SEA VIEW - LOOK CAREFULLY It’s a blue-sky Saturday morning. The wind has blown away the brown smudge of pollution that often stains the air along the coastal plain and, through the gap in the hills, we can make out a dark blue streak of distant sea. (Yes, on a good day we do have a sea view.)
ALTERNATIVE MOUNTAIN VIEW
The dogs are stretched out after a 90-minute circuit through the valley, tugging hard at their leads in a fruitless bid to get at the ever-tantalising rabbits and partridges, and nearly breaking our necks on the steep, stony roads in the process. Those little fellows have amazing pulling power.
Summer is here. Passenger jets bound for Faro airport are sliding overhead, packed with tourist cargoes. The airport is chaotic. We have been to there twice this past week, once to welcome Cape Town cousin Jonathan and wife Carol and a second time to see them off. (Portugal was their last stop on a family catch-up and personal wind-down European trip.)
We spent the better part of a day with them, visiting Estoi for a stroll around the Roman ruins and a glimpse of the palace and gardens (closed while undergoing conversion to a luxury hotel). We lunched on the elevated patio of a café that served us salads and toasted sandwiches, with card-playing and dice-throwing locals for company and colour. By general consensus this was agreed to be a preferable venue to the smart restaurant next door that had turned us apologetically away for lack of space.
ZONKED DOGAs for Espargal, life continues at its usual pastoral pace. The countryside is still lush after the late rains. Fruit is ripening steadily on the trees from which we pluck what we can as we pass by. In the orchards below us the orange pickers are busy. The melon-man daily drives his truck up from the valley, packed with great boxes of melons bound for market. Eager green tomato plants are rising from small holes in strips of plastic that stretch out across the fields. These strips block the growth of weeds and prevent the evaporation of water from the fine irrigation hoses running beneath them.
Jones popped around to take a loaf of bread to a neighbour, Maria, who has been house bound with sciatica these past few weeks. We gather from her husband, Joachim, that they are expecting approval any day for the construction of a house on a plot of land across the road from their cottage – for their daughter, we understand. Jones reported that their big dog, Bizu, has been hobbled, poor fellow, following a complaint about his behaviour. Bizu is a Belgian shepherd whose fierce aspect belies his usually gentle nature. But he does throw his weight around a bit, especially in pursuit of eligible bitches. He has apparently alarmed care workers and is being kept at home for his sins.
The care workers have been coming to visit the odd couple, old Chico and (not always so) mute Dina. Chico has got very old and is going blind. We were all concerned for him – and for Dina, who is incapable of living alone. But the social services have now taken the pair of them on board, bringing them food and taking them to the day centre in Benafim.
As we passed them in the road this week, Chico winked and said he was coming to see us, bringing “good things”. I wish he wouldn’t. But he did. He and Dina rolled up at our front door last night, just as I was taking a shower before going with Jones and our neighbours to supper and a concert. Jones went downstairs in her gown and curlers to receive them, along with a 5-litres of olive oil and a bag of oranges. She wished that I could have seen Dina (who has a vast bust) resplendent in blue gingham beret, bright green Ralph Lauren t-shirt, and a green plaid pleated skirt.
Earlier in the afternoon, Idalecio and I spent another two hours trying to break the back of the lengthy translation we have been doing – a guide to the new thermostat that he’s about to add to his under-floor heating range. This thermostat can be infinitely programmed for every kind of situation, and it’s all the programming steps that we have been setting out – 14 fine-typed pages of instructions about DIL switches and relays and you name it. Idalecio says that he should be paying me for my services. But I have pointed out to him – quite honestly – the strides in Portuguese that I have made as a result of our combined efforts.
I have asked Idalecio to do another job for us, to build a 1-metre high platform for the 1,000 litre plastic water tank that takes the overflow from the cisterna. At the moment this tank sits at ground level below the cisterna. I hitched a hose to the tank to allow Jones to water the flowers along the fence at the bottom of the garden. The pressure is (understandably) very low, and when one tries to water the flowers on the upper side of the tank, the flow dries up completely.
Let me add that it wasn’t a simple matter to hitch a hose to the tank outlet. The hose is much smaller than the outlet. So I went along to Gilde’s hardware store on the outskirts of Salir, where I’m a regular (and, I like to think, valued) customer. Gilde’s has a large variety of hose fittings but there was no combination that worked exactly. So, once he’d helped the customers ahead of me, Isadoro grabbed half a dozen items from the shelves and went outside to the workshop to make me a personalised fitting. I was very grateful and said so. It was real service – free of charge – the other face of Portugal with its horrendous bureaucracy. The fitting works admirably.
Wednesday and Thursday saw the last of our language classes for the academic year. We presented our teacher, Antonio (who teaches English at the high school) with a book on the origins of English words, half of it (as I pointed out to him) to thank him for his efforts with us this year and the other half to get him back next year. (I have to be careful what I write these days as he and our classmates are now aware of the blog address.) I am sure that Antonio will forgive me for saying that the book is an excellent one - Word Origins by John Ayto. Jones found it at Griffin’s (expat) book shop in Almancil (along with a history of art book that she has added to her collection). It was the only copy. I have ordered another for myself.
This weekend the Senior University holds its annual banquet bash at a posh hotel on the coast. The evening is a lengthy one, with a performance by the drama group and speeches from minor VIPs before the presentation of trophies to worthies. Happily, the food and wine are something special. What’s strangest to my eyes is the complete absence of any dress code for such occasions. Dinner jackets are just as acceptable as jeans. You wear whatever you’re comfortable with and everybody else is comfortable with that.
This great range of acceptable attire was only too clearly visible at the Beethoven concert we attended last night – his 3rd piano concerto followed by his 3rd symphony. Beside the ladies in evening gowns was a motorcyclist clutching his helmet. It was no problem for anyone.
We dined first with a group of friends at a restaurant beside the theatre. The food was good but the restaurateur is naughty, simply telling us the total price at the end of the meal, without presenting so much as the usual scribbled bill. While the tax advantages of such an approach are clear, it irritated some of our group who like to know what they’re paying for and I suspect that the restaurant will have to change its ways or lose our custom.
I have been downloading more classical music from the Itunes store. When Jones hears a piece that really takes her ear, or finds a reference to one in the paper (Schubert’s Sonata in B-flat major most recently) it takes just a few minutes to find the work online, choose a performance and purchase it. This instant gratification business has something to be said for it. What an amazing world we live in!
ANOTHER ZONKED DOG
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