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Joana sharing her love for her job and the countryside

Pure Portugal – What I love about this job

I have joined the Pure Portugal Team in june 2015. The job wasn’t completely new to me as in the past 8 years I was helping my father with his business of Buying & Selling Properties. During that time I gained experience dealing with clients, some knowledge regarding the property buying & selling process, and an overview of the business.
During those years I also become passionate about rural properties, the potential of old houses and all those amazing abandoned farms … and knowing that we were actually helping lots of people to find fantastic places, great opportunities and helping them start the process of living their dream.
That is exactly what Pure Portugal is about!

What I love about this job? Well, Pure Portugal is so dynamic, pro-active and supportive. I love the way we work as a Team. Despite the fact that we are all working from home the team works realy closely together (a few gatherings a month at Quinta dos Covões, Skype calls and lots of messenger, emails and whatsapp). Together we find new solutions, new ways of improving things, the ways we work, and the interactions between us and the public. I like that what we promote is our love for Portugal, the sense of community and the life-style we have or aim to have ourselves. I believe in what we do, and that we do our best to help people in their process of Living the Good Life in Portugal. Not only do we help the “buyers”, we also help the “sellers”. It is such a great feeling when a house is sold! We know we have helped a seller to “move on” – and we helped someone finding their place.

If we understand our clients, it’s half-way to being hepful. Right? I am a “Nature Person”. I couldn’t live without nature around me, I love the mountains, the forests, the countryside life, and rural living. I am also interested in natural building, organic agriculture and permaculture, farming, and it’s a fact that the major part of the Pure Portugal community have the same interests. I have also been a property hunter, a buyer, a seller, and a buyer again… so I know the process and what issues and difficulties people can expect, what things they should be aware of when they are looking and buying.

What else do I do?
I am mother of two boys and 2 years ago we finally left a rental apartment to move onto our very own smallholding. I was born in the city but I moved to the countryside with my family when I was a child. I went back to the city to study for a few years and then – not being able to fit in as an urban person in my own hometown (and I love my beautiful hometown by the way – Porto!) I was missing the clean, pure, fresh air and the green grass and the wild flowers, singing with the wind and running down a mountain like a goat (and with the goats actually!)… I realised I couldn’t live without it and that all I wanted  was to be a farmer. So, I “kidnapped” my partner and we moved to a rented farmhouse and got ourselves into a tractor operator course (yes!… but only because it was the only agricultural course available at the time and we needed to start somewhere right?). Motherhood came I was a stay-at-home mom for a few years while helping my father with his property buying & selling business, making some design work as freelancer, illustration, painted music-boxes for children and also children rooms wall painting! Later I also joined my husband on his job and became a gardener.

Pure Portugal came into my life more or less at the same time that we finally found our little corner!!!
Now we live in this amazing place between 3 districts of central Portugal, on the south Mondego (river) banks.
Our little house stands on top of a huge rock from where we can see the Serra do Caramulo (mountains) and Serra da Estrela (mountains). There’s always a lot of work to do, especially with the house renovations, but also outside…

Unfortunately, our land was hit by the October fires from 3 fronts. 3 fires – each one coming at the same time from the 3 districts. Our landscape is now black, almost all of our trees are dead. Luckily the stone house is still standing and so are we.  The fire was one step back, but we are not defeated. I have laid down my roots in these mountains and I am here to stay, with faith in the future and in the force of Mother Nature and its course.

I really just want to live a quiet life, making efforts to become more self-sufficient and enjoy my family and this place as much as possible. Though, we may have some projects for our farm already cooking in a pot!

Other Passions: Photography; drawing & painting;…

My idea of happiness is (in a simplistic way): The endless green pastures; Wise old forests; The sound of the herd’s bells. Children’s laughter and sun on my face.

Thank you for reading!

Emailjoana@pureportugal.co.uk
Instagramwww.instagram.com/janita_ju
Personal blog – A Terra do Arco-Iris – Tapados da Fonte Velha – aterradoarcoiris.blogspot.pt

Looking forward to hear from you!

 

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