A Gift: Fresh Goat's Cheese

While I was having a shower this morning there was a loud knock outside and Hanne Lene answered it. It was our "landlord" for the week, Frank, who arrived bearing a plastic bag as a present for us. It contained a fresh goats cheese wrapped in leaves: one of a couple which his neighbour had just given him.
Buying food in the shops here is tricky and the Azoreans haven't really adapted to tourism all that much; which is both refreshing and sometimes a little awkward. The shops often don't have signs out and you may have difficulty finding them. All the locals already know where they are of course. And vegetables are often in short supply or unavailable in the shops because most of the islanders either grow their own or barter.
So the present was particularly welcome.

We ended up having a long chat with Frank who moved here from Germany about 28 years ago. He lived in a tent and built this little wooden house and later the house that he and Christina live in. He is a very practical and inventive man. He pointed out that wooden houses are especially comfortable and practical in a humid climate such as this. In his own modern house, they had a problem with mould forming on their shoes after a few weeks. He has solved this problem by constructing a special shoe cabinet with a timer and lightbulbs. The timer switches the lights on and off periodically producing enough warmth and light to keep the shoes fresh. This is the sort of stuff that amazes and impresses me.