Portugal was a poor country with a hardworking people, who carefully took care of their resources. Families grew vegetables, harvested fruits & nuts. They were happy, had plenty of gold, no debts, but there was no freedom of speech.

Since the ECC became UE and Portugal, against warnings and the choice of the best EU-economies today (UK, Sweden, Poland) accepted the Euro, huge private and public debts became and still are a burden. Also public corporations, earlier running with a profit, with almost no debts, entered a spiral of debts and losses, mainly because politicians, not managers, got onto the board.

Portugal was a poor country with a hardworking people, who carefully took care of their resources. Families grew vegetables, harvested fruits and nuts. They were happy, had plenty of gold, but there was no freedom of speech.

My relationship with Portugal dates back to 1979. The country has potential to be one of the best in Europe. SMEs offer excellent service for reasonable costs. Our small vineyards, honey producers, cheese, all food stuff have almost no chems and saviors sea and sun. What is missing?

Portugal was a poor country with a hardworking people, who carefully took care of their resources. Families grew vegetables, harvested fruits and nuts. They were happy, had plenty of gold, but there was no freedom of speech.

We have in Portugal one of the best environments for fishing in a huge maritime economic zone, with great variety of species.

The repair of the Pego do Inferno waterfall and pool in the countryside near Tavira has not happened, despite talk, more talk and years of promises to restore this much loved tourist destination.

A new video on YouTube concludes that 'the site is not worth viisiting, holidaymakers would be better off heading to a beach.'

Such has been the sloth of the authorities which claim to have tourism as a priority, until they have to spend any money, that a petition has been set up stop the site falling into to further disrepair.

Portugal once was a poor country with a hardworking people who carefully took care of their resources. Families grew vegetables, harvested fruits and nuts. They were happy, had plenty of gold, but there was no freedom of speech.

We have in Portugal one of the best environments for tourism in nature, with 3,000 hours of sunshine every year,  a good balance between sun and rain, a huge variety of flora and fauna, and beautiful lagoons and lakes where migratory birds land.

CLICK HERE to read Part 1.

Second Homes - Portugal was a poor country with a hardworking people who carefully took care of their resources. Families grew vegetables, harvested fruits and nuts, rode bikes. They were happy, we had plenty of gold in the central bank, many had it in jewelry, but there was no freedom of speech.

We now have around 380,000 homes for sale/rent that are locked up. An investment of €40 billion. If this money went to SMEs to increase their competitiveness, we would be exporting twice as much and have almost no unemployment.

As we are all aware, 2015 is scheduled to be THE YEAR that oil and gas exploration in the Algarve South and West coasts really kicks off - and according to latest information, this will happen without any Environmental Impact Studies (EIA’s) taking place.

Firstly, thank you to all those of you who are continuing to sign and share the petition - we are now up to almost 6300 signatures on the online petition - which is a wonderful achievement - but let's keep going! The more people we can persuade to join the campaign the better.

CLICK HERE to read more....

Another cycle has ended, new ones yet to come... 2014 was an intensive and productive year at the Quinta do Vale da Lama farm. We are all very grateful to those who supported us in so many ways. As the African proverb says "It takes a village to raise a child", and Vale da Lama is being raised by all those active supporters, volunteers, partners, visitors, friends and neighbours that contribute to its healthy development.