Letter from Espargal: 4 of 2008

DAWN OVER ESPARGAL

It grows warm. We were tempted to turn on the car’s air-conditioner as we travelled to a nursery near Loule midweek for a sale of plants. Our mild winter seems to be behind us. I can’t remember seeing frost in the valley even once. You good folks in Canada and the US would not recognise our sunny days and chilly evenings as winter. Some evenings we don’t even light a fire to warm the house. When we built, we put in gas-fired central heating but we’ve made so little use of it that the original gas bottles are still in place.

Around us the almond trees are in blossom and the countryside is splashed in glorious pink and white. We’ve been snapping away with the camera and will stick our best efforts up on the blog. In the valley below us Ermindo’s citrus groves are groaning with fruit, which we sample each day as we pass. Some branches are bent to the ground. In the trees one hears the voices of the pickers, who never run short of conversation.
The fruit is piled high in large plastic boxes and stacked on Ermindo’s truck. You can hear its engine struggling to drag the load up the dirt road to the village.

My walks are growing more vigorous as my sciatica recedes. (Notes of sympathy remain acceptable.) We again did our Sunday trek around the lagoons at Quinta da Lago, dodging the cyclists who were out in force. I am really only telling you this as an excuse to stick up some of Jones’s pics. She’s been snapping more sunrises as well. She’s a real sun-worshiper; loving to watch the orb’s appearance over the eastern mountains and its descent into the western sea.


And while I’m on pics, Jones accompanied me to Alte (I for a physio session with Jodi), both to inspect an art gallery that has opened there and to photograph the geese that inhabit the stream. The stream arises from two perennial springs and, after making its way through the town, tumbles down a waterfall before meandering off through the valley.


Last weekend we watched a documentary on a project called Buskaid to encourage children in Soweto to learn classical music. It’s run by an English woman who teaches kids there to play the violin. It became clear that the work consumes her life as well as enriching the lives of many under-privileged children. We were impressed. Afterwards, I looked up the Buskaid’s website with a view to making a modest donation.

The website offered various options to donors, including the use of credit cards to donate online. After checking that the site was secure, I tried to make a donation. The transaction was secured by the “Verified by Visa” programme, to which I’ve subscribed (and which gives one an added level of security). At my first attempt the screen came up with an error message. Thinking that I’d made a slip, I tried again. Once more, I got an error message. So I decided to send a cheque.

Great then was my surprise (fortunately, before I’d posted the cheque) to find an email acknowledgement of two online donations. Both transfers had gone through. I hope that Buskaid is grateful. For my part, I’ve emailed “Verified by Visa” to explain the problem and I await their response. I am also going to be very careful with any such future online transactions. The experience could easily have been very painful.

WITH NEIGHBOURS
All this, I might add, was before the stock market went completely insane and frighteningly bananas at the start of the week. Speaking of which - Jones is persuaded that she will die after me and she occasionally expresses the fear that she will be left to grow old in poverty. I have assured her that our means, after my presumed death, ought to be sufficient to maintain her in modest comfort unless (I added as an afterthought) the western financial system should collapse.

I shouldn’t have added the rider. For when the Footsie lost £80-billion in the course of a day’s trading, Jonesy feared that the day of financial Armageddon had arrived. If the truth be told, I was alarmed myself. The only good thing to come out of this financial storm and the slide of the pound, from her point of view, has been my reluctant acceptance that this is not the time to invest in a new CRV.

Coming back to the subject of inspirational documentaries, we saw another on an English teenager who won a scholarship to Eton and subsequently to Cambridge on the strength of his musical genius. He is a most remarkable young man – because he also suffers from cystic fibrosis. His regime includes the daily consumption of several dozen pills, being hooked up to tubes in bed and having the mucous build-up in his lungs literally beaten out of him several times a day. In spite of the intensive treatment his health remained precarious. The documentary followed his (successful) efforts at Eton to achieve his ambition there - leading the school orchestra and choir in Bach’s Magnificat.

