One thing I really love about living in my little village of Vinhó is the vans and trucks which pass through selling fresh produce. This isn’t a typical event in the U.K and reminds me of when we used to get milk delivered to our doorstep and occasionally we would also order other items. I just love buying from these vans, it’s so much nicer than popping to Tesco Express like we used to do in the U.K as our local bakery in Redland closed down and was made into apartments! The bread van is my absolute favourite and passes through daily. You know when it’s coming as they excessively beep their horn and all the different vans have a different tune and sound. It took us months to figure out which days and times the different vans come on but we have now sussed it out and have established that we have the following: Bread/rolls and cake van, fruit and veg truck (it’s huge) and a fish van. It’s so handy as we do a monthly food shop so always need to replenish fresh bread, fruit and veg during the week. We are growing a lot of our own veggies now so really we only need bread, fruit and eggs.

It’s so handy as living in such a remote rural village the nearest shops are a 10 min drive each way. We do have a cafe which has a small store that sells produce but it’s up the top of the really steep heart attack hill. I would much rather buy from the food vans. It was such a help when we were on lock down as we didn’t want to leave the house and venture to a supermarket with crowds of people. The lady today did not speak English so this was a great opportunity for us to try our Portuguese language. Not sure she understood us very well, there was a bit of pointing and the other lady in the queue said something in Portuguese and laughed (ha ha). I really love queueing up with all the locals. Most of the ladies in our village wear a tabard and for some reason carry a bucket, sometimes with a cabbage or two in it. I am definitely going to have to get a tabard with huge pockets to stash all my Portuguese cakes (ha ha).

Just look at this epic fresh bread and Bolo de Arroz we just bought. My mouth is watering! A well deserved treat after a day of manual labour in the garden. It also seems to taste better than the supermarket produce, I don’t know why. The bakeries here are amazing and I have never seen so many different types of bread on display. I had better get out in the garden for Renovation chicken coop stage 2, it’s gonna be so hot today!