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.