“My grandmother used to say, ‘Into everyone’s life a little rain must fall – rain, assholes, and assorted bullshit.’ I’m paraphrasing. But she was right. We all get our share of tragedy or insanity or drama, but what we do with that horror is what makes all the difference.” 
– Jenny Lawson

It is difficult for me not to crawl into the same dark hole every time I run into a stone wall here in Portugal. Dizzy and disoriented, it tends to take me a while before I can step back and figure out how to get to the other side. Sometimes it is easy to see that the way forward is either over or around. But sometimes it takes a while to gather my bearings and find a way forward. That is usually when I revert back to old comforts and behaviours. Cussing along the way as I berate myself for my choices, blame others and pity myself.

I’ve started the process of exchanging my South African driver’s licence for a Portuguese one in January, and despite the fact that I thought it was the one process that would be straight forward, it turned out not to be. I tend to fool proof these bureaucratic processes by getting a professional who works with this all the time to help. The document I had to get from South Africa to confirm the validity of my driver’s licence could be applied for online, but had to be picked up from their offices. I contacted the company who helped me with all my documents in 2020. They asked if the document need to be apostilled, and when I contacted the person helping me in Portugal with the process, the answer was no.

The day after I received the document via courier, I received an email stating that the licencing authority is requesting the document to be apostilled, and also wants me to prove my identity, as South African driver’s licences only contain one’s initials and not full name.

That was the point at which I started to unravel at the edges. I am not someone who like to live my life in a chaotic mess. I plan, and organise, and anticipate, and get professional help.

The weather worsened my mood. Grey and cold, with more snow falling on the Serra da Estrela than the whole of winter, and rain that came down in big drops or a misty drizzle for the first three weeks to accumulate 200 mm for the month.

I couriered the South African document back to South Africa to get it apostilled, and when I eventually managed to get through to the South African embassy in Lisbon I was met with kindness and swift support. It did mean that I had to make a trip to Lisbon to pick up the document stating my identity. I did make the best of it by visiting a favourite pastry shop in Lisbon, and spending the night in Sintra after visiting the National Palace in town, to which I haven’t been to before.

The extra documents were resubmitted and accepted, and a date scheduled to physically go to the office to submit the original documents and take photos. With my track record I am too nervous to be optimistic at this point, but it should be a mere formality before I hold my new driver’s license in my hand. At least, now that I’ve overcome the initial obstacles, a weight has been lifted, and the world, once again, looks and feels kinder.

A Special Memory or Moment of Joy:
Michael’s visits always entail a lot of work being done on the quinta (which is the case currently and the reason for publishing this late), but the first two evenings of his April visit have been what I would term perfect weather for sitting around a campfire watching the sky colour and darken, and the stars brighten with just a sliver of a moon slowly setting in the west.

Notes:
# Two days before I had to leave for Madrid to pick Michael up, I received a call from Matthias to ask if he could come around to prune the olive trees. Of course, my answer was yes, as I am always keen to get these tasks done. It did mean that the day before leaving I had to, despite other chores, including driving to Castelo Branco to pick up the couriered document, start the process of dragging the branches and cuttings to the two fire pits where I burn them for biochar. It is a chore I detest, so I am always keen to get it done as quickly as possible.

Unknown facts or quirks about Portugal:
Dealing with the bureaucracy or sometimes just life in general in Portugal is like trying to get a grip on the language, and the verbs in particular. The great thing about the various conjugations a verb takes on is that it gives you an incredible amount of information like who is doing the action (you, her, they, etc.), the level of formality between you and that person, when the action takes place (past, present, future, etc.), the level of certainty, and oh, I almost forgot, the action itself. That leaves you with more than 50 different conjugations for each verb, and depending on if it is a regular or irregular verb, many of those sound like completely different words.

Written by: Jolandi