Letter from Espargal: 16 of 2007

I have risen early to write to you, leaving Fatty Fatcat to occupy the bed alone. Beside me in the study, Jones has left her desk and has started ironing. The dogs are curled up in their baskets. They are not natural early risers. From the TV set in the corner comes the murmur of the BBC World Service radio news.

WITH EDDIE AND LESLEY - READ ON

As usual, I had woken at five, when Jones’s alarm clock goes off, and listened briefly to the news, before plunging back into a dream-ridden sleep. I found myself once again preparing news bulletins for the BBC – a common and troublesome theme. The chair at my office desk was too low to be comfortable and I was making a hash of a report that detailed reasons why some event had not occurred. (News reports emanating from the speaker beside my ear tend to work their way into my dreams.)

In my frustration I eventually tore up my page but before I began the next one it occurred to me that I might be dreaming. To test this theory I woke up. I was pleased both to find that I was right and not to have to prepare any more bulletins in my sleep. Writing letters at my real desk is far less taxing. It would be a relief to be able to throw off my subconscious past once and for all.

The sun has just climbed above the rim of the eastern horizon and beamed itself into the study. It’s going on for 7. a.m. This time next week we shall be packing for our travels. We fly to Berlin for a few days with Cathy; then to the UK, where Jones will stay while I continue on to Calgary.

In the rundown to our departure we have been trying to complete a list of tasks. Jones wondered aloud why we now have to make so many preparations for a trip when once she would just pack a bag, close the door and go. It’s because once did she didn’t run a household, I told her, one that frequently extends to caring for her neighbours’ animals as well.

At present she goes next door each day to give some tinned cat food to a delighted Wendy, who is nursing 6 small kittens. Jones has already taken down a large cardboard box to supply Wendy and litter with a more suitable home than the small one in which they were accommodated.

We had a stark reminder of the culture gap concerning animals when we passed the cottage of the odd couple, Dina and Chico. Dina was outside and evidently unhappy about something. So were a visiting young woman and a small boy with her. Of old Chico there was no sign. I gleaned from the woman that they were upset because Chico wanted to get rid of a litter of kittens.

CHICO AND DINA
We hesitated before going on our way. I tried to convince Jones that it was sometimes better not to get involved. As we made away across an adjacent field we could hear yells and shrieks coming from the cottage. Dina hates it whenever Chico destroys an animal, whether for food or because the creature is surplus to requirements. That’s the way he’s lived for his 80 plus years, however, and he’s not likely to change in those remaining to him.

The other face of Portugal was reflected in a phone call I made to the Finanças helpline after failing to log in to the website. It is now possible – indeed encouraged – to make one’s tax return online and to review one’s tax position (income tax, local tax, car tax, VAT) at any time. The woman who (eventually) answered my call, spoke fluent English, having spent – she confessed – several years in the UK. She patiently guided me through a number of puzzling areas before putting me through to a colleague to resolve my log-in problem. The colleague informed me that this was due to my (inadvertently) requesting a new password during my last visit to the site. With luck it’s already in the post.

Returning to my theme, we are making progress with the preparations for our departure. Yesterday we made our annual pilgrimage to the Portuguese AA in Faro to acquire an international driving licence. Afterwards, we lunched on the patio of a favourite restaurant at Faro beach, dogs curled up under the table. The strong breeze that discouraged sunbathers was a boon to the kite-surfers who skimmed across the water in front of us.

In my English class we have been talking about food. One of the class presented me with a jar of her home-made marmalade. The name for this product derives from “marmelo”, the Portuguese word for quince, and from the culinary adventures of the English armies during the Peninsula Wars. If in Portugal you ask for marmalade (pronounced mar-ma-laa-da), however, you get quince jelly. It’s one of the little ironies of the language, like “puxe” (pronounced push) meaning “pull” and constipation meaning a stuffy nose.

Back at the ranch, we have picked about half of our beans. These are now fat and swollen after the rains. We plan to pick the rest before we go lest we return to find the remaining pods black and hard as we did last year. There’s a large bucket of beans waiting to be shelled. Jones has cleared space for them in the freezer.

It took me the better part of a day on the tractor to clean up our big field. The little fields still await attention. The rain intervened. I then had to remove the scarifier in order to tow the trailer down the steep track past our side gate to the road below the house, where I hitched it to the car. This was with a view to helping Dani and Natasha move apartment. We chose April 25, the holiday when Portugal celebrates the anniversary of its carnation revolution.

Dani and I managed the move in a single trip, with the trailer groaning under a load of boxes and the Honda filled with the overflow. Happily, there was very little traffic in Loulé and I was able to find parking right outside the “new” apartment. I passed the lighter items directly through the ground floor bedroom window to Dani inside.

Dani was probably grateful for my help and I think he would have thanked me if he had not been suffering such cold turkey from his lack of cigarettes. He explained breathlessly as he took the last box from me that Natasha was refusing to lend him any money for tobacco. Could he please borrow 20 euros? For the first time, I turned him down. He’s long since far exceeded his borrowing facility and I fear that his partner’s hard line is justified.

I am in danger of overlooking the highlight of our week, the capture of a swarm of bees. We heard about the bees when we met our friends, Eddie and Lesley, for lunch in Messines last weekend. Eddie said his hive had swarmed just as the couple was leaving home. That’s to say (if I have it right) that the number of bees had grown too large for the hive. A new queen had been born and her older rival had led half the bees out of the hive into a tree above it in search of a new home.

When we returned to their house in the hills north of the town, we found the swarm still clinging to a branch. Eddie summoned his bee-keeping mentor, a local builder, who arrived soon afterwards. The pair of them donned their protective suits and, armed with an empty hive, approached the scene.


While the builder held the hive in position, he whacked the branch and most of the bees fell into the hive. The remainder were enticed into a cylindrical cork trap, lined with wax, and then persuaded (with great shakes of the trap) to enter the new hive. It all made for fascinating viewing. One would not easily believe that Eddie used to be very nervous of the big bumble bees that whizzed harmlessly around the Quinta.