Our elderly Portuguese neighbour, Zeferino, greeted us excitedly as we passed by the other day with news that an official from the Camara had been around to inspect a ruin adjacent to his house. The inspector had not known exactly where to find the plot and Zeferino had been pleased to show him, a point that Zeferino made to us several times. The significance of this is that the ruin lies at the foot of a small piece of land that juts into our own property and which we have long wanted to acquire. The owners have equally long wanted to sell it but have been struggling through a lengthy court procedure because of the complexity of the title.

The inspection implies that the title has been sorted out. We assume that the owners are trying to register the ruin with the Camara before putting the property on the market. Our interest is only in the land but I fear that we will have to buy the ruin as well, which will make the transaction much more expensive. We await developments.

PROFESSOR ANTONIO
At our Portuguese lessons we have been learning one of the more complex grammatical constructions, a feature of which many Portuguese themselves are unaware. (I don’t mind if you want to skip this paragraph.) It fascinates us both. Like most European languages, Portuguese verbs change their endings to denote person and tense. “To speak” is “falar”. “I will speak” is “falarei”. You will speak is “falara”. And so on – a system familiar to any students of Latin.

That’s pretty run-of-the-mill. The unusual bit is the way the verb divides itself around personal pronouns in the future tense. “I will tell you” becomes “falar-te-ei (using the moderately familiar form of “you”).

Things get more complex in sentences such as: “I will give it to you”. The “it” and the “you” combine in a single word (a bit like “we’re” or “you’ll”), which is then inserted in the split verb as above. The possibilities are endless, a veritable minefield for students of the language.
The Portuguese pupils in my English class are most impressed when I try out such constructions, as indeed they ought to be. Although this kind of language is common in print, one seldom hears it spoken as there are easy alternatives.

Letter from Espargal: 3 of 2008

You will have to forgive a few ramblings and ruminations, both literal and figurative. Let me begin at the start of the week, which for us is Monday, and which brings Portuguese lessons and grocery shopping. To ease our way into such stressful activities we take ourselves first to Campina, a café-restaurant on the outskirts of Loule that bakes on site. Campina’s bread and pastries are always fresh and delicious.
We have only to catch the eye of Cristina, who knows our order well, for breakfast to arrive on the table. Jones saves a few scraps of ham for the dogs, which await their treats impatiently in the car.

We noticed last week that Campina had closed off part of its covered patio to provide a section for smokers, as now required by law, leaving the rest of the building blissfully free of its former fug. I have to say that we found it a welcome development. Cristina told us that clients had accepted the changes without murmur although there’d been a small fall-off in trade.

Not everyone has been as understanding. There is an ironic story in the local press of a café owner in Quarteira who called the police to deal with a smoker who refused point blank either to extinguish his cigarette or leave the premises. By the time the police arrived, the recalcitrant had disappeared. The police, looking around, discovered that the café owner had failed to put up the requisite “no smoking” signs and fined him instead.

Reminds me of a cruel story a couple of years ago when a hoaxer put word around that revolutionary new breast-cancer checks would be carried out by a satellite due to pass over a rural town at a certain hour. Ladies had only to expose themselves to the skies accordingly. Some of the town’s more gullible residents did just that – and were understandably outraged later to find themselves so wickedly duped. They got short shrift from the police, who said the only evident offence had been one of indecent exposure by the complainants. It’s a bad world out there.


Jones spent an afternoon at Leonhilda’s house with another neighbour, learning how to make fish rissoles (a favourite dish among the Portuguese) and "biscoitos" (which are not biscuits). Certainly, those she brought back home with her tasted pretty good. Another afternoon was devoted to tea at the home of Maria of the Conception. Jones feels in a bind over these get-togethers, which are valued by our Portuguese neighbours and often involve other expat ladies. It’s all part of a milieu in which conversation is the main social activity. The visits last at least a couple of hours. While Jones enjoys the company she resents the loss of so much time to conviviality when she could be doing valuable things in the garden. The spring flowers are now making an appearance, among them the glorious asphodels.

Such interludes apart, it’s been a quiet week, disturbed only by the war the hunters wage on the creatures of the fields. To escape the crackle of their gunfire we directed our footsteps on Thursday two kms down the main road to Alto Fica, where rival cafes face each other across the street. Here the local folk gather to exchange news and views and old men cough and splutter over their cigarettes. Several elderly residents sunned themselves at the door, keeping half an eye on the cement truck and pump that were casting a slab in a house being restored by Brits.

