(COMPOST MOUNTAIN)We have been doing a lot of gardening. Jones has been doing the discriminating bit (which requires the gardener to distinguish between the desirable and undesirable growth). I have been strimming and piling tractor-loads of weeds on to our tower-of-Babel like compost mountain. The strimming is much overdue; not only the outer reaches of the “garden” but the many paths in the area are badly overgrown. This makes their negotiation both tricky and subject to the acquisition of ticks, whose season is upon us.
As if to make the point, I was sitting in our Portuguese class midweek when I felt a slight prickling on my chest. A quick peek and a grab proved the agitator to be a tick making himself at home. Making my hasty apologies to the class, I hurried to the bathroom to get rid of it. I am not partial to ticks.Ten minutes later, Jones felt a similar agitation. A glance down her blouse – she did the glancing, I should make clear - showed another tick crawling around where no ticks are permitted. Her exclamation left the rest of the class in no doubt about her feelings. Making even hastier apologies, she shot out of the class to the ladies’ bathroom to do away with the pest.
I know that the likelihood of the pair of us both finding ticks crawling on our chests in the same class in the same few minutes is extremely low. But that’s how it was. It is possible that we had picked them up while making our way down the grassy contour path earlier in the morning.
It is equally possible that we acquired them while having the dogs vaccinated at the vet before class. I had crouched over each dog in turn to secure and distract the beast while the vet poked a thermometer up its rear and did other unseemly things. Our dogs fail to see the point of this kind of treatment. They do not like going to the vet. Only Prickles strode boldly in. I suspect that he too will know better next time round. Although he’s not aware of it, that’s is in a fortnight when he goes to be nipped in the bud. It’s a dog’s life, I’m afraid.
At the weekend we went to a concert in Faro, one in a Beethoven series that we have greatly enjoyed. Jones, however, was not impressed by the performance of the soloist in Beethoven’s 5th piano concerto, an elderly gentleman of minute stature who, whatever his failings, was much applauded for his efforts. (His CV included the winning of a music prize back in 1951.)
During the interval Jones expressed the view that he old fellow wasn’t up to the demands of the piece – and had simply made up what he couldn’t manage or remember. When I replied that I had enjoyed the concert nonetheless, Jones said I couldn’t have because I’d slept through the entire thing. This is an example of the kind of hyperbole that spouses are liable to. I am not denying that I rested my eyes from time to time or that she gave me a number of unnecessarily wakeful thumps on the arm.
Jones was better pleased with the second work, Beethoven’s 5th symphony. I loved it. What glorious music! For once, the concert hall was virtually full, albeit it with as many estrangeiros as locals.
My Portuguese bank has introduced a new security measure to prevent online banking fraud. Each time a client wants to transfer money out of an account online, he/she now has to acquire a 7-digit security code to confirm the transfer. This is texted within seconds by the bank to the client’s mobile phone. Presumably, any lurking hacker will in future have to steal both one’s banking details and one’s phone in order to profit.
For those clients who prefer, there is an alternative “security token” system that I haven’t investigated. Such security measures have yet to be adopted by our British bank, which lags far behind when it comes to online service - in fact, when it comes to any kind of service. Also increasingly common in Portugal is the receipt of invoices as PDF attachments on emails rather than in paper form.
Cathy remarked some time ago that German banks are phasing out cheques in favour of bank transfers. Although cheques are still widely used here, account-to-account transfers online are being increasingly encouraged. Another option – long available to the public – is to make payments using the nationally linked ATM cash machines situated outside banks and in many large stores. While Portugal (regrettably) lags far behind most of its European partners in economic and business affairs generally, its sophisticated ATM network is a welcome exception.
(THE LAST OF THE BEANS, LATER SHELLED BY OUR HOUSESITTERS)Our house sitters, the Ferretts, reported that the poltergeist that has haunted their previous visits made its usual appearance. Shortly after our departure, the mains water supply to the house failed. Neighbours confirmed that the problem extended to the rest of the village. Fortunately I had shown our guests how to switch from mains supply to the cisterna and they had an ample supply of water during the several days that it took local officialdom to fix things. “Things” turned out to be a burst pipe down at the village borehole.
Next to go down were (puzzlingly) the main BBC radio channels on the satellite television service – just before the Ferretts’ departure. This service offers us dozens of BBC radio and TV channels and hundreds of commercial channels. If we lived in the UK, like all other TV owners there, we would be required by law to pay the (current) licence fee of 131.50 pounds every year to fund the BBC. Here the service costs us nothing. We’re not supposed to have it. But there is a thriving industry in mainland Europe in installing Sat TVs for foreigners. Virtually every expat has one, aimed at the satellite that provides his/her national service.
I called the chap who installed ours (several years ago) to explain the problem. He arrived the following afternoon with his Portuguese assistant. As always, he was in a hurry. Other clients were waiting. While his assistant checked the dish’s settings, the chap concerned admitted to selling his original business to a partner some years previously. But such was the demand for his services that he began working again – quietly. It was to support his daughter at boarding school in the UK, he explained.
He couldn’t find a problem with the settings so he tried replacing the LNB on our dish. When that didn’t help he replaced the receiver as well. That did the trick. I winced at the bill. (The man could easily support quintuplet daughters at boarding school on what he charges.) But life here without the sanity of the BBC would be unimaginable. SKY and other broadcasters are also available if one is prepared to live with the adverts. Either way, one has to have a working Sat TV system.
Our young neighbour, Idalecio, has been installing new gates, which he made himself, to replace the shaky gates that were partially demolished by a neighbour’s amorous dog while Idalecio’s bitch, Serpa Fish, was in season. I gave him some advice on how to brace his gates, which proved less than helpful (but that’s another story). We lent him greater assistance by taking young Eduardo (5) on a walk with Serpa while Idalecio was hard at work on the gates. These are now painted green and look very smart. (Serpa is called Serpa Fish because her mistress swore after the death of her previous dogs that she would have no pets in future other than fish!)
Inbetween times I have sat down at my desk with Idalecio to help him translate a long technical document on a new thermostat. As a sideline to his main business (walls, roofs, steps and the like) Idalecio sells underfloor heating. The products come from the UK with lengthy accompanying documentation, full of technical detail that I don’t much understand.
Between us and my English/Portuguese dictionary and the internet, we decide what we think the English blurb is saying and turn it into a Portuguese blurb for Idalecio’s customers. The first two pages took us 4 hours. There are 12 pages to go. Much of the time is taken up adding the accents that Portuguese words require and which are not found pre-installed on my English keyboard.
The sales rep at Honda, who sold me my CRV 7 years ago, phoned to postpone a test-drive that he had arranged for me in the new version. When I told Jones that the appointment had been deferred, she insisted that she hadn’t been informed of the appointment in the first place. And she hoped that I wasn’t thinking of buying a new car when the old one would be good for another century at least. (Jones always hopes that I am not thinking of buying new vehicles, computers etc.) I assured her honestly that I was not proposing to buy a new car this year but I said that at some point – God willing – I would be. Anyhow, I was interested in test driving the new car regardless. Jones was not thrilled with my response. I fear that more negotiation lies ahead of us.
No comments:
Post a Comment