Letter from Espargal: 8 of 2008

There’s a weekly series on BBC TV called “Around the World in 80 Gardens”, featuring a fellow who visited some pretty amazing gardens in extraordinary places – floating on the Amazon river, for instance. Like Jones, I find it required viewing. Jones was watching it downstairs one evening, while I relaxed in my lounger in front of the upstairs telly, glass of red wine at hand and Stoopy stretched out on my lap, as is her custom.

I have a clear recollection of watching a houseboat resident on the Amazon explaining how she set up the garden floating beside it. Then I woke up. Stoopy was still on my lap but the programme had changed. Jones expressed surprise when I joined her downstairs that I should doze off during such good viewing. She could tell from my snoring, she explained, so there was no point in denying it. I felt vaguely guilty, as if I’d let myself down.

When I consider the circumstances, there’s no doubt that lounger is wonderfully comfortable and ideal for a snooze. But I think it’s the glass of red wine that tips the balance, along with the warmth from the wood-burning stove. Like old Fagan, I’m reviewing the situation. (Do you remember musical version of Oliver Twist?) Dozing off is something that I have long associated with the elderly and it sits ill with my self-image. Moreover, on the BBC news site I see a “Daytime Dozing Health Warning” on the danger of strokes for the elderly. (When does “elderly” begin please?)

Jones is as bad a dozer as I am (she denies it!) but only in the car or in front of the telly in the evenings. One has to add in fairness that she rises 3 hours before I do (I have permitted myself an extra hour for the sake of my health) and she doesn’t usually take the siesta that I find so beneficial each afternoon. So she likes to head earlyish to bed, closely followed by her foot-warmer.

We’ve had some wonderful rain, a couple of inches of it. Fields in the valley glint with the sheen of water and the hills are clad in green. It’s some months since I’ve ploughed our fields, which are covered in exploding vegetation. Some of the weeds can grow an inch a day quite effortlessly. One such is a type of celery that morphs from a leaf of green into a large shrub in the matter of weeks. The garden is full of it. I had Dani go around pulling the stuff out and piling it in heaps to be thrown on our compost mountain.

CELERY WEED

Dani is due to leave this weekend for Italy, where a relative has promised him work. He asked if he could borrow a little money to pay for some medication. As his one-time banker I asked him to explain his understanding of the term “borrow”. Dani is definitely sub-prime material. His preference is for long-term loans at 0%. Not that I hold it against him. In his position, so might mine be.

We have bought a kennel for Serpa (our neighbour, Idalecio’s, pregnant bitch). Jonesy spent an hour or so carefully lining the bottom and sides with sheets of soft insulation and carpeting. Then we took it down to Idalecio’s house for her to inspect. Serpa didn’t seem particularly impressed with the kennel. Idalecio’s cat, on the other hand, really liked it so our efforts were not wasted.

Serpa continues to broaden out as motherhood looms. We reckon that she will pup early next month. Jones says that we ought to adopt one of the litter. I’d have thought that we had done our duty with three dogs and numerous cats. We’ll see. What Jones says usually goes.

SUCCULENT IN FLOWER

I have begun to assign further good deeds to my 2009 virtue register on the basis that I’ve completed my quota for this year’s order of merit. This week I was called to assist elderly friends whose even more elderly car (relatively speaking) has been slowly packing up. The latest part to fail was the car’s battery. At their request I obtained a new battery and fitted it to their car, a small enough act of kindness. The car started at the first turn of the key. The friends were very grateful.

Regrettably, it seems now that the fault may have lain with the alternator rather than the old battery (which has since been discarded). As I write, their car is in Alberto’s garage just below the Quinta. Alberto was hopeful that it might be just the alternator brushes at fault.

It is quite useful from time to time to be able to draw Jones’s attention to such mechanical failures. I have warned her about the dangers of driving a car beyond its sell-by date. One never knows what is likely to fail next or in what circumstances one might break down. Jones is not much impressed with my warnings because the Honda has proved as trouble-free as its makers claim. Still, it’s 8 years old and it would be nice to get a new one (or at least a newer one) one of these days.

As if on cue, Jorge Silva, the Honda salesman phoned up to see if he could sell us another. I regretted that the time was not ripe. Jorge accepted my assurance that when the day came, I’d talk to him first. Jorge is a good salesman and not at all pushy.

