Matt & Jo Roadnight moved to Portugal in 2007 with their 2 daughters, Emily and Olivia. They live on a farm “Quinta do Vale de Ferreiro” in central Portugal in the district of Tabua. They have a number of holiday cottages and a business making English style sausages, bacon and hams. They took some time out of their busy schedule to share their Expat experience with Hey Portugal Magazine (This article appeared in Edition 3).

Why did you decide to move out of UK?

We wanted a better future for our girls. England looked like it was going down the tube and we always planned to move abroad. Matt and I travelled all over the world when we were younger and knew that England was not the place we wanted to spend the rest of our lives in; we don’t like the lack of respect, manners etc and it got to the time when Emily would be starting school soon and we thought it was time to start a new life in another country.

Why did you decide to move to Portugal?

Actually Portugal was our back up plan as we actually wanted to move to New Zealand but couldn’t get the Visa we wanted. So we came to Northern Portugal for a holiday and fell in love with the country and its people. We then spent several months on the internet looking at locations, properties etc, and then Matt and I came over alone to look at properties.

How long have you been in Portugal?

3 years now, we moved here in December 2007.

What is your favourite Portuguese food?

Leitão, (milk fed suckling pig) yum yum!

I would say you need to rent a property before buying, spend some time in the area and looking around. We made the mistake of buying too big, we should have bought a smaller place, but you can get carried away with how much you can get for your money in Portugal.

What do you miss about the UK?

Take away food, we lived in Brighton and could get everything delivered to our door. I miss that as I have to cook here.

We found our farm and fell in love with it. Our neighbours were English so we felt they could help us when we first moved to the area and it wasn’t too far from a city for big shops etc. The people were very welcoming.

Do you have any regrets?

None, we don’t ever want to go back to England.

Did you make any mistakes?

Yes our property is too big, we should have rented first and then we would have bought somewhere smaller.

How do you spend a typical day here? Once we have got the girls to school, then we either:

Go to the butcher to pick up meat and make sausages all day or work on the land, collecting and chopping wood, strimming the land to keep it tidy, repairing fences, looking after the chickens, getting the houses ready to let.

In fact I don’t think we have a typical day as we have the farm to look after, the sausage business so we are making sausages, bacon and hams, packing them and selling them at various markets etc, and we also have the holiday lets.

No we didn’t need finance, but we are looking at grants for rural business and hope to qualify for one. It has been hard to find out where we could get help but that is mainly a lan­guage barrier

What would you do differ­ent if you were starting a business now?

I would buy a smaller farm and concentrate on just one business which would be the sausages.

What one bit of advice would you give to someone else setting up a business here?

Prepare before you arrive, re-train if neces­sary and learn the language.

What did you do as a job in UK?

I was a training consultant and Matt was a house husband looking after the children and going to college.

What do you like to do when you get a day off?

Sleep!!! We also like to take the girls swimming in river Avo in the summer and meet lots of friends for a relaxing day swimming and playing in the water.

Anything else that you want to include that might be relevant:

We prepared well for coming here, both of us re-trained, I did my TEFL, teaching English as a foreign language, and Matt did his butchery courses along with animal husbandry and woodland management. Lots of people we meet don’t seem to think about working here or how they might earn a living and unless you are retired it is something you really need to think about. We have seen people go back to the UK because they can’t earn enough to live on. I also think you need a strong relationship as you can be really isolated, especially in the winter months and we have again seen a lot of people struggle because of this.

Matt and Jo Roadnight

www.sausagesportugal.com