the problem.

I am not good at this, not at all.

I have been trying for 7 seven winters here in my little land. I had pines which I picked up from the pinewoods on my way to Viera da Leiria but now there are no pines there, the woods burned last year.

I have been trying to find pines in the supermarkets; I could buy them there last year.

No more pines in the supermarkets.

As you can see there is wood, normal wonderful wood and there is a fireplace

As you can see this is a huge problem and I am a bit ashamed of my lack of whatever it is that makes it easy to light a normal fire in a normal fireplace.

Now I have found a new wonderful gym in Condeixa and yesterday I was talking to my coach about my fire problem.

She knew what to do. She told me about some bricks I could buy in the supermarkets and I could use them in my fireplace while starting the fire.

I went to Intermarze, bought a bag or two and now one of them is in my living room next to the fire but the other one is in my car. No I’m not going to light a fire in the car. The bloody wood is so heavy and there are many steps up to my apartment and I could only carry one bag up yesterday. I was suffering with horrible pain in my shoulder until late in the night yesterday. As you know I am not that strong, not yet and these bags are heavy I can tell you that.

Here you can see the heavy ones in a bag and vola a fire in my wonderful fireplace

The miracle happened.

Now I have a fire as you can see and everything is warming up.

Wonderful!

By the way, I want to tell you about my new gym next to the supermarket above the pharmacy in Condeixa.

It is amazing.

It is new.

The people are all friendly and wonderful.

Many of my mates from Korpus are in this gym.

This gym is like a family more than a company, I mean the atmosphere, jus wonderful.

It takes about 18 minutes to drive from Penela and now the road is like a carpet, maintenance still going on but it will be amazing having this new road without deep holes jumping up and down, now it’s just gliding like an angel on a bright cloud going to Condeixa.

I found about the new gym just few weeks ago. I was in the supermarket, looking for pines, when a security guard who is my friend asked me what gym I did go to now.

I told him I was looking for something after my horrible experience in the gym in Espinahl.

He told me to go over to the new one and talk to them. I went there and vola, I was hooked and started few days later.

I have been going 3 times a week and not dying! Now I am going to be there 4 times a week. I have to admit that I am not lifting the same I did 2 years ago but even though 5 kilos are the maximum for the moment it will change. Patience is the word that is in my head like a Christmas song all the time, patience patience and slowly slowly. Ugh.

I have calculated that I have 7 kilos of fat embracing my organs and they have to go, I mean the kilos, not the organs.

When you see a picture of me you can see that I don´t look fat. No, the fat is inside and more dangerous than if it was outside.

I am 171 centimetre and 72 kilos. My god! Horrible!

So the fire is on, the gym is on, the singing is on and soon I will be able to lift 10 kilos, he he he.

Have a great day my friends.

Hulda Björnsdóttir