ESPARGAL WORTHIES

Thursday morning dawned quiet. It was wonderful. Was the hunting season over, I asked the locals, whom we found admiring Idalecio’s new(ish) car. Yes it was, they told me. It ended last Sunday. We gave a whoop of approval. Jones hates the “sport”. I accept that when you choose to live in the countryside, you have to live with country habits, however little you like them. Whatever the case, it will be lovely to be able to walk freely again on Sundays and Thursdays without the sounds of war ringing in our ears.

We joined the local expats last weekend for supper at the Hamburgo, and again at Fintan’s holiday house (where he is living while his cottage is being restored) for drinks one evening. It was very convivial. We played Trivial Pursuit. The men took on the women and beat them soundly. (I’m not engaging in gender politics. The local expat ladies are a fairly formidable bunch and I’m well aware that next time it may well be the other way around.)

While I’m on such matters, we popped into the bar at Benafim after dropping off Dani and Natasha. We were just in time to see the barmaid ushering out an old fellow who was smoking a cigarette and couldn’t understand why, after doing so in the bar for the past 50 years, he’s now forbidden. We had coffees, baggies and a rice cake as we watched the passing show. The bar at Benafim serves as the recreation centre, especially for the old boys who play drafts and dominoes at the tables in the corner. The owner doesn’t seem to mind.

I am still getting weekly chiropractic wrenches from Andrew, a tall, muscular, American who is an advert for healthy living. Generally I go to his rooms at the Quinta de Calma, just outside Almancil. The Quinta is a large spread devoted to alternative living – meditation, yoga, therapies, food and you name it.

Tables of veges, fruit and other organic foods are laid out beside the reception centre, all priced at three times the usual price in view of their healthy appeal. Thin people, who do yoga, look half their age and are obviously doomed by good health to become centenarians, stand around chatting. We now take fruit for lunch and a vege-cum-everything salad for supper. Maybe I shall become a thin person in due course.

p.s. Dani reports that he was assaulted by two Moldavians, whom he evidently knows. He says he has filed a complaint with the police and is due to appear in court as a plaintiff on Monday morning. As a result, he has postponed his trip to Italy.

Letter from Espargal: 7 of 2008

I’ve never been a TGIF person – maybe because I never worked a 5-day week. But I confess to succumbing to the MGIF syndrome - “My God it’s Friday” - what Sherlock Holmes might have described as the enduring mystery of the disappearing week? Lord alone knows where the days get to. I feel as if I’m clinging on to a spinning roundabout that one day is going to fling me off, possibly to vanish in a puff of smoke, like the unfortunate over-30s in Logan’s Run. Maybe it’s a good sign, given that the good times flash past while the bad times drag.

Whatever the case, the week began last Sunday with the usual popping of the hunters’ guns and the arrival at our front gate of my former colleague, Grant Ferrett, and family, down from the UK for a week’s holiday. They were booked in at Fintan’s holiday house at the other end of the village, and weren’t sure exactly where to find it. We pointed it out at the bottom of the hill.

Grant made a name for himself as the BBC correspondent in Zimbabwe, before – and after - the regime there threw out foreign correspondents as surplus to requirements. It was through him that we got to know his parents, who became regular guests at the Quinta and are now our principal house sitters. We joined Grant & co for supper at the local and are planning another get-together this evening. It was interesting to catch up on old times – not that I felt any twinges of nostalgia.

One morning Jones received a heart-shaped card in the post from an anonymous suitor whose handwriting bore a strong resemblance to that of an expat friend. I merely thought it a bit strange without giving it further consideration. If Jones wants to entertain occasional amours via the mail, so be it. It was only when I heard mention on the radio of St Valentine’s Day that the penny dropped.

In my view St Valentine is an invention of the stationery and flower industry, akin to chocolate Easters and toy Christmases. If I ever sent any valentines (or received any) I’ve long since forgotten about it. I do not say this with any pride. That’s just the way it is. Jones pointed out to me that a husband of 50 years was reported on the radio to have made his wife heart-shaped toast for breakfast. No such luck in this house, I fear – although she does get a professionally mixed baggy, lemon and coke each evening. (What more could a girl ask?)

The drama of the week was to realise from Serpa’s swelling tummy and insatiable appetite that she is soon to have pups – her first litter. Her state was confirmed by her owner, our immediate neighbour, Idalecio. Serpa comes walking with us each afternoon. We take an interest in her welfare and she has become a shared dog in a manner of speaking.

