It was my first live auction and, despite being online, it was still very exciting.
Exciting enough for me to keep on asking my wife Ana if she was sure she didn’t want that far-too-small corner cupboard or the dining room table which she’d already dismissed as “not our style”.
We’re building an off-grid tourism lodge and are trying to find unique pieces of furniture and create our own interior decor.
We agreed to bid on a few bedside tables, a Chinese cabinet, a maybe-dresser, three leather camel seats and some candlesticks … oh, and a fruit machine.
The bidding started online a few days before for these items, along with an old, framed map of Portugal, a Japanese painting, some clay pots and a patio furniture set.
But a flurry of emails informed us we’d been outbid on pretty much all of them by the time the live auction began.
Being an Auction House in the Algarve, it’s a long way from us in the Alentejo, and so we opted for the live streaming option from home rather than being in the room.
The next four hours were spent watching the lots come and go, while learning phrases like “fair warning”, which was usually said before the gavel was finally swung.
It was addictive and fun and, thankfully, Ana in the most part protected me from myself.
We began with the very best of intentions, but when the final lot was sold and the fantasy world of the bidding bubble burst, we were the proud new owners of a box of brass candlesticks, two Thai coffee pots, a second-hand PVC window … and an Italian Job movie-themed fruit machine. What a bargain.
Candlesticks aside, flashing Minis and Michael Caine in full cockney are a must-have for any self-respecting Portuguese wine-themed eco-luxe lodge. Aren’t they?
Ana’s excitement over the gambling machine quickly faded when she realised it wasn’t a pinball machine … and then there was the small matter of transporting it from the Algarve.
Having checked it could be transported horizontally, I attached the trailer to the truck and Simon the dog and I headed to Faro for an adventure.
On arrival, the auctioneer overruled his colleague and advised we went vertical … with early 2000s electronics and no guarantee it would make it home in good working order.
A full hour of faffing later and the fruit machine was riding the Hilux like the gunner on a Somali Technical battle car – strapped upright to the cab – and the hardtop was bouncing around in the back of the trailer … along with the PVC window.
Avoiding motorways and low bridges, Simon and I slowly wound our way back up to the Alentejo and, despite a light shower, we all made it home in good working order.
As soon as Ana and I had managed to extract the thing from the truck and hauled it inside, Michael Caine started shouting about “it’s a big job, lads” and chastising us for doing more than blowing bloody doors off while lights flashed and ‘Rule, Britannia’ blared out of the back. Cor blimey. Take i’ fro’ me lads, ‘e aint arf laird.
Thankfully the sellers were thoughtful enough to include a bag of old one-pound coins and 50p pieces and, once again, we found ourselves spinning the wheel of fortune.
Please indulge me for extending the metaphor, but everything we’re doing here for our building project does feel like a bit of a gamble even though we’re still backing ourselves with reasonable odds of success.
The to-do list is so long it often paralyses me when I try and work out where to start.
I sometimes fall back on digging weeds out of the gravel, or pulling up tall and woody esteva rock rose plants (a fire risk best dealt with by uprooting when the soil is soaked) … simply to see progress and feel like I’m doing something.
There’s obviously a secret to getting everything in line – whether it be cherries or water infrastructure – but just like my new relationship with Michael Caine, it’s probably going to be a while before we hit the jackpot.
There are just so many tricks to learn: knowing when to go high when the odds say you should go low and guessing when to hold or what to nudge first.
The answer to that is the plumber, who still hasn’t replaced the 90-degree bends in all the water pipes coming out of the buildings.
Of course, the great thing about owning the keys to a fruit machine is you can’t lose … and that’s where the reel life/real life parallel ends.
We have a lot to lose – we’ve ploughed all our savings into this crazy/lovely off-grid project and it’s reaching a crucial stage.
According to our contract, the building should be finished this month, but amid additions and delays, our pursuit of fixed timelines has been brushed off with a nasty case of builder’s shrug.
I’ve been having recurring landslide nightmares, and while the heavy rain and our post-fire extreme bulldozer gardening to shore up our dam has actually caused some pretty dramatic landslips, it’s perhaps a deeper metaphor for our precarious project.
We don’t know when the PVC people will come and blow the bloody doors in and feel we have to nudge everything, everywhere, all at once, but we’re told it’ll be soon.
That’s when we’ll have volunteers to stay and help us paint, build a bit in wood and brick, help us landscape the place and move a load of gravel around.
If you have time over the next couple of months, strength and experience, do get in touch, we’ll put you up and provide free access to the fruit machine – once I’ve found the volume control. But as Michael Caine keeps telling me: “Cor blimey … it’s a big job.”
Alastair Leithead is a former BBC foreign correspondent now living off the grid in rural Alentejo. He writes the blog “Off-grid and Ignorant in Portugal” and is on Insta @vale_das_estrelas. To apply to volunteer at Vale das Estrelas, click here.
