Letter from Espargal: 36 of 2007

This week has been given over mainly to good deeds, a litany of which would put you out like a light. I wonder why it is that we find reports of virtue so soporific and those of vice so entertaining. Why it is that the ecstasies of heaven are infinitely less persuasive than the torments of hell? Whatever the saints, pictured gazing mistily-eyed upwards, are party to, it’s something that passes me by.

Be that as it may - Thursday, our haloes gleaming, we took ourselves to Portimao, a sprawling fishing and tourist town on the banks of Arade River, up which Arab dhows sailed for hundreds of years to the Algarve’s Moorish capital of Silves. (The river is now largely silted up and suitable only for shallow boats.) Portimao is always a confusing place to navigate, more so as the exit from the motorway tips motorists in at the far end, leaving them to trace their way back to the river through the mazy streets of the old town.

Our mission was to discover the St James shoe shop, which sells ECCO shoes, my favourites. This we did in short order. Fatima, to whom I’d spoken on the phone, was delighted to show me her stock and mildly disappointed only that I didn’t buy new boots along with new shoes. I would have if she’d stocked boots with the thick, soft soles that I like.


We meandered home via back roads in order to discover a nursery that Jones had read about. This we did. She voted it a no-no. However, a small café-restaurant a little further down the road that serves lunches has gone on to our list of places to visit. The dogs liked it too. We returned home feeling good about the world.

I have contracted a cold, which is a bit of a pain. My nose is red and sore from overwork. A large roll of kitchen paper and a clutch of tissues are at hand. Jones has complained about my loud sneezing, saying she finds it very irritating and wondering whether there was nothing that I could do about it. There wasn’t.

I told that I found it even more irritating than she did, as well as uncomfortable. I’m not sure that she was persuaded. (Jones says that I paint her as an old witch. I assure her that you know her far too well to be under any such illusion.) Sneezing may not be very sociable but it is hardly a voluntary activity, especially when provoked by a cold. There are times when I think that the suffering induced by a cold is severely undervalued.

A large spider has taken up residence in the corner of the ceiling above my desk. It was there for several days, at least, until it moved we know not where. It is one of those muscular, hairy spiders that are the nightmare of arachnophobes.

It can stay if it gobbles up some of the insects that continue to plague us, for our Indian summer persists, and with it our flies and mosquitoes. I’ve been bashing flies with the last of my Witbank swatters (lethal, leather-ended devices) and feeding their corpses to the ever-grateful ants. (This always makes me feel better, as if I’m getting my own back on my tormentors. I am reminded of the charade adults perform by smacking an object that is the cause of a wailing child’s distress.)

While I was watching TV after a shower, a mosquito sat on my knee. It so happened that I was clasping The Jolt in my hand at the time, and I cunningly lowered it down on to the mosquito until it fried him. In hindsight it was a mistake. Mind you, it burns more than it shocks. I start to understand why the Americans have come to regard the electric chair as cruel and unusual punishment – some of them, anyhow.

After more than a year the road crew that put a first layer of tar on the road that leads from Espargal to the highway, 2 kms away, suddenly returned to finish the job. This was welcome news because in the intervening period we’d had to dodge the manhole covers, which were all an inch proud of the surface. A misjudgement meant that you whacked your tyres painfully on the protruding ironwork.

CASA NADA (RIGHT) AND THE HOUSE
The work was completed in just over two days and we now have a strip of virgin asphalt all the way to the stop street at Alto Fica, an ideal testing ground for the many Portuguese drivers bent on breaking the world land-speed record. Fortunately, in the narrow roads of the village itself, one has to drive slowly and with care in order to avoid head-on collisions with stray tractors.

Speaking of tractors, mine has been employed in bringing two large olive tree-trunk cross-sections to the glade. Jones spotted the timber lying on Vitor’s newly cleared plot and Vitor happily accepted E20 in return for them. Fortunately, Vitor’s land slopes steeply. I was able to back the tractor box under the smaller piece of timber and lever it on board. The larger piece tried our resources, both the tractor’s and mine. With some effort, I got it on to the box and brought it slowly home, my front wheels lifting in protest on the steeper sections.


The two pieces have been placed either side of our bench in the glade. One has to be careful to distract Jones when passing tree stumps because she takes a fancy to them – and the next thing I am despatched to bargain with their owners and bring them home.

The Financas wrote me a letter explaining why it tried to double tax me on the house. While it’s written in the usual bureaucrese I think it says that it was all my fault. The bottom line is that in future I will only be taxed once (a year) on the property. That, at least, is good news. Not that I complain about taxes. Pensioners in Portugal get a very good tax deal, much better than wage earners. That may be because most Portuguese pensioners live on a very small income.

Although the rules are clear for Portuguese pensioners, interpreting them for expat pensioners who derive their income from overseas seems to be something of a dark art. We pay good money to a firm of accountants who interpret the rules liberally in their clients’ favour, greatly reducing the income tax that would otherwise have to be paid. At the same time the accountants warn us that their interpretation of any client’s obligations may be challenged by the tax authorities.

Clients are then invited to contribute substantial amounts to a fighting fund in return for a guarantee that the accountants will fight the client’s corner in the event of a challenge. While I have my doubts about this kind of insurance I haven’t had the bottle to decline it.

Jonesy has just brought me an afternoon cup of tea and a large slice of Marie’s cake (donated to us in thanks for neighbourly services). Jones has been taking some glorious sunrise pictures.She has also, as usual, been doing lots of work in the garden. The south garden comprises extensive areas of rock shelf, with pockets of soil in-between. I fetched her a load of attractive rocks in order to frame the beds that she has created between them. We’ve had a week of blue skies and we are having to water again in the evenings. A little rain would be very welcome.