Letter from Espargal: 51 of 2006

(The Cork Walk through the valley)

The year-end is creeping up on us. We knew that it was near but not this near. We have been distracted. One distraction was the field that I’ve been trying to buy for the last several weeks. It has proved a particularly elusive field. In the course of our purchase attempts it emerged first that buying it as a couple married with a pre-nuptial agreement was all but impossible. To avoid the looming complexities we had to buy it in the name of either one of us. Okay, I said, we would buy it in my name.

The day before the sale was to be concluded in front of the notary, we were informed by our lawyers that the property was still registered in the parish of Alte and not in the parish of Benafim, whence it should have been transferred 20 years ago. That meant a last-minute dash to the Finanças in Loulé to beg them to amend the same day a document that normally requires a seven-day wait. It would have been impossible had not our lawyer’s girl-Friday been on excellent terms with the Finanças staff. I bought flowers for the Finanças clerk concerned - although only after the fact lest they be construed as a bribe.

So the 16.45 signing of the sales contract on Thursday evening went ahead, albeit at 18.15, because the notary had fallen hopelessly behind and there was a crowd of people waiting in her office to complete one or other bit of official business by the year-end. As a result, our lawyer had to kick his heels with me in the adjacent café for an hour. We drank coffee and talked about life in Portugal. (He said his wife was also a lawyer and they had become accustomed, however disagreeably, to the delays that were part of the Portuguese bureaucratic process. Their two young children are looked after by grandparents – thank God for grandparents – until the parents get home in the evenings.)

(Our favourite Faro Beach restaurant)

And thus we are the owners of another field, and I’m thrilled to bits about it. It’s a splendid field that forms a perfect L around a field we already own and that, I strongly suspect, will one day be reclassified as an urban property – where some undesirable person would otherwise build a big house in a spot where we’d much rather have a field.

For the record, we now own a clump of 5 plots here in Espargal. From above they would look a bit like the Canadian maple-leaf symbol, grouped around the house and more or less guaranteeing us an impermeable green belt – with one exception. The property that we most want to buy is not for sale because half of the heirs have disappeared into thin air abroad and can’t be found to sign the necessary paperwork. Long may they remain so.

On Tuesday Natasha came to work and, because my cyber-dictionary was seriously at odds with my Excel programme – for reasons which, after a harmonious three-year relationship, are beyond me – I took my computer into the shop when we drove her home that evening. I checked with the shop on Wednesday and again on Thursday morning (when I went to the Finanças). But in spite of their best efforts they couldn’t persuade the two programmes to get along. Nor, after uninstalling the dictionary could they get the computer to function without throwing up error messages. So they returned it to me with apologies on Thursday evening and didn’t want to charge me anything for their hours of labour. The computer still functions. It just isn’t very happy.

Also not very happy are our two kittens, Braveheart and Dearheart, which we took in to the vet in Albufeira to be “done” early this morning (Friday) and fetched again this evening. Dearheart appeared to be supine until the vet removed her from the recovery cage and tried to place her in her transport box. At which point she made a bid for freedom and scratched the vet when the latter tried to restrain her. Both kittens are back safe and sound and, willy-nilly, getting used to their neutered status. Jonesy is desperate to love them and feed them. She is finding it very hard to accept the vet’s instructions that they should get no food till the morning.

Between taking and fetching the kittens we accompanied Llewellyn and Lucia on a final 2006 walk into the valley and back through the orange grove. Thence we went to the airport to return their car, stopping only to tell old Chico that his mysterious letter from Social Security was to inform him of his old age benefit this year. I phoned Social Security in Faro to confirm this. (Like many older residents, Chico has never learned to read.)

Finally we headed to Faro Beach for a relaxed lunch in the sun on the patio of a favourite restaurant. The two dogs huddled down on a towel beneath our table and glared at the cats that were bumming crumbs from other diners. One or two other dogs came to sniff under the table at the intruders. Happily, all were friendly and there was much wagging of tails.

It was the last of many delightful meals that we have enjoyed with our visitors during their stay – including a spread at the Angolana last night, at which we drank (their) real champagne, to celebrate our latest acquisition. They will be in the air on their way home to Cape Town as I write.

Saturday I pack my own goodies and Sunday morning I fly to Dublin. There I have to wait before catching a flight via London to Calgary early on Monday morning. For reasons beyond my ken, the discount that I have obtained on this flight was available only if one boarded the plane in Dublin rather than in London.

Stand by Mum, here I come.

That’s about the size of it.

I do hope that 2007 is kind to us.

Happy New Year and God bless.