It had been our intention to have her spayed. The fact of the matter is that one is advised to wait three months (or so) after the dog was last in season before the operation is carried out. And that is what we were doing when we realised that we had waited too long. You may recall the fence bashing episodes involving Bizou, Joaquim Martins’ large Belgian shepherd, over New Year. As fast as Idalecio fixed one hole in his fence, Bizou made another. If Bizou is indeed the father, the pups are going to be a sort of shepherd-spaniel cross. Jones fears that Serpa may have difficulty with the delivery and blames herself for not having had the bitch spayed in good time.

Tuesday I had another session with Andrew, the chiropractor. Things are slowly improving, thanks be. Wednesday and Thursday brought English lessons. I’ve doubled up on them this month in order to compensate for absences we plan in March (with a week in Germany) and in April (with a week in the UK).

In the class we discussed the situation in the (former Portuguese colony and subsequent Indonesian territory) of East Timor, which has been a mess ever since the Indonesians withdrew some years ago. The recent shooting of the president and attack on the prime minister there have been headline news here. The class were keen to give their views but found it almost impossible not to break into Portuguese when English words failed them. One understands only too well. The reverse situation frequently presents itself in our Portuguese class.

ALMOND BLOSSOM
Wednesday brought a mini-disaster. I disconnected the new television aerial that was installed last week between the dish (outside in the garden) and the receiver (upstairs in the house). My aim was to pull the aerial through a protective plastic sheath in order to prevent accidental damage. Having achieved that, with Jones’s help, I reconnected the aerial to the dish and then came upstairs to check the signal. It was poor. Although we still got all the radio stations, TV channels were breaking up. Half a dozen times I went downstairs to recut the cable end and refit it to the dish. The result was the same each time. I can’t tell you how frustrated I felt.

In desperation, I called the Sat-TV man who’d fitted the aerial. He said he was hopelessly busy and couldn’t fit me in this week. So I tried a local Portuguese firm instead. The technician there promised to try to make it to the house on Thursday afternoon. In the event, it was Friday morning. He carried out a number of tests, which seemed to indicate that the LNB (the little receiver that picks up the signal from the dish) was at fault. After much fiddling about, he was able minutely to adjust the LNB and restore the signal. He told me that moving the LNB even a couple of millimetres is sufficient to lose the signal. It’s a relief to have all the channels back again. We don’t watch much TV but there are programmes (mainly documentaries) of which we’re both keen fans.

You may recall that the strange couple, Dina and Chico, have occasionally made the local news. (Dina is a very large woman who never learned to talk although she is capable of making a lot of noise. Chico is her elderly, half-blind guardian/partner.) When Dina gets a little boisterous, as she does at times, Chico keeps her in order. She can be very funny as well as a bit scary. She shakes her fist at passers by in a manner that is somewhere between a greeting and a warning.

The problem is that while Chico's eye-sight is failing, Dina has taken to helping herself to items from neighbouring houses. These include fire-damaged carpets that had been removed from Fintan's house and cushions from an English couple's patio.

Most of the pilfered objects have subsequently been discovered in Dina's cottage and reclaimed. Dina scarpers when she sees the search parties arriving. Matters came to a head when two Portuguese neighbours found items missing from their exterior grill areas. These were duly traced back to Dina and there was a noisy confrontation between a dispossessed neighbour and the guilty party. Dina, whatever her speech limitations, is a pretty smart cookie and knew she was in trouble. The incident may help to keep her on the straight and narrow.

Dani and Natasha put in two days this week. He is trying to earn enough cash to take himself for some weeks to Italy where a relative says there is well-paid work to be had. Dani was feeling especially sorry for himself after failing to get the necessary signature on a hospital prescription and having to pay a pharmacist 3 times the discounted price as a result – a whacking 90 euros. The pair of them worked to clean up “the park” area behind the house, piling load after load of branches on to the back of the tractor.

The rain that we were promised last week for this week now looks promising for next week. We really, really need it. All we’ve had so far is a wicked wind that has been driving us to distraction, day after day. In anticipation of the wet weather, Jones has helped me to scatter fertilizer around the base of all our carob trees. In the mean times she has taken to watering the garden again, a measure that is seldom required in the winter months.

I am nearing the end of a vast tome on evolution (The Ancestor’s Tale) by Richard Dawkins, having averaged a few pages a night – often the same ones - for the past several months. One thing the reader comes to understand is that in the great web of life, humanity is simply a footnote. As unfortunate as global warming may prove for homo sapiens, most of the rest of the world’s myriad creatures will carry on regardless.