The café owner helpfully parked a table outside to accommodate the coffees, (small) baggy and rice cake that we consumed while the dogs looked on. I gladly paid the 2-euros-20 bill and added a tip. I don’t know how the cafes stay in business. I suspect it’s got more to do with a way of life than making a profit. On the way home I stopped to peer over the fence at the new house that Horacio (the local builder) is constructing in the village. His team were running around preparing the shuttering for the reinforced pillars that make up the (earthquake resistant) skeletons of the house. He’s an excellent builder, a man whose skills I’d like to employ if ever we build again.

Changing tack - we have a special staircase in our house, made from a single metal beam to which wooden treads are attached. It’s airy and elegant - perfect for the living room. The treads are a bit slippery and it’s prudent to keep a hand securely on the banister. The dogs don’t much like the stairs because there are no risers behind the treads and they are distrustful of the gaps. Prickles refuses to go either up or down. Ono has fallen down several times and sometimes whines at the top for an escort. (Only the cats bound effortlessly up and down.)

Anyhow, what I’m coming to is that this week Natasha fell down the stairs – with a huge crash that prompted me into a sciatic sprint from my desk. She was very lucky to have been near the bottom at the time and not to hurt herself. The cause of her fall was a heel that had detached itself from a shoe. She confessed that the shoes were hand-me-downs. So flimsy were the soles that it’s a wonder the heel had stayed on at all. Jones dug in her cupboard to find Natasha another pair – they have similar foot sizes – and our maid went home better shod than she came.

We’ve seen several films and a very mixed bunch they’ve been. The best of them were “Charlie Wilson’s War” and “The Golden Compass”. I saw the first and Jones the second, when we split up during an outing with friends David and Dagmar. Each of us now wants to see the other.
After such showings, we sit down to supper in the Algarve Forum, where a line of restaurants serves both in-house and take-away food.

While shopping in a hypermarket afterwards, I came across a sale of DVDs. I’d have come home with at least half a dozen had Jones, insisting on the economies that we now need to observe, not limited me to four. As they had all been retitled in Portuguese, I chose them on the strength of their casts. The first of them was a romance, so-called, These Foolish Things. It was simply dreadful. I soon gave up on it. Jones saw it out in sheer determination to get her money’s worth. It left viewers caring nothing for the outcome except that it should come soon.

Wednesday evening brought a Beetles musical, “Help”, on BBC-4, one of the many such films that I failed to see while I was a good monk in the 60s. It was a hoot, even if few acting skills were required. Jones chortled away in her chair. That’s rare. She has a very specialised sense of humour, one that seldom mixes with mine, and it’s not often that one hears her laughing out loud.

At my English lesson, we talked about the Vatican’s decision to cancel the pope’s visit to a university in Rome in the light of protests by students and staff. The row concerned Benedict’s implied defence 18 years ago, while a cardinal in charge of doctrine, of the Church’s trial and condemnation of Galileo. I wish that I could like Benedict a little more – not that I would find much common ground if I did. After John Paul, he comes across as such a miserable little man.

After the lesson we drove 15 minutes east to Sao Bras, a town with an excellent museum that often puts on art exhibitions. Jones was keen to see the works of one particular artist. We arrived to find that his pictures had been removed, to be replaced by the lurid works of someone else. Judging by the attached price tags, their author thought highly of their merits. I am sure my artistic niece, Erica, would have been able to explain these to us but since neither Jones nor I could discern them, we made our way home instead.

Thursday evening we had our neighbours, Sarah and David, to supper, serving them the excellent remains of Idalecio’s pork. We have a mutually beneficial arrangement with Idalecio that we take any left-overs from the dinners he occasionally presents in his little restaurant. Friday has dawned sunny and blue. Once Simon Rattle’s interview on Desert Island Discs is over, we shall go walking. Later I will see whether Jodi can do anything for my ill-mannered leg. That would be very nice.

