Emma's House in Portugal | a blog about buying a ruin, building a...

18 000 kms away, I’m woken up by a call from my sister to tell me a friend in Portugal says I should check on my house because it’s in the path of huge fires. It’s 10.30am on Sunday 18th June. I open my laptop and while downloading my emails I check...

I always wanted a chihuahua that I could call chewy, as in chewbacca. A big name for a small dog. But when my neighbours turned up on my doorstep one morning carrying a hairy little two-toned brown puppy I knew that he was my dog. My wookie.
He was far too young to be taken from his mother at that stage. I sent him back to his ugly white hairy sausage-like mother and multiple wiry siblings while I waited for him to grow up. But then the funniest thing started happening....

I often get asked to rustle up an itinerary for bright people who have chosen Portugal as their holiday destination, as many expats do I’m sure. It’s like putting together a degustation of dishes, some standards well done, some wildcards. It requires...

How much you have to spend will be the main driver on this question, because naturally, the more you have the more choice there is. I’m certainly not saying that you want to live where the property is the most expensive – hell no – quite probably the...