This letter begins on Wednesday evening. It is not yet 10 o’clock but the night is all of four hours old and feels well established. Jones is seated in my ultra-comfortable reclining leather chair in front of the TV, trying to watch a programme on Edwardian photography. I can see her eyelids closing, opening briefly and closing again. Her bed beckons. She was vaguely hopeful of seeing a film starring Harrison Ford later tonight but she’s hasn’t a snowflake’s chance in hell. 
The fact is that Jones is not a night bird. Her routine has her rising at five each morning to consider the dawn mysteries at her desk. And unless we’re out to a concert or a film, this is the hour when she fades. I do not say this by way of a complaint. It suits us well for me to potter on the computer at night while she does her thing in the morning.
Although this has been the busiest of weeks for us, it’s been busy with the ordinariest things, not easily magicked into a letter. I feel a bit like the housewife (or house-husband, if you prefer in this age of gender equality) who has laboured all day to produce the minutest of metaphoric mice. One can’t write endlessly about the bread and butter stuff of life.
Two afternoons went on cleaning up a field below us that hasn’t been touched in years.
THE FIELD
The land was deep under weeds, its fruit and nut trees half-strangled by a vicious combination of brambles and a thorny creeper. This was a matter of some concern to Jones, who is very fond of the fruit that it provides. Plus, it hurts to see good trees dying and the weeds running amok. The field belongs to an old chap who lives at the bottom of the village. When we met in the street, I asked him if I might plough in the weeds. He was a bit taken back and initially wanted to know what it would cost him. Assured that the service would be provided free, he was happy to let me go ahead.
STRANGLED TREESo I took down the tractor to turn over the soil and rip out the worst of the thorn bushes. Much of my time was spent breaking off the low (twisted and dangerous) dead branches of trees as the tractor inched across the ground beneath them. Almond nuts rained down upon me. The field is much improved although it will take the pair of us at least another afternoon to tackle the remaining thorns. The bramble is extraordinarily tough and resistant. It fought me all the way, wrapping itself around the tractor wheels in protest and threatening to rip at my legs.
Old Chico button-holed me as I was passing one day and attempted to press on me a large box of sweet potatoes in (additional) payment for my ploughing services.
CHICO'S FIELD
I tried to persuade him that there was no way that we could use such a gift but he’s impossible to reason with. After a brief conversation, I seized three large potatoes and fled, leaving him with my shouted thanks and the rest of the box. Sacks of potatoes and other produce is his idea of settling a debt, knowing as he does that I won’t take his money. Dina was on hand, grunting and gesturing as usual. She is now his eyes, nudging or pulling him out of the road whenever there’s traffic. We don’t know how one of them will ever manage without the other.
Our house-sitting friends, the Ferretts (who spent 10 days house-sitting for neighbours of ours) were with us for a couple of nights before flying back to the UK. They joined us at a concert given by the Orchestra of the Algarve in Faro last weekend. The theme was film music, mostly from war and big budget movies. The orchestra had been strengthened with additional brass and percussion instruments for the occasion, making for a stirring evening indeed.
We dined out lots (don’t we always?): Sunday at Idalecio’s restaurant and Monday at the Cantinho in Alte. On Tuesday afternoon we ran the Ferrets out to the airport, leaving Natasha to clean the house and Dani to finish clearing a field. The dogs squeezed into the car with us. The Ferretts’s stay has been blessed by lovely weather, day after sunny day of it, a bit too much if the truth be told. We’ve had no rain for weeks and the country is turning dry in what should be the wet season. All going well, the Ferretts will return to house sit for us in May/June for their usual spring break. In the meanwhile, I shall be travelling to Canada in the second half of this month to see mum and the family. I spent a couple of evenings finalising the trip. Although my air tickets were booked some weeks ago, I still had to tie up the local side. Rail tickets – from Loule to Lisbon and back – are vastly cheaper than air tickets and can be booked online but only 30 days ahead.
There’s much to be said for going by rail in this country. A 3-hour journey in a first-class carriage costs a passenger travelling from the Algarve to the nation’s capital just 25 euros, and that’s in the Alfa-Pendular express, Portugal’s fancy tilting train. By Britain’s privatised rail (read “hellish expensive”) standards it’s a great bargain.At Jones’s suggestion, we’ve selected an overnight hotel in the Park of Nations on the banks of the Tagus river, the former world expo site. I find it ironic that it’s cheaper to book a room online with an agency than to make a reservation with the hotel. But that’s how it is. When I tried to book directly, I was told that “those rates” were only available online. Jones is to travel up with me on the 14th and back home the following morning when I fly on to London and Calgary. Neighbours are to take care of the zoo during her brief absence.
PICKING TOMATOES
We have made another raid on the tomato field on the far side of the hill, some 2 kms away by road. The owner passed us mid-week on a large tractor bearing a scarifier and we feared that we might find the tomatoes ploughed in. But no. There were still thousands of them lying there for the picking and we filled two knapsacks while the dogs waited, Prickles whining in his impatience to be gone. (Prickles utterly fails to see the pointing of waiting around during a walk.) No need to tell you that we have frequent tomato salads and tomato soups. Jones also makes truly delicious tomato jam.
This jam partners the homemade bread that we have been receiving from neighbours in return for computer assistance and other favours. The bread is especially welcome as Hans, the German baker, has more or less stopped baking.
The old bakery that he hired in Benafim, with time-honoured, woodchip-fired ovens, ran foul of Portugal’s new hygiene regulations, as so many traditional enterprises have done. We were really sorry because he used to produce a whole range of excellent breads from different grains. Now he bakes only erratically for an organic farming and tourist enterprise, Quinta do Freixo, on the far side of Benafim. I suppose that’s the price of progress.
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