There’s been a lot going on at Chumbaria this month. We had our first volunteers of the year, Caroline from California, Justin from the UK, Johanna from France, Katja from Germany and Andrew from Washington DC working hard. Ella and Solomon have also been helping out. Jobs have included dog walking, strimming, composting, creating wood chip pathways, setting up irrigation systems, tree planting, weeding, watering, bean harvesting, vegetable planting and clearing out a collapsed ruin. We were lucky enough to find an original bread oven in that ruin, which we’re going to give a go and see if it still works.
The builders have also been hard at work. The carpenters completed the rafters, beams and internal ceiling on one of the first buildings. They also sealed this off from the elements and it’s now ready for tiling. Holes have been made in the walls of both houses, for doors and windows. Some of the larger rocks that came out, will be used elsewhere in the village, for example around the swimming pool. All of the old render is now off both houses and the next phase is to finish all the woodwork, which means beams, rafters and internal ceiling on the second house ready for tiling. Also the installation of the mezzanine floors on both houses. Work is progressing well at the moment.
Also this month we launched our YouTube channel and so far have put 2 videos on there, introducing yourselves and taking a short tour of some of our land. We are currently working on the 3rd video which will be a tour of the village houses and a look at construction work so far. We’re amazed that we’ve had over 13,000 views and now have over 1,000 subscribers. Not bad in one month, for a little abandoned village in Central Portugal!
Since October last year we have also been filming for the 2nd series of ‘Help! We Bought a Village’, which should be going out on Channel 4 in the UK towards the end of the year. The first series is currently being repeated in the UK and is now showing in Spain, Canada and the US. Chumbaria has gone international!