Apropos of nothing, we watched a documentary on three child preachers – two Americans and a Brazilian – who whipped up their appreciative congregations into a froth of religious fervour. One of the kids went proselytising with a billboard listing evils – including evolution and homosexuality. I wonder if God realised what he was setting in train when he lit the fuse for the big bang.

Letter from Espargal: 6 of 2008

When I told Jones this morning that I loved her, her suspicions were instantly aroused. “Why?”, she demanded to know. That wasn’t a why I loved her “why” but a why I was telling her now “why”, as if my declaration were a prelude to a “but I’ve met someone else.” (I haven’t. Espargal, for all its merits, isn’t the best place to look around for a new wife.) Jones is a person who feels it’s prudent to live life expecting the worst. That way one is ready for it when it comes, she explains.

I am running late this week, something that I ascribe to the weight of our responsibilities. It is not a week that has had any particular theme although, if it has been characterised, it’s by meetings.

Last Monday, for example, as we were returning with the dogs through the valley, we bumped into old Zeferino, who was hurrying in the opposite direction. His 82 years have done nothing to slow him down. We always exchange a few words with Zeferino who, in spite of being illiterate, knows more about what is going on than anybody. He was off to Benafim (5 kms in each direction), he informed us, to sell his carobs because the price had reached 7 euros. (That’s 7 euros per “arroba”, a traditional 15 kg measure.)

Like most of the farmers, Zeferino hoards his carob crop in the hope that the price will rise. It’s a dangerous strategy, not only because the price sometimes falls but also because carob theft is a widespread problem. In the event, he had to settle for 6 euros and 70 cents. (Even for two truckloads of carobs that’s a little money for a lot of picking, take my word for it.)

While I’m on agricultural subjects, let me mention that, inspired by our neighbours’ efforts in the adjoining field, Jones has been hoeing out the weeds in our bean field. In view of my “condition” I have limited myself to encouraging her. It’s hard work, and took her the better part of three afternoons. She has expressed doubts about the wisdom of our sowing beans again next year.

On Tuesday we bumped into Miguel and Raquel. (I’m in their good books for printing up some photos that I took of them.) Raquel was waving a half-filled medronho bottle, which is very unlike her. She insisted that I take a glass, even though it was barely mid-morning. I shared one with Jones. It wasn’t bad! The occasion was carnival, loudly celebrated over several days both in Loule and in Alte. It’s a big festival, as well as a hugely noisy one. The whole place closes down. Enormous trouble is taken with the preparation of both the costumes (especially for the children) and the floats. Thousands of people go along and let their hair down. We are happy to let them go.

Also on Tuesday, when I went for a physio session with Jodi, I bumped into her partner, Richard, and his travelling dog. Richard, who was injured in an accident, works out in her gym and uses the back roads to reach Alte on his quad-bike. The dog rides with him, seated on the frame and wearing his dog goggles. I wondered to Richard whether the police had objected to this mode of travel. They had stopped him once, he recalled, but had allowed him to proceed when he said that the dog otherwise chased the quad-bike. I tell you this mainly as an excuse to stick a photo on the blog.

Wednesday brought a meeting with a young American chiropractor, who yanked my limbs in various directions in a bid to frighten away my sciatica. I found the session quite helpful, as if tension had been released from an elastic band running between my foot and my back. When I told Jones that I thought it had done me some good, she expressed her doubts with a “poof” expulsion of air from her mouth. She had heard such stories before and would wait for the results. Jones is definitely a proof of the pudding person.

Because there was no public transport on Tuesday, Dani and Natasha came on Thursday instead. It was clear when I fetched them from Benafim that Dani was very unhappy. He had picked up some kind of infection in his sinuses. In spite of pain killers that he had taken, his ear was aching and his head throbbed when he bent down.

I recalled suffering similar symptoms when I had a septic root canal and suspected that he required anti-biotics. The pharmacist in Benafim – a hugely helpful woman – was of the same opinion. He had to go to the health centre, she said. Although Portuguese pharmacists take a lot of sensible liberties with dispensing drugs, they don’t run to anti-biotics. Natasha was not entirely sympathetic, commenting that Dani always had something wrong with him.

