Life in Gois The blog October

Life in Góis

November 29th
It is the end of November and we are having some weather! Having been lulled into a false sense of security by barely interrupted weeks of cloudless blue skies, it has come as a bit of a shock to the system to find out that we, too, can experience winter. Today we have had a bit of everything – we opened our curtains this morning to be greeted by a huge rainbow arcing over the valley below. Within a couple of minutes there was a flash of lightning and a crack of thunder, and then we were being pelted by hailstones – much to the delight of our youngest daughter who went out to dance in them! Later in the morning as we drove down to Góis we could see a faint sprinkling of snow on the triangular peak of the Peneda, and rumour has it that some flakes were even falling in Góis itself. It is at times like these that I am so grateful for our wood burning fireplace and all the radiators it runs to keep our house warm and comfortable. Many Portuguese homes do not possess a heating system of any kind – perhaps the climate was once warmer? Or maybe people just could not afford the luxury of keeping warm. I was amazed to learn that the old secondary school in Góis used to be unheated in the winter – having spent just two hours in the building for my Portuguese class the other day, I could not imagine how anyone could concentrate for long in such temperatures. What is more, our Portuguese teacher told us that many poorer children, such as her mother, went to school in bare feet even in the winter months. I shudder to think of such hardship, especially for children, for whom school was enough of an ordeal as it was. My problem is to convince my daughters that the temperature is close to freezing outside and that they should be wearing coats – they still don’t quite seem to believe that it actually does get cold in Portugal!

November 18th
If you have ever wondered how olive oil is extracted from those hard little fruits, a visit to an olive press (lagar) is a very interesting experience. Today we called in to the olive press of the Co-operative of Vila Nova do Ceira, which operates for just a few weeks of the year, when the local olives have been harvested. We saw how the olives were first cleaned, then crushed, before being whizzed around in a centrifuge to extract the oil for the first cold pressing. All the equipment looked gleaming, and the whole process seemed quick and efficient. Local people bring their olives to the press in sacks, boxes and plastic bags – the contents are weighed, and they receive back an equivalent amount of oil, less a percentage payment to the co-operative. But there was a time, not so long ago, when it was all perhaps a little less efficient, and a little more of a community experience. We were given the chance to slip round the back to see the old olive press, now cobwebby and unused, where the huge cast-iron hydraulic presses stand idle. There is a plan to refurbish this old press, and get it working again as a museum piece – a very worthwhile project in my opinion, since olives have played such an important part in the lives of the people in this region. We left the press with the tang of olives in our nostrils, clutching a 5-litre bottle of last year’s oil - very happy to have another local product to take home with us and enjoy.

November 13th
We are now almost at the middle of November, and still enjoying wonderful warm sunny days. Tonight is the full moon, and this morning when I rose at 7am, all that was visible out of my bedroom window was a huge round moon hanging in a sea of mist. Gradually the mist fell away and by 8am we were looking down on the clouds drifting down the valley, while our sky was a glorious blue. As the ground is now moist and autumnal, we have been finding some very interesting fungi growing in the woods and hedgerows, of all shapes, sizes and colours. At the same time, many trees are heavy with fruit, including oranges, tangerines, pomegranates and persimmons – the last left hanging like Christmas tree baubles as the leaves fall.
We have just finished our website pages for the freguesia of Vila Nova do Ceira, including a page of lovely stories about everyday village life from Maria Adelina, a blind woman who has lived in the region all her life (apart from her years at school in Lisbon). If you enjoy reading about how people used to live in the villages, you will love these!

November 3rd
It has given us a lot of pleasure these last couple of weeks, to watch the antics of the birds outside our office window as they enjoy stripping the seeds out of the old sunflowers (the same sunflowers that grew to such a stupendous height over the summer). The greenfinches in particular have a wonderful time squabbling over them, and can be very entertaining. Sometimes they are joined by coal-tits, and the occasional robin comes along to watch, but it is the greenfinches that have nearly completed the task of reducing the sunflower heads to empty husks.

November 2nd
When I met an elderly woman from our village walking down the hill on Friday, carrying a large bunch of yellow chrysanthemums, it prompted a memory of something I had read about All Souls Day. Everybody knows about Halloween and many people know about the Celtic festival of Samhain at this time of year, and I have heard something about the Mexican ‘Day of the Dead’, that presumably was an import from Spain. But I had not realised that here in Portugal, November 1st is also celebrated by families visiting the cemeteries and attending to the graves of their deceased relatives, clearing and cleaning them and covering them in fresh flowers, particularly yellow and white chrysanthemums ( a sacred flower originally in the Orient). We went down to the cemetery at the Igreja Matriz in Góis, where it was a hive of activity. The atmosphere was almost festive as families worked together to decorate the graves, and the effect of all the flowers certainly had an uplifting effect on what I usually find quite a dispiriting place. Perhaps the most interesting thing to observe was that on many of the ‘jazigos’ or family vaults, the door had been left open, with flowers or a candle in the entrance. In Britain we have lost the custom, if indeed we ever had it, of spending time with our dead. I was impressed and pleasantly surprised at how life-affirming an activity it seemed to be here.

After our visit to the cemetery we carried on down to the ‘Feira do Mel e Castanha’ (Honey and Chestnut Fair) that is held annually in Góis, as in many other places in Central Portugal where the chestnut tree has been such an important part of life. As the name suggests, the fair is a celebration of local produce, both food and crafts, and a great opportunity to sample the new wine, ‘jeropiga’ and ‘ginja’! I love the atmosphere at this fair, which is very much a local occasion, where people get together to enjoy the last big outdoor gathering before winter sets in. At the end of the afternoon, after the folkloric dancing, as the sun goes down and there is a definite chill in the air, pine needles are laid on the ground and lit for the ‘magusto’. This is the traditional chestnut roast, and when the chestnuts are done everybody dives in to collect their share, juggling hot chestnuts and trying not to burn their fingers. The custom then is to smear your neighbours with your blackened hands – it’s probably meant to bring good-luck, like kissing a chimney-sweep – in any case, it’s fun!

Unlocking the history of the Góis region

Updated 14 June, 2010