Letter from Espargal: 2 of 2008

Jones remarked the other day that she had achieved nothing the whole day. I tried to persuade her that she didn’t need to achieve something every day. I felt that she could allow herself the odd achievement-free day without feeling guilty about it. But, like many of my responses, this one gave her little satisfaction. She clearly did not consider bringing me coffee and toast in bed, making lunch and supper, walking the dogs and much else to be achievements – at least, not in this context.

I wonder why it is that we feel the need daily to justify our existence, to offer a metaphorical apple to the little God-voice inside us. As the Book says: “Consider the lilies of the field how they grow? they toil not, neither do they spin.” I like this image, even though it can be twisted to fit a thousand circumstances. Sometimes it’s enough to be alive – and if one is happy and healthy, well, there’s a bonus.

We had another discussion – about finance. I have been – as indicated – busy trying to move most of our accessible savings from sterling to euros in view of sterling’s slide. Jones takes the view that when one’s income appears likely to decline, it’s prudent to cut back on one’s spending. The alternative view – I won’t say that I completely endorse it – is to spend the money while it’s still worth something, given that the longer one waits, the less it will buy. Reminds me of the tales from the Weimar Republic when Germans were paid twice a day in order to rush out and buy items with a currency that inflated by the hour. I guess the people of Zimbabwe would understand.

We did our saltpan walk again last Sunday. The clouds closed in and there were fewer people around. We were adopted by a big, friendly dog, which wanted to join our party and whose persistent advances were unceremoniously rebuffed by our lot. Jones walked hastily ahead with Ono and Prickles, anxious to escape the refugee’s attentions, while I trailed (still somewhat sciatically) behind. (I’m improving – thank you.)

Golfers on the adjacent course were having a poor day. While we were passing, three of them hooked their balls into the green sludge that borders the estuary. Maybe we were having a bad effect on them. We retrieved the balls and returned them to the edge of the raised fairway. I tried to take a shot of an incoming airliner as it lined up for the runway just beyond us. It wasn’t a bad pic given the camera-phone but I know that our house-sitting friend, Mike, who often camps at the end of runways and produces shots which show the pilots in the cockpit, would hardly have given it a second glance.

Jones had better luck capturing young Prickles sticking his head out of the back window of the car, an illegal practice which he is permitted only while we pass through the village. (He whines until we lower the window and loves nothing better than to exchange abuse with his peers.) Speaking of which, there’s a “No dogs on furniture” rule in the house, which occasionally isn’t kept, especially by my wife and my dog and more especially if I happen to be away – as I know. I caught the pair of them in flagrante – with nary a blush for their sins.

I had another physio session, this time with Jodi (a young woman who lives nearby and practises in Alte) rather than the gentleman who laid into me the previous week. Jodi’s ministrations were much gentler and left me feeling better, ditto the exercises she recommended and her explanation of why my sciatic nerve continued fractious long after the event.

That was on Tuesday afternoon. It had turned cold, grey and wet. I returned in good time to drop Natasha off at the bus but somehow lost ten minutes. We arrived at the bus-stop corner (with Jones, Natasha and the dogs on board) just as the bus whizzed past. A chase ensued but the bus driver was clearly in a hurry to get home and going like the clappers. Overtaking him would have meant putting my foot down in the murk of a foul evening. I thought better of it.

So we sat on the bus’s tail. It didn’t stop once all the way to Loule. Jones wasn’t pleased. Nor was I. Only the dogs enjoyed the trip. By the time we got back to the village, my bladder was close to bursting. I stopped on the road near the house to allow nature to take its course but was urged by Jones to continue on home because she was in the same state. I could hear her fiddling desperately with the front door key as I blissfully irrigated an almond tree. Wasn’t our best day.

At my Wednesday English class we talked about Hilary Clinton’s famous victory in the New Hampshire primary following Barack Obama’s win in Iowa. What a fascinating drama. It’s hard to imagine either a woman or a (nearly) black man in the White House. I wonder whether she would be addressed as “Ms President” or “Mrs President”. (No doubt she’d make her preferences known.) I guess she would find something useful for Bill to do as well; talk about role reversal. As long as it isn’t Huckabee or Romney, I can handle it. I’m not into ayatollahs of any persuasion.