THIS IS JUST RIDICULOUS
Jones sometimes feels the same way about your author even though the latter hasn’t spent a day in bed in 10 years. Come to think of it, I’m nearing the 10^th anniversary of my retirement from the Beeb. I can’t believe it. A whole decade of OAP-ing. It just boggles the mind.

Also on Thursday came the satellite TV man to fix the sat TV. This has been playing up, refusing to access many of the channels that we should get. We had come across the sat-TV man at a show, where we bought a card to give us access to additional UK channels. When it didn’t work particularly well, he said it was because our dish was too small. So he put in a bigger dish and a new LNB. That was a bit ouch but things were better – for a while. (In fairness, he did say that the 40-metre cable between the house and the dish was losing a lot of signal strength and that we might need to replace it.)

Anticipating his arrival, I had helpfully drilled a hole through the wall of the house to give us a much shorter route to the dish. He rigged the new cable and, after testing it, left Dani and me to tack it to the side of the house, where it still needs to be painted into invisibility. The cable seems to have done the trick. The signal is much stronger and we – touch wood – now get all the channels without difficulty – both radio and TV. We beam the signals through to the bedroom where we can listen via small speakers or on (wireless) headphones, something I often do during waking hours. The headphones have the added advantage of helping to block out any snores. (Stoopy is a dreadful snorer.)

Speaking of animals, Leonhilda’s little bitch, Princesa, has been off-colour and off her food. Her kind neighbours, Olly and Marie, took Princesa (along with Leonhilda) to the vet, who thinks that the dog has tick-fever. We hope that she may recover although the outlook is not good. Few of our Portuguese neighbours run to tick-collars for their animals, and even collars don’t stop the ticks from biting. In this instance, the estrangeiros are helping to pay for Princesa’s treatment as well as for the spaying of another neighbour’s little dog, which often comes walking with us. (Princesa has since died, much to our sorrow.)

THE FLOCK
While walking on the hill above the house Jones came across a ewe and a lamb that had obviously drifted away from the flock that often feeds in the valley below. We asked our Portuguese neighbours if they knew how to contact the shepherd. They shrugged, as if to say that there was nothing to worry about. The shepherd would find them again, we were assured. We hope he did.

Friday was a runaround day: to Alte to get a new prescription (vastly reducing the price of medication), to Benafim to see what’s happening about the legalisation of Casa Nada (nothing) and to Salir for hardware. I also purchased two 50-kilo sacks of fertilizer, to scatter around our carob trees ahead of the rain that’s forecast for this week. I apologised to the lady store owner for not being able to carry the sacks to the car. No problem she said, and got the bike-shop repair man to help her carry them instead.

Inbetween times Jones continues to clean smoke damaged items from the Massey household. I dropped Fintan's computer and monitor off at a computer shop for an assessment of the damage. With luck, the painter will be in with his power hose next week to start the clean up. That’s about it. Oh, we saw Atonement and liked it although neither of us found ourselves emotionally engaged.

Letter from Espargal: 5 of 2008

If the Espargal Bugle were to go to print this week, every last copy would be sold. Under banner headlines there’d be exclusive pictures, showing people dressed in zip-up overalls, wearing caps, masks and gloves, carefully removing armfuls of items from Casa Shack, home of the Masseys, just down the road. No, it isn’t murder and it isn’t bird flu. It’s what happens when you go out for dinner, leaving an inflammable item too close to a wood-burning stove.

The mess is beyond description. The cottage looks as though its interior has been spray-painted black. Everything is black. The walls are black, the floor is black, the ceiling is black, the furniture is black, pictures on the walls are black, books in their shelves are black, every last item of clothing in the cupboards is dusted in black. The whole place is black.

Poor Fintan and Pauline, the owners, came home last Sunday night to find their beautiful cottage morphed into a sooty hell. The place was still filled with smoke. The actual fire didn’t do much damage, except to an overhead air-conditioner and to the villain of the piece, a sofa that went up in flames. (If the wooden ceiling had caught fire, the whole place would have gone up). The smoke damage, however, was awesome. I think I’d have wept.

Fintan and Pauline had some luck on their side. They were able to move instantly into another house that they own in the village, one they had built for holiday lets. The house is fully furnished and very comfortable.

Their other blessing has been their neighbours, who have spent much of the week helping them to sort out the mess. Before the cottage interior can be redecorated, it has to be washed down with a power hose and allowed to dry out. And before this process can even start, every single item has to be removed. For a start, all the clothing and linen in the place has to be washed, some of it several times. Neighbourhood washing machines have hardly paused for days. Washing lines are groaning under the load. I’ve been helping Jones hang stuff out and bring it in again.

