You’ve met Anja and Micha in many of my posts, but it’s about time you got to know them better as they are awesome friends and travel buddies. Their campervan/home is legendary too – it’s an old banking bus. In the “olden days” (as in 10-20 years ago, sigh), the bus would go to bank-less towns so people could do mobile banking. Who needs internet banking when you could have this?

We met Anja and Micha about 5 years ago when we first started coming to Portugal and they haven’t been able to get rid of us since. You can run and you can hide (or in this case, you can drive and you can drive), but you can never be sure that we won’t be parked right next to you when you wake up in the morning…

Anja and Micha are major travellers and even had a campervan with a bath in it! Now that’s what I call AWESOME. Other than removing Joerg’s half of the bed (which I still think is an acceptable solution), I can’t find a spot for one in our van. They also spent a year travelling with 4 troubled teenage boys as part of a social project. Chapeau. I find travelling with just one husband a major achievement…just kidding darling hubby!

Anja and Micha came to stay with us in France on two occasions and Micha led the way in completely ripping out the inside of the campervan and then in putting it all back together again as we wanted it. There aren’t enough ways to say THANK YOU for the enormous help he provided. And his innovative building skills are still helping to improve our new home.

Anja is a great cook and has made us many a delicious meal. Her cabbage salad is legendary (I’ll post the recipe after this post) as are many of her other dishes. She writes a travel and cooking blog ( www.reisenundspeisen.com ) and even if you can’t speak German the photos are superb. (Or come to us for German lessons, hee hee!) AND she buys me chips (crisps) – the sign of a true friend in my world!

She showed me what wild asparagus looks like in the wild and which of the pretty flowers you can eat or best leave alone. You tend to find the 4 of us in the woods, arms scratched by asparagus thorns and cacti plants, searching for every last asparagus shoot. It’s quite addictive and I find myself saying “just one more” over and over again. We are The Asparagus Junkies of Portugal. Our next meeting takes place in the pine forest behind Quarteira…bring gloves.

Micha just had a round birthday and we were lucky to be able to celebrate it with them and Steffi and Olaf who you met in a previous post. Anja baked 2 deevine cakes for the birthday bash and I shall endeavour to get the recipes from her for you asap. I asked to be allowed to cook for the party and will be sharing those recipes with you too, so keep coming back here!!

We are delighted to have Anja and Micha as friends and look forward to continuing our wonderful friendship over the next 50or so years. Hugs and kisses to both of you Cxxx