(Cathy and Tommie: It's not a new picture. Jonesy has the camera)Cathy and I have been practising our 21st century communication skills. She sits downstairs scanning her emails and the internet on her laptop while I’m on the desktop upstairs. The router is happy to accommodate us both. Each time she gets a pertinent email or comes across an interesting item on the web, she emails it to me. I return the favour.
Similarly, anything she needs printing sails up here electronically and sails down again on sheets of paper. We find the system works well. One thinks back to the old days when one actually had to walk up and down stairs to perform such exchanges. In due course, no doubt, if we are not all frizzled up by global warming or laid low by bird flu, we shall find our legs shrivelled up and useless. (I have a picture in my mind of a little green baddie with a big head who used to perch on a hovering cushion in the Dan Dare comics of my youth.)
I was sitting at the computer on Sunday morning, not dressed for company, when I heard a car draw up at the gate and the dogs starting barking. A peep through the window revealed a Portuguese neighbour. I tried to pull on my jeans over long undies and a t-shirt but they stuck fast on my shoes. After a five-minute tussle I managed yank them off and went down to meet the driver. He seemed to think that I was within the limits of estrangeiro eccentricity.
He was clutching a sheaf of documents from his brother in law, who owns a field adjacent to mine, a field that I have long had my eye on. I had bumped into the brother-in-law in the village square a few weeks earlier and asked him whether he would sell it to me. He was interested, at the right price. On this we quickly settled. The plot concerned forms an L around a rectangle that we already own, and I shall be thrilled to acquire it. Other people who own contiguous property have to be consulted first, and given the option to improve on the price. I wait with fingers crossed.
On Monday it poured. While Natasha was cleaning the house, I took Cathy along to Algarve Shopping at Guia. It was her first visit and she liked the place. While she explored I nipped into the electronics store, FNAC, to inquire about the bit of gadgetry that was intended to fit into a slot in the side of my notebook computer. An assistant explained that it took connect-data-cards that permit internet access on the move (for the sum of 100 euros down and 40 euros a month. Don’t worry too much about this paragraph, mother!)
Alternatively, one can buy a card that plugs into a USB port and can be transferred between notebook and desktop computers. The cost is less than I’m paying Portugal Telecom for broadband access. If anybody has experience of such cards, please let me know. Presumably, in areas where one gets poor mobile phone reception there would also be a slow internet connection or none at all.
Tuesday the Portuguese news bulletins were full of the floods that have ravaged parts of the country, cutting roads and rail lines, submerging fields, drowning animals, fouling houses and generally making life miserable. Many of the dams that were reduced to puddles during the recent drought are filled to bursting.
Wednesday the sun reappeared. I reploughed Sarah and David’s field to get rid of the green carpet. My beans, at the top of the field, are already a foot high. The ground was a mite too wet for comfort and a mud trail followed me back home.
Cathy and I play in turns with the kittens, which have grown tired of their patio home and long to explore the world around them. They come bursting through the door the moment we open it. Stoopy ignores them. Ono doesn’t approve. Ono, meanwhile, has suffered a recurrence of his stairs phobia (after twice tumbling down). He now descends very slowly, looking from side to side, until he reaches a point about five stairs from the bottom, and then he tries to leap to the floor. As the stairs are made of wood and are slippery, it’s a bad strategy. I’ve taken to leading him down a stair at a time.
Friday we got Natasha in to clean for the second time this week. As always, she did a great job. But somehow a patio door was left open and when Cathy returned the kittens from her bedroom to the newly-cleaned patio, the kittens went awol. Cathy didn’t notice until the silence from the patio struck her as odd. Then we all went looking. Within a few minutes Braveheart returned. Of Dearheart, there was no sign.
So we were not in good spirits when we set out for supper and a film with our friends, the Davieses. On our return we found the missing kitten back on the patio. What joy and relief. I don’t know what we’ve had said to Jones if the kitten had taken off for good. Cathy returns to Berlin on Sunday.
Jones continues her cruise. She’s on the high seas and I don’t expect to hear from her for a few days until the ship gets back within range of a network antenna. Last contact was from Safaga on the Red Sea coast. I shall let her speak for herself: the brackets are mine:
ATHENS:
“600 passengers got off and a new lot got on today.
On high seas bound for Port Said. Am up on deck. Nobody around yet. New people at table, American retired teacher with pony tail and a Swiss German gentleman.
It is self service in the mornings. Entire housekeeping and catering crews are Filipino. Very informal. Perhaps over friendly with eye on end of trip tip.
Just docked Port Said. 05.00 gmt. Will see if roaming works. (It did)
We are in middle Suez. Dawn just breaking. Takes about 16 hours. Our convoy passes northbound convoy in lake.
10-bus convoy with armed police truck and onboard guard. Roads cleared of traffic as we passed. Pyramids great.
Stationary in canal at moment. Await north convoy pass. Warmer today. Some sun.
Am helping tech-phobe Aussie learn SMS. (You may not appreciate the irony of this statement!) What costs SMS rough price?
Beautiful morning. En route to Aqaba and Petra. Much walking ahead. Not sure how M will cope. Suez was interesting. Were delayed as another ship in convoy grounded.
Have just discovered ship has live web cam. Maybe you can see it. (We can’t.) Very disappointing. Petra trip cancelled because of (Suez) canal delay and high winds.
High winds prevent docking at Aqaba. Passengers mutinying. Like a hive of angry bees. M suspects captain of trying to save port fees.
Windy on board. Hope does not affect docking at Safaga. Great arid jagged mountains on coastline.
Due to overnight in Luxor. Been on board two weeks – a long time.
Luxor incredible. Early to the Valley of the Kings.
Just back after overnight stay Luxor. Great Moevenpick hotel. Temples astonishing. Convoy 15 buses. Military escort. Traffic cleared. Now 8 days sea to Mombassa.
Still in Safaga. Some problem in getting enough water on board for 8 days at sea. Seems this is first such voyage for this ship. Late arrival at Mombassa would affect some passengers’ return flights. Engines just started. Goody.”
So there you have it.
No comments:
Post a Comment