Back at the cottage, soot is being painstakingly wiped from every book and picture, every plate and every knick-knack. It’s all being packed away in large cardboard boxes and stored, along with furniture, in neighbours’ garages until the place is ready. I’ve made several trips with the tractor to fetch boxes, which Olly (God bless him) has walked back to unpack in Casa Nada (as I’m still pleading sciatica and limiting myself to lifting nothing heavier than a wine bottle.) The weather has been wonderfully co-operative. Jones, Dani and Natasha joined the clean-up brigade outside in the garden. Jones came home with the cutest little Hitler moustache, along with lots of other sooty goo.

LUNCH BREAK
To make life more interesting, (our neighbour) David, after towing his trailer around to help remove the furniture, tried to turn his 4x4 in the sloping field below the house and found himself stranded, his tyres spinning helplessly on the slippery grass. Jones blamed herself for accepting a lift from him instead of calling me (with the mobile she’d left at home) to come and fetch her.

The first I knew of it was a phone call from Fintan asking me please bring the tractor and a towrope. It took me 15 minutes, first to pull David’s vehicle from the field up to the tractor lane above it, and then to tow it back up the lane on to the cement driveway outside the house. The lane wasn’t particularly steep but its grass cover was wickedly slippery. It was a rude reminder of just how useless conventional tyres are in slick off-road conditions. Jones snapped away with my mobile phone-camera.

Midweek, all concerned repaired to the Hamburgo (so named because the family lived in Hamburg) for an expat community meal. The chef there does a splendid leg of lamb. It was heartening to see so many people pulling together to assist a couple in trouble. And the same thing would have been true for any other expat couple in the village.

The week’s other excitement came from the arrival of a huge pump-truck, along with several cement trucks, at the corner of our road.The occasion was laying the foundations of a house, which a Dutch couple began building early last year. They got as far as digging the trenches and laying the reinforcing-rod grid when the project stopped. For months the iron rods have been gently rusting away. It was rumoured either that the builder wanted more money or that the building licence had expired. Whatever the case, the builder was back overseeing operations, along with much of the rest of the village. The huge cement trucks had difficulty turning. They occupied the entire width of the road.

At the bottom of the village a second house is springing up, and construction deliveries are being made for a third nearby. In a village of just 50 or 60 houses, most of them old cottages, such building operations herald new neighbours and inevitable changes. Everybody’s curious to see what emerges. The one project that hasn’t got underway is the model village (so-called) that’s due to arise in a large field less than a kilometre away. Whatever problems it’s encountered, long may they continue.

WEEDING BEANS
Following my unintentional double-donation to Buskaid via “Verified by Visa”, I received an unhelpful response from Visa Europe referring me to the issuing bank. I was about to forward the correspondence to a financial watchdog programme on BBC radio when two more emails arrived, this time from Buskaid itself. One apologised for a fault on the website that had prompted many other donors to make double donations as well – and it said the second donation in each case was being returned to the donor’s bank account (which it was). The other email thanked us for our support of the Buskaid project. So all’s well that ends well.

Friday we took ourselves and some old friends to lunch at Faro beach. There’s a small, unpretentious restaurant down the far end of the beach that specialises in fresh fish. The restaurateur brings a platter with a variety of fish to the table for diners to choose. One can sit outside on the restaurant patio, overlooking the sand and sea, and enjoy a delightful and inexpensive meal. At this time of year the beach is virtually deserted.

Our friends asked us if we always took the dogs with us. It wasn’t so much that we took them, I explained, as that they simply came along. They are dog people themselves and I think they understood. Part of the attraction of the restaurant is that dogs are permitted on to the patio, especially in the winter months when clients are few. Our pets disappear (sort of) under the table. Several other dog owners were lunching there as well, two of them with lovely Labradors. There was much sniffing and snuffling as the dogs, while remaining on their best manners, did their best to suss one another out.

Afterwards, the whole troupe went tearing around the beach in a celebration of freedom.

There you have it. With a bit of luck we’ll get a shower over the weekend. A drop of rain would be welcomed by the bean crops that are ripening all around us. Leonhilda and Maria have been busy weeding their crop on the field beside us. Our crop is unlikely to be so lucky.