Thursday was one of those “dawn of creation days”, so beautiful that it felt wonderful to be alive. The air was fresh and clear, the morning was warm. The day seemed almost to embrace us. Jones took a couple of snaps from the upstairs balcony, trying to capture the magic of the mist in the valleys below.

Later, in the village square, we bumped into old Zeferino and Dona Casimira. He told us that they were waiting for the arrival of the mobile health unit. Zeferino showed me his health card, recording his blood pressure, cholesterol and the like. (Never mind that he never learned to read and probably hasn’t a clue what it all signifies.) Judging by the record, he is in great shape. Dona Casimira, also into her eighties, still rides “side-saddle” on her (equally elderly) husband’s tractor. They’re amazing people, in many ways quite inspiring.

At the other end of the village, we found Miguel and Raquel climbing back up the hill after purchasing fish from the mobile fishmonger. As is common, they clutched a plastic bag with several small fish inside. (Squid and octopus are just as popular.) Many of the villagers do not have their own transport and depend on visiting vans for their daily fresh fish and fresh bread. Portuguese longevity is often ascribed to the “Mediterranean diet” (which includes lots of grilled fish, fruit , veges and olive oil, plus wine in moderation).

The freshness is very important. The fishing boats go out at night, lights twinkling on the mast. Before dawn their catch is on the road and by lunch it’s widely distributed. I might add that, following my recent check-up, I’m trying to shed a few pounds (like much of the rest of the world, yes, I know). I’ve cut out the easy bits and, depending on what progress I make, will decide in due course which hard bits also have to be sacrificed.

Friday is damp and grey. There’s a fire in the grate and I could easily be persuaded of the benefits of a quiet afternoon with a book. But Jones tells me that there are dogs to be walked – and Ono is of the same opinion. It's a hard life.

Letter from Espargal: 1of 2008

We have successfully made the transition from 2007 to 2008. That’s the good news. If you’d looked more closely, you might have seen me limp into the New Year with a sciatic leg and Jones stumble in with an upset tummy. What counts is that we made it. Afterwards, Jones and I had a discussion about relative suffering. I took the view that, unlike many unfortunates over the festive season, we had not been massacred, mutilated, blown up by suicide bombers or worse. What’s a gammy leg or a grumbly tummy between friends? Jones argued that it was pointless to compare one’s problems with those of other people, given that one has to cope with one’s own problems and not with anybody else’s. You may decide the issue for yourself.

Sunday we went for a most marvellous walk around the salt pans and lagoons that lie between the Quinta da Lago colony and Faro airport. The water was alive with birds. Hundreds of people were out to enjoy the day - walkers, joggers and cyclists. It took us the best part of two hours to complete a circuit that took us back to the beach carpark. The tide was out and shellfish pickers (cockle pickers?) were planted in the mud, digging out their catch. I struggled to take their pictures on my phone-camera as the sunlight blotted out their image on the small screen.

Sunday evening we had neighbours around to the house for drinks before retiring to Idalecio’s restaurant, next door, for a festive meal. Idalecio excelled himself. The guests included several younger folk, which – nice as our neighbours are - made a change. (One’s concept of younger mutates down the years, as I’m well aware.) Virtually all of the expats in the village are retired. The only exception I can think of is a Scottish artist who runs a metal-working business. The majority of Portuguese villagers, too, would be retired if the local farmers ever retired. They don’t. They drive their tractors and tend their plots until they fall over.

Monday morning I took myself (Jones and the dogs) to Messines where I had booked an appointment with a British physio. I left Jones in the car with the assurance that I would be out within 20 minutes or so. In the event it was more than an hour later after a somewhat bruising session. I warned the physio that my yells would scare any waiting patients out of his consulting rooms. He assured me that none were due until well after he’d done with me. He used to tend a football team and I fear that he treated me accordingly. The jury is still out on any benefits that I may have derived.

We had a fairly quiet New Year’s Eve, supping with neighbours, who had gone to great trouble to prepare a meal for us (and for other guests who were not well enough to enjoy it). Jones stayed on to join them and a horde of locals at the top of the hill to watch the brilliant firework displays along the coast. I returned home for a quiet evening, spent mainly listening to Radio 3’s replay of the last night of the Proms. It was lovely.

