The sun is slowly but steadily moving towards the horizon, where it will disappear behind the eucalyptus ridden hills in front of our temporary garden.

In two hours it will get darkish and cold, once again.

One way or another ( I can think of many reasons ), 10 days have passed since my last post.

She did well.In that week, my family from the Netherlands has visited ( they stayed for a week ) and Clare and I have spent a lot of time with them. It was the first time @clareartista met my mom and my younger sister ( and her family ).

The week was super intense but also, mostly, pretty fun. We went on a bunch of outings, mainly to spend time with members of my family individually ( I have 3 siblings ).

We split up in smaller groups, as hanging out with the 16 of us (which includes my 6 nieces and nephews, of which 2 babies ) was a bit much.

At the same time, Clare and my minds were already someplace else, as we are moving back to Italy soon, in less than a week.

In fact, we will take a bus to Lisbon on Sunday morning. From there on we will take a night bus to Barcelona and then a ferry to Italy, the next day. All in all it will be a 4 day trip. A genuine adventure.

The last couple of days, we have been focused on gathering our things and cleaning out the rental house that we've had a love-hate relationship with in the almost 3 months we spent here together.

sheep grazing on the land underneath our house, Saturday afternoon

After spending weeks in a tent and then 5 days in an airbnb ( when my family was here ), we had to move out of our tent and back into our rental house ( due to heavy rain ) and then got almost smoked out by the house's wood burner, once again, last night.

One thing is for sure, we are ready to move on.
Only 6 more nights to go...

There is so much more I could share but I am slightly high on caffeine today ( and not much used to that anymore, as I basically stopped drinking coffee 4 months ago, after my arrival in Italy at Clare's ) and I am feeling too restless.

My head is spinning like our washing machine...

Right now, Clare is reading a book in bath and I am writing this from the stone steps in our garden. I am looking forward to going on a little walk in the remaining sunshine soonish. We have the best talks when we walk. In fact, I believe conversations automatically become easier and more natural, when walking. We have great talks all the time but when we walk and hold hands, we reach new heights of communication.

Tomorrow, the two of us will take out loads of trash,including most of my DVD's and VHS tapes and other stuff I decided to get rid off, as it's my past and it does not serve me any longer.

In all honesty, most of it is too dark to keep or to pass on to others ( mostly horror movies and horror books ).

Clare made me aware of that recently and I have felt it myself for quite some time. There is too much darkness in the world and it is all coming to the light right now ( no matter how much the evil rulers try to suppress/avoid it ). It's time to stop embracing the darkness ourselves, the so called 'entertainment' that clouds our minds and makes us think that that stuff is normal. It's not. It's insane.

Believe me when I say that the two of us are definitely not ignoring the darker themes. Far from that. But that doesn't stop me to let go of what I used to like/enjoy in the past. The new me is different. Vincent 2.0 is an entirely different person, a better man.

It's time to throw out, bury or burn the past...

I actually burnt a bunch of books in the wood burner yesterday ( including 'Lolita', in Spanish ) and although this might have caused our respiratory issues in the night, it feels good to let go of all the so called 'literature' that doesn't serve a purpose any longer.

Here I am burning 'The Psychology of Persuasion', one of the many books that I read in the past, in an attempt to turn into the type of person I don't want to be...

It's not always easy to let go of the past but it's worth the hassle.

Now let me end this on a positive note with a couple of (family) photos, taken last week:

Me playing soccer

...with my nephew, on his 11th bday ( January the 1st )

Clare later joined us and we had a ball.

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And here's a pic of my mom, seen from the back, in my twin sister's garden. This was the first time sicne 2019 that she visited us in Portugal. Back then, my dad was still around so it must have been nostalgic for her...

Clare, my mom and I enjoying a game of multi language scrabble...

And two more pics of us, smiling at each other...

Keep smiling and keep loving. The world can use more of that.