'Tis Thursday evening in the departure lounge at Calgary airport, where the temperature inside is 40 degrees (Celsius) warmer than that outside. If I’m lucky, the airliner that I can see through the window will get me to London in time to catch the plane that ought to be waiting there to take me to Lisbon.
The past two days in Calgary have been cold, down into the minus twenties, cold enough to warrant the start to a letter. I mean really freezing-in-a-few-seconds, what’s-happened-to-my-ears depths of cold. When I foolishly stopped at a service station to put in petrol, without first digging out my gloves and scarf, I thought I had lost my extremities. Getting back into the car brought modest relief but the seat still froze my bottom and the steering wheel was too cold to grasp.
Others were having a tougher time of it. As I was leaving my apartment at Lake Bonavista Village one morning I bumped into a group surrounding a woman who worked there. From one of them I learned that her husband had been missing for two days, trapped in his truck by an avalanche and out of cell phone contact. He was back safe and well. I don’t know how near he came to perishing. I found it quite challenging enough driving a few kilometres home one night in a snow storm.
My visit was primarily about seeing mum, who lives in a care home 5 minutes down the road from my apartment. It couldn’t have been handier. Most mornings I would ease down the McLeod Trail around 10.30, sign mum out, wheel her to the car, help her in, park her wheelchair in the back and then take off somewhere for lunch. We enjoyed a few wonderful sunny days, with the temperature just into positive territory, taking leisurely drives into the country.
On colder days we’d head for nearby South Centre, a sprawling shopping mall. There we had the space and the warmth to idle our way around. New Year promotions were everywhere. Mother retains a keen interest in the sales and still loves to run her fingers through the coats and jerseys on offer. Two-for-one or three-for-one offers she found particularly tempting. She would gladly have bought me half a dozen garments had I agreed.
The last few days – the really cold ones - we stayed indoors at the care home, generally seated in the foyer, the only public space. Around us other residents did their morning exercises, still seated in their chairs, lifting their arms and legs in rhythm to the instructions ringing out over the taped music. Like mum, most of the residents are elderly, female and wheelchair bound. I was most impressed by the numerous volunteers who were on hand each day to assist the nursing staff. Some had been coming for years, until – as one volunteer confessed – they were barely distinguishable from the residents themselves.
Most evenings I was a guest at the home of my niece, Penny. I would settle down with her, husband Mike and elder son Jackson for fiercely contested card (or other) games. Where I could, I tried to introduce new rules that I thought should have been obvious to the inventors of the games – efforts that went largely unappreciated. To my Canadian family all may I add a brief word of thanks for their unfailing hospitality. It was all the more appreciated because many of the facilities of the retirement village where I was staying (including the heated pool – woe was me) had been closed in view of a touring tummy bug.
Here the scene changes:
It’s early Sunday morning. I am home. The house is still. The bright lights of Benafim dot the black hillsides. In half an hour or so we’ll hear the impatient cries of the hunters’ dogs and then the countryside will explode with the thunder of their guns.
I was fetched at Faro airport by the same kind neighbours who had dropped me off there a fortnight earlier. Jones was with them. I was the first through, having taken only cabin baggage in the knowledge that I would have a tight connection at Heathrow airport.
What a squeak that was. The plane from Calgary arrived in London late, having been delayed an hour on departure by a passenger who failed to turn up and whose luggage had to be dug out of the hold. I hastened down the long corridors of Terminal 3, caught the in-transit bus to the Connections Centre and there joined the crowds waiting to be searched before being allowed through to the other terminals.
Worse, two Stalinist ushers were refusing point blank to allow through any passengers carrying two bags, no matter how small – in spite of the fact that everybody had carried these bags on to their previous flights. The ushers insisted that one bag be checked in as hold luggage – an invitation to kiss one’s connection goodbye.
As it happened, I was carrying two very visible bags, one a backpack. But, with a measure of desperation, I walked straight past the ushers and wasn’t summoned back. I couldn’t believe my luck. From there it was a doddle. The Lisbon flight was less than half full and the final Faro flight had barely a scattering of passengers. I could have taken 20 bags on board.
And so home to an hysterical welcome from the dogs. Espargal looked much as I had left it. The countryside was dry although the hills remained bright green. There’s been no worthwhile rain since the downpours of November.
(Picture: Shows the somewhat jet-lagged author catching a nap after lunch. Stoopy and Monsieur Tommie lend support.)
Yesterday I took a still recumbent Jones an early cup of coffee and a rather squashed muffin, one that had journeyed at the bottom of my knapsack. It still tasted pretty good. Then we packed a flask and sandwiches and walked 30 minutes to the summit of a favourite hill, where we sat on a rock and contemplated the valleys that crept down to the sea.
I knew that somewhere round the bulge of the earth, ever so far away, under an Arctic air mass, thousands of Calgarian motorists were hurrying up and down McLeod Trail, the green verges tinged with snow and ice. In fact, if I closed my eyes for a moment, I could see them clearly. I have come to believe in parallel universes.
Last night we took ourselves to performance of chamber music by a quintet from the Orchestra of the Algarve, an event to which supporters of the orchestra were invited as a mark of appreciation. Wine and snacks were included. The small concert took place in newly restored function rooms of an old Faro building on the fringes of the city’s new concert hall. For centuries, Arabs passed by here. Before them, Romans and Carthaginians held sway. I have to confess to nodding off once or twice as I considered these things. I hope that Beethoven will forgive me.
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