Tuesday’s excitement was provided mainly by the animals. Idalecio’s bitch is in season once again and Joaquim’s big Belgian shepherd has been making vigorous efforts to woo her. At least three times he’s bashed a hole in Idalecio’s fence, not necessarily big enough for him to get in but certainly big enough for Serpa to get out, which comes to the same thing. We have found the pair of them frolicking outside our gate. Serpa is invited into the garden while the hose is turned on her lover. If she has been saved from his passionate advances, it’s only by the disparity in their sizes.

JUST FRIENDS
Ono and Prickles have decided – as they do from time to time – that it’s fun to chase the outside cats. I caught them at it one afternoon and had some stern things to say to the pair of them. You can tell when the dogs are at it because the outside cats fail to turn up for food and lose weight.

That evening we went to an early New Year’s concert in Loule. For once the Cine-teatro was full, which was a welcome change. The conductor was a young Russian, a slim, handsome fellow who used his body as much as his baton to lead the orchestra. His subtle, sinuous movements, sometimes bordering on the suggestive, had the musicians smiling as they played – and the music was good. So were performances from a tenor and a soprano.

Wednesday brought an unhappy Natasha. She confessed that she had spent most of the previous day in tears. Her relationship with her partner has broken down and they are now being held together only by their small son and their inability to afford separate lodgings. We spent 30 minutes talking things over with her, trying to get a sense of whether there was any way of assisting them to resolve their problems, short of going to court. We couldn’t see any. She is disciplined and earns enough money to set aside regular savings. He, on the other hand, is unable to hold down a job, and that’s when he can find one. His constant penury and the consequent rental arrears are a cause of much friction between them although, in essence, they seem to be completely incompatible.

Thursday I took myself to the doctor – a new doctor, mainly for an introductory consultation. We’ve reluctantly given up on “our own” GP as the man has, unfortunately, found God and now dispenses more religion than medicine. On the advice of neighbours, I made an appointment with a Portuguese doctor who consults in Alte, 15 minutes away. His receptionist informed me that he sees national health patients in the mornings and private patients in the afternoon. Much of the village seems to prefer his services to those of the GP in Benafim, closer by. It’s several years since last I had a check-up and I thought it prudent to introduce myself. Also, if the man had any ideas about how to see off my continuing sciatica, I was interested to hear them.

I found him equipped with a pleasant desk-side manner and a high-tech desktop. After the preliminary chit-chat, he used some miniature electronic devices to carry out tests that I’d expected to wait for a later consultation. I’ll spare you the details. But it’s clear that I need to lose weight and stay away for a while from the rich pudds, festive cheeses and smoked hams that I enjoyed so much over Christmas. Jones continues as slim and healthy as ever. She is not into doctors – not unless life is at stake and not always then.

Friday the sun returned after two wonderful, welcome days of rain. We’ve had over 40 mms. We could have done without the wind that swept it into the north patio and drummed it off the windows but we didn’t really mind. In the fields around us, beans are sprouting happily. Our own beans are not yet showing because they were planted rather late, on my return from Canada. But they will be soon. And while I’m on such matters, let me tell you that we have spotted the first orchids of the season. What a pleasure they are to behold.

Portugal, like France recently (and much of the EU) has introduced legislation that prohibits smoking in most public places, including restaurants and cafes (unless these are able to subdivide their space). This is quite extraordinary, given that these places have been half hidden in smoke fumes for years. We wait to see just how effectively the legislation is enforced.

Although you are not likely to be aware of it, since you don’t get paid in sterling and spend in euros, the pound has been diving against the euro. More accurately, it has simply been diving. The exact cause – as always in these matters – is not clear although the poor outlook for the UK economy this year seems to have a lot to do with it. As one pundit put it, Sterling is simply over-valued. This is not good news, not for us. I wish that I had seen it coming. I have belatedly been scrambling to move a few savings from sterling to euros. Should the decline continue, the expat community here is going to grow noticeably thinner. If the worst comes to the worst, I shall put up an address to which the charitably-minded may send food parcels and old clothes.