Weather: 16C and clear. Beautiful morning and very typical of this time of day in the Algarve.
I just spent an hour on the balcony reading and hearing the monotonous tones of a weed whacker in the distance. This is spring in Portugal and time to trim last fall and winter weed growth. Lawn mowers are not popular here because the grass leaves bend over as they grow and form a kind of green tuff close to the ground.
As the palms get too overgrown workers slice off the lower leaves leaving a bare patch on the tree that eventually recovers to brown hatch.
We took a drive around Rocha Brava a few days ago. We stayed there for 5 years before moving to Monte Santo. As usual workers are ripping up and replacing small sections of tired sidewalk, bushes, etc. to keep the place looking fresh. These resorts are large in area and take a lot of maintenance. Rocha Brava is 52 acres and Monte Santo must be 35 acres.
With the constant sun exposure buildings must be repainted regularly (mostly white although light colours are increasing popular). Exterior paint is sold by 20 litre pails instead of four litres.
Houses: During our first visit (you can find old posts from 2008 on the title page) the economy was booming and construction cranes were everywhere. When we returned in 2009 the Algarve was like a ghost town and cranes and construction had suddenly come to a halt. In the attached picture is a typical house crane. It looks huge in the picture but in reality it's only about 70' high and is ground controlled. It's there to assist in the building of 3 large holiday homes right next to the resort. That is common practice here because the homes are built out of clay or concrete block and concrete; not wood. In fact some of the older resorts still have private homes and grounds in the middle of the resort because the resort bought the property around them. At Rocha Brava one these old holiday homes was recently torn down and a luxury